Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent XAI

Few paintings scream quite as loudly as this one. Francis Bacon created this work in 1953, taking inspiration from a famous portrait of Pope Innocent X painted centuries earlier by the Spanish master Diego Velázquez. But where the original showed a calm and powerful figure, Bacon twisted it into something nightmarish. The pope sits trapped on his throne, his mouth open in a silent howl, his body seeming to melt and blur behind streaks of dark paint that fall like a curtain or the bars of a cage.

Bacon was a leading figure in twentieth century British art, known for his raw and unsettling images of the human figure. Interestingly, he claimed he never actually saw the Velázquez painting in person, even when he was in Rome where it hangs. He preferred to work from photographs and reproductions instead. The screaming mouth is thought to borrow from a still in the silent film Battleship Potemkin, where a wounded woman cries out. The result is one of a whole series of "screaming popes" Bacon painted, each one exploring fear, isolation, and the darker side of being human.

This is not a comfortable picture to look at, and that is exactly the point. Bacon wanted his art to hit you in the gut rather than simply please the eye, and this haunting figure has stayed lodged in people's minds for decades.