[choral music evoking a mysterious mood]
Female Narrator This painting is one of a series by Francis Bacon. It's based on a famous portrait of Pope Innocent X by the 17th–century Spanish artist Diego Velázquez. The original is housed in a museum in Rome.
Director of the Getty, Timothy Potts
[music ends]
Timothy Potts He actually didn't see the painting, even though he once went to Rome, which everyone's remarked upon, because how extraordinary you would be obsessed with this image, do a number of works based on it, and yet not bother, when you're in the city, to go and see the original.
Female Narrator This may point to Bacon's preference for reproduced images...and using them for his own purposes.
[somber music evoking a dark mood]
Timothy Potts One of Bacon's preoccupations in much of his work was with the human condition, and the fact that we all feel immortal and that we will all be carcasses at some point. And much of his work is reinforcing the very tactile, fleshy quality of his subjects, and pushing it to an extreme. He does that with the Pope, by juxtaposing the image of him with this fleshy, bleeding, raw, meaty, background.
Female Narrator The different elements of the painting are mysterious, cryptic even.
[music ends]
Timothy Potts I remember as a teenager, when I first discovered Bacon ... they almost become obsessive once you've thought your way into his way of making images. And part of that fascination is that you don't understand them, that they do have this real but weird quality to them that draws you in.
