 = Head VI = 
 
 Head VI is an oil @-@ on @-@ canvas painting by the Irish @-@ born English figurative artist Francis Bacon , the last of six panels making up his " 1949 Head " series . It shows a bust view of a single figure , modeled on Diego Velázquez 's Portrait of Innocent X. Bacon applies forceful , expressive brush strokes , and places the figure within a glass cage structure , behind curtain @-@ like drapery . This gives the effect of a man trapped and suffocated by his surroundings , screaming into an airless void . 
 Head VI was the first of Bacon 's paintings to reference Velázquez , whose portrait of Pope Innocent X haunted him throughout his career and inspired his series of " screaming popes " , a loose series of which there are around 45 surviving individual works . Head VI contains many motifs that were to reappear in Bacon 's work . The hanging object , which may be a light switch or curtain tassel , can be found even in his late paintings . The geometric cage is a motif that appears as late as his 1985 – 86 masterpiece , Study for a Self @-@ Portrait — Triptych . 
 Head VI was first exhibited in November 1949 at the Hanover Gallery in London , in a showing organised by one of the artist 's early champions , Erica Brausen . At the time , Bacon was a highly controversial but respected artist , best known for his 1944 Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion , which made him the enfant terrible of British art . Head VI drew a mixed reaction from art critics ; John Russell , later Bacon 's biographer , at the time dismissed it as a cross between " an alligator shorn of its jaws and an accountant in pince @-@ nez who has come to a bad end " . In 1989 Lawrence Gowing wrote that the " shock of the picture , when it was seen with a whole series of heads ... was indescribable . It was everything unpardonable . The paradoxical appearance at once of pastiche and iconoclasm was indeed one of Bacon 's most original strokes . " Art critic and curator David Sylvester described it as a seminal piece from Bacon 's unusually productive 1949 – 50 period , and one of Bacon 's finest popes . 
 
 = = 1949 Head series = = 
 
 Bacon 's output is characterised by sequences of images . He told Sylvester that his imagination was stimulated by sequences and that " images breed other images in me " . His series were not always planned or painted in sequence ; sometimes paintings are grouped for convenience but vary in execution and tone . The idea for the head series came after he returned penniless , late in 1948 , from a stay in Tangier . In the previous three years he had been unable to find a voice ; the last surviving canvas from this period is his Painting ( 1946 ) . Although he continued to paint , he was a ruthless self critic , given to slashing canvases with blades , and no works survive from between 1947 and the winter of 1948 . Gallerist Erica Brausen offered Bacon the opportunity of a solo show for the opening of her new Hanover Gallery . He agreed , but had nothing in reserve to hang . In following years , Brausen became perhaps the most important of Bacon 's early champions ; she arranged this showing — his debut solo exhibition — publicised him widely and organised viewings for international buyers . 
 Already 40 years old , Bacon viewed the exhibition as his last chance and applied himself to the task with determination . Because he had destroyed all his out of the last three years , he had little choice but to present new works . He did not have a grand plan when he agreed to the show , but eventually found themes that interested him in his Head I of the previous year , and executed five progressively stronger variants in the final weeks before the November exhibition , completing the series barely in time for the opening . 
 The paintings depict isolated figures enclosed in spaces that are undefined , overwhelmingly claustrophobic , reductive and eerie . Coming early in Bacon 's career , they are uneven in quality , but show a clear progression especially in how they utilise and present ideas he was still clearly developing and coming to terms with . Head I ( actually begun in the winter of 1948 ) and Head II show formless pieces of flesh that broadly resemble human heads ; they have half @-@ open eyes and a pharynx , though it is positioned much higher than would be expected in a human . Heads III , IV and V show fully formed busts recognisable as men , and are characterised by a haunted atmosphere . These two broad ideas coalesce in Head VI , which is as physiologically tortured as the first two paintings , and as spectral as the middle three . In Head VI the figure has developed and is now shown wearing vestments , the first indication in Bacon 's work of the influence of Velázquez , while the focus has become the open mouth and the study of the human scream . 
 Bacon said that chance played a significant role in his work , and that he often approached a canvas without having a clear idea of what might emerge . This was especially the case in the mid to late 1940s , a period when he was drinking heavily and spending most nights in Soho casinos and poker rooms . The following morning he would often approach his canvas " in a bad mood of drinking ... under tremendous hangovers and drink ; I sometimes hardly knew what I was doing . " He incorporated his appetite for chance into his work : an image often would morph mid @-@ way through into something quite different from what he had first intended . He actively sought out this freedom and felt it crucial to his progression as an artist . To him , lifestyle and art were intertwined ; he said that " perhaps the drink helped me to be a bit freer . " This is very evident in the 1949 series , which began as a rather morbid study of a collapsed head , but evolved over the six surviving panels into a reworking of Velázquez masterpieces , and arrived at an image that was to preoccupy Bacon for the subsequent 20 years . 
 The series marks Bacon 's first attempt at depicting lone figures in rooms . For him , the key aspect was that it appeared that the subject felt isolated , unobserved , and had abandoned the need to present an outward face . He believed that under these circumstances all pretence falls away , and the social being becomes the sum of its neuroses , which Bacon attempted to convey by reducing the subject to its bare @-@ bones features : a mouth , ears , eyes , a jaw . According to Russell , " the view out front ceases to be the only one , and our person is suddenly adrift , fragmented , and subject to strange mutation . " Russell observed that while the depiction of figures in rooms is common through all eras of painting , the figures are always posed , and usually seemingly aware that they are being portrayed . This conceit is abandoned in Bacon 's series . 
 Head I , completed late in 1948 , is considered more successful than Head II . Although it is well @-@ regarded critically , Head II is seen as something of a creative cul @-@ de @-@ sac , while Heads III , IV and V are usually considered as merely intermediate steps towards Head VI . It is exceptional in Bacon 's oeuvre that works of their relative poor quality survive ; he was ruthlessly self @-@ critical and often slashed or abandoned canvasses before they were completed . When pressed again by Brausen in 1953 to produce works for a New York show that she had been publicising for a year , he was full of doubt and destroyed most of what he had been working on , including several other popes . 
 Brausen commissioned another showing to be held in 1950 , for which Bacon painted three large popes modelled on Velázquez 's portrait . The gallery advertised the show as " Francis Bacon : Three Studies from the Painting of Innocent X by Velázquez " , but in the end Bacon was dissatisfied with the works and destroyed them before the show opened . 
 
 = = Description = = 
 
 The figure is clearly identifiable as a pope from his clothing . It seems trapped and isolated within the outlines of an abstract three @-@ dimensional glass cage . This framing device , described by Sylvester as a " space @-@ frame " , was to feature heavily throughout the artist 's career . A cord hangs from the upper edge of the glass case , falling just in front of the pope 's face and partially covering his eyes . It is too indistinctly drawn to identify with certainty , but given the presence of similar objects in Bacon 's later works , may be either the end of a hanging light switch or the tassel of a curtain ; the hanging cord was to become a signature for the artist . Apart from its symbolic meaning , it has a compositional function , framing the painting with a further set of vertical lines . Such an object reappears most prominently in the centre panel of his 1973 Triptych , May – June 1973 , where it is clearly a dangling light bulb . For Bacon , these elements were intended to make the figure waver in and out of sight for the viewer , alluding to the fact that bulbs can be on or off , curtains open or closed . 
 The figure 's mouth is opened wide as if screaming , an expression Bacon took from a still he kept of the nurse screaming in Sergei Eisenstein 's Odessa Steps massacre sequence in his 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin . In 1984 , the broadcaster Melvyn Bragg asked Bacon about the still , and observed that in his earlier career the artist seemed preoccupied with the physicality of the human mouth . Bacon replied , " I had always thought that I would be able to make the mouth with all the beauty of a Monet landscape though I never succeeded in doing so . " When Bragg asked why he thought he had failed , Bacon said , " It should be all much more colour , should have got more of the interior of the mouth , with all the colours of the interior of the mouth , but I didn 't happen to get it . " His interest in the mouth was further stimulated by a medical textbook of diseased oral cavities bought in a second @-@ hand bookshop , kept in his studio and to which he often referred to . 
 The glass cage might imply a vacuum that the figure 's voice is unable to escape ; as if it is screaming in silence . Rueful later in life , Bacon said that he had " wanted to paint the scream more than the horror . I think , if I had really thought about what causes somebody to really scream , it would have made the scream ... more successful " . The work evokes memories of the Second World War . The glass enclosure of his 1949 Chicago Study for a Portrait is often seen as prophesying photographs of Adolf Eichmann 1961 trial before a Jerusalem District Court , when he was held within a similar cage . Bacon strongly resisted literal comparisons though , and stated that he used the device so he could frame and " really see the image – for no other reason . I know it 's been interpreted as being many other things . " Other critics saw similarities between the glass case and the radio booths of late 1930s broadcasters who warned against the impending calamity . Denis Farr notes that Bacon was sympathetic to George Orwell and referred in interviews to Orwellian " shouting voices ... and trembling hands ... convey [ ing ] the harsh atmosphere of an interrogation . " 
 
 = = Influences = = 
 
 The so @-@ called " space frame " had already been used by Alberto Giacometti in the 1930s , and the two artists became friends in the 1960s . However Giacometti had by 1949 used it only in surrealist contexts before Bacon 's adaption , and in turn influenced his use in " The Cage " of 1950 . A similar two dimensional construct is found in Henry Moore 's works , notably his " Maguette for King and Queen " , constructed three years after Bacon 's Head . It is difficult to untangle how these artists influenced and informed each other . What is notable is that Bacon continued to use the motif , with intervals until the end of his life . Sylvester suggests his finest example is the 1970 Three Studies of the Male Back . 
 The full @-@ length golden curtain @-@ like folds painted in heavy brush strokes are in part influenced by Degas but also similar to Titian 's 1558 Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto . Bacon adapts the Old Master 's device to isolate and distance the sitter from the viewer ; the black ground @-@ paint is visible through the folds , making the separation all the more affecting . Bacon had already used similar forms in his Chicago panel , and they were to become a feature of his most acclaimed 1950s works , especially in his " screaming popes " . He became fascinated with the veil or curtain as a motif in painting , and collected many reproductions of works by Titian and Degas in which it is employed . He had begun his career as an interior decorator and designer of furniture and rugs in the mid @-@ 1930s , and later said that he liked " rooms hung all round with just curtains hung in even folds " . Veils or curtains appear in Bacon 's earliest works , notably the 1949 Study from the Human Body , always in portraits and always in front of , rather than behind , the figure . 
 Head VI is closely modelled on Velázquez 's c . 1650 Portrait of Innocent X , today in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery , Rome . Bacon cautiously avoided seeing the original , even when he spent three months in Rome in 1954 . Critics speculate he was afraid of being disappointed , or thought that an intimate knowledge of the painting would dull his imagination . Yet his fascination was all @-@ consuming and he reproduced variants of it obsessively for almost two decades ; an examination and homage described as " without parallel in the history of art " . Bacon 's approach differs to Velázquez 's in a number of ways : both artists were expressive , yet Bacon 's broad brush @-@ strokes and freedom with paint contrast with Velázquez 's tight and controlled treatment . He adapts Velázquez 's positioning of the pope to place him above the viewer 's point of view , elevating and distancing him . This was already a common technique in commercial , promotional photography but in Bacon 's hands , Schmied argues , the angle places the pope on a kind of stage for the viewer to coldly observe . 
 Although Bacon revered Velázquez 's portrait , he did not try and reproduce the earlier painting . In interviews , he said that he saw flaws in Velázquez 's work and that he viewed that social structure and order as , according to art historian Wieland Schmied , " obsolete and decayed " . Bacon 's approach was to elevate his subject so he could knock him down again , thereby making a sly comment on the treatment of royalty in both old master and contemporary painting . Yet Velázquez 's influence is apparent in many aspects of the painting . The sitter 's pose closely echoes the original , as does the violet and white colouring of his cope , which is built up through broad , thick , brush @-@ strokes . The influence can be further seen in the gold @-@ coloured ornaments on the back of the seat that extend on both sides of the figure . Art historian Armin Zweite describes the work as a mixture of reverence and subversion that pays tribute to Velázquez , while at the same time deconstructs his painting . 
 Sylvester detects the influence of late works by Titian in other aspects , especially in the deep and rich colouring , Velázquez 's portrayals of Philip IV , and agrees with identification of pastels of Edgar Degas as a source . He believes Bacon borrowed from Degas the use of parallel heavy folds to create the illusion of what Degas described as " shuttering " , as seen in the earlier artist 's After the Bath , Woman drying herself . Sylvester makes a further direct link between the folds and the transparent veil in Titian 's Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto . He believes the folds serve to " push the viewer back " , creating a distance from the subject , an effect he sees as similar to the separation between and orchestra and setting ; others view the folds as more closely resembling the bars of a prison . Sylvester describes them as an accentuation of background verticals into stripes that are made to appear as if they pass through the sitter . In his " Interviews with Francis Bacon " series of books , he asked Bacon why he found the effect so poignant . The artist replied , " Well , it means that the sensation doesn 't come straight out at you but slides slowly and gently through the gaps . " 
 When asked why he was compelled to revisit the Velázquez so often , Bacon replied that he had nothing against popes per se , but merely sought " an excuse to use these colours , and you can 't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false fauve manner . " Schmied sees Head VI as a reaction against Velázquez , and a commentary on how the papacy is " obsolete and decayed " , with a pope resistant to both modernisation and secularisation . To him , the figure seems to " resist the maltreatment of image and tries to halt the impending collapse of the established work order . He screams and grimaces , clutching at arms of his throne . " Sylvester notes that Bacon was impressed by Picasso 's figuration and handling of paint , especially in Picasso 's 1930s works ; and suggests that the white blobs around the pope 's cape may be influenced by the 1913 Woman in a Slip Seated in an Armchair . 
 
 = = Critical reception = = 
 
 When Bacon undertook the series late in 1948 he was something of a two @-@ hit wonder . He had success in 1944 with Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion and to a lesser extent with Painting ( 1946 ) , both of which were highly regarded but viewed as sensationalist . The exhibition was a success , and marked his critical breakthrough . Until then , he had been highly regarded but capable of only occasional brilliance . The full show established him in the minds of critics as , according to Michael Peppiatt , " more of a force to be reckoned with in the contemporary scene " . While some found his images horrifying and unnerving , they wrote about him all the same , sealing his reputation as the enfant terrible of post @-@ war British art . The critic for The Observer wrote , " The recent paintings ... horrifying as they are , cannot be ignored . Technically they are superb , and the masterly handling of large areas of pearly grey , flushed with a sudden pink or green , only makes me regret the more that the artist 's gift should have been brought to subjects so esoteric " . 
 Most critics focused on Heads I and VI , remarking favourably on the progression between the two . While some found the inherent violence of the paintings distasteful , Brausen was a skilled publicist and turned the bad press into notoriety , and brought Bacon 's work to national attention . Peppiatt notes that the exhibition showed Bacon no longer needed sensationalist material to make an impact , and was now capable of creating an intense emotional response through more subtle means , and had found a way of presenting the human condition in the way he had sought , by presenting his sitter " in a vestigial setting , a cage or [ behind ] a parted curtin ... the rest , the most essential , lay in the manipulation of the infinitely suggestive medium of oil paint " . After the showing Bacon gradually became " less the outsider with an occasional image of horrifying brilliance and more a force to be reckoned with on the contemporary scene " . His reputation and the value of his panels rose dramatically , and after the showing he was sought after by European , American and African collectors and galleries , commanding prices as high as £ 400 for single works , unusual for a contemporary British artist of the time . 
 
 = = Provenance = = 
 
 Head VI was first exhibited at the Hanover Gallery , London , in 1949 . It was acquired by the Arts Council 's Hayward Gallery in 1952 . The Hayward has loaned it out a number of times since , including for major retrospectives at the Grand Palais , Paris in 1971 , and the Hugh Lane Gallery , Dublin , in 2000 . 
 In May 1996 , the National Gallery took on loan Velázquez 's Innocent X portrait and hung it alongside four Bacon paintings ; Head VI , Pope I ( 1951 ) , Pope 1961 and Pope 1965 . Peppiatt believes that Bacon would have disapproved of such a showing with a work he considered one of the finest ever painted , but writes that two , including Head VI , " stood up to it , and even enhanced its authority as one of the most penetrating studies of human nature and human power " . 
 
 