In 1925, Edward, angered by Francis's homosexuality, sent Francis to live with an uncle in Berlin. After three years, he moved to Paris, where he suppored himself with commissions for interior decoration. There he decided to become a painter, after viewing the Picasso exhibit at the Galerie Paul Rosenberg. In 1929, Francis Bacon returned to London, setting up a studio in South Kensington. There he held a one man exhibition of surrealist oil paintings, water colors, and furniture. The exhibit received little or no attention, but Bacon was determined, and started devoting more time painting, and less time on interior decorating, and began to live in poverty.

In 1933, he painted two crucifixions, which he submited to the International Surrealist Exhibition, but were rejected. Dishearted, h

The following year, Francis painted a large Crucifixion tryptich, which was acquired by the Munich Museum. Shortly after the Crucifixion, George Dyer's behavior became increasingly erratic, and his drinking escalated. He unsuccesfully attempted suicide while in New York in 1968. In 1971, Dyer drank himself to death in a hotel room he and Bacon were sharing. The scene of George's death haunted Bacon, and drove him to pain three tryptichs in 1971, 1972, and 1973.

'Half of my painting activity is disrupting what I can do with ease.'

Bacon's influences extended from Picasso to Velazquez to Van Gogh. He cites his inspiration to begin painting stems from a visit to the 1928 Picasso exhibition at Galerie Paul Rosenberg. His inspirations for the use of the scream motif originate from expressions in Poussin's Massacre of the Innocents and in the photography of Eadweard Muybridge. He modeled compositions after those of Velazquez and Van Goh. He used paintings of the past as the basis of his works but transformed them through his own vision.

Bacon's was torn by his feelings about the use of meat in his art. On one hand, these things fascinated him by their seductive beauty, yet on the other, they served as a solemn reminder of his own mortality.

Though he acknowledged its consummate mastery of the means of expression, Bacon saw Velazquez's art as deeply flawed, insofar as the world it depicted was obsolete and decayed.

Bacon suppressed his first Studies After Velazquez. This is characteristic of his being a perfectionist who suffered bouts of crippling self. This is why he referred to so many of his paintings as studies.

In 1985, Francis Bacon was hailed as the greatest living painter, following a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery. The same year, he painted annother self portrait, and Oedipus and the Sphinx after Ingres. Three years later Francis painted a second version of Tryptich 1944.

His early paintings feel uncertain, and lack content. Despite their considerable aesthetic merits, they are beautiful but lifeless. They are assembled from elements typical of their time: abstract figurations arranged in a spatial setting that has a surrealist feel. Initially, Bacon's abstract figures tended to be geometric but later evolved into his signature biomorphic forms.

As this abstraction of the figure progressed, several themes manifested in Bacon's work. One of Bacon's main themes is the scream. Bacon often remarked that he attached the greatest importance to the scream. In his work it has a primal quality; it bears witness to unbearable pain and the yearning for salvation. As the most elemental form of human utterance it requires the utmost concision and concentration on the part of the painter seeking to render it pictorially.

As Bacon grew older, his attitude towards life soured. He didn't like the idea of growing old, and through the mid 80s, as his friends passed away, his attitude and drinking got worse.

After many less sucessful attempts, Bacon finally managed to achieve his goal in Pope II, 1951. Here the scream is the center of the picture. In some of the heads that precede Pope II, 1951 Bacon condenses the features to the point where only the gaping mouth remains. The scream in Pope II and the following screams tended to use the features to aid in the portrayal of the emotion of the scream.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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