Francis Bacon, Head VI, 1949. Arts Council Collection, South Bank Centre, London.

There is nothing quite so exciting in 20^th Century painting as getting close to the surface of a work by Francis Bacon – there was no one who handled paint as well, with such power, and with such variety, who had worked so hard to achieve the right effects, knew precisely where the paint would go, how thick or thin it should be, how carefully or recklessly it should be applied to grab the viewer by the eyes and penetrate the sinews. So I was thrilled to see the Royal Academy’s new exhibition, Francis Bacon: Man and Beast on Tuesday, and then equally excited to be able to share my enthusiasm with a group of patrons of the RA two days later. And now I am looking forward to talking about him again on Monday 7 February, as the RA’s powerful exhibition is the subject of next week’s talk. It’s been a good week! On Thursday afternoon I also saw – on the opening day – the remarkable, focussed exhibition Van Gogh. Self Portraits at The Courtauld (the hiatus-inducing punctuation is theirs). Only 18 works, perhaps, but it says everything you need to know about Vincent himself – and I will talk about that on Monday 14 February. Today though, an old favourite, in which one of the best modern artists looks back to the one of the best of the Old Masters.

Throughout his career Francis Bacon painted around 50 screaming popes, but this painting, Head VI, is the first. Or at least, it is the first which survives. We don’t know that there were any others which preceded it, but it was painted in 1949, and already in 1946 he wrote to a couple of friends, including the artist Graham Sutherland, saying that he was working on three paintings inspired by the Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Diego Velázquez (c. 1650). However, Head VI would not have taken three years to paint. Either there were other discarded versions that preceded it, or the work progressed slowly, with much thought preceding the actual execution. Either is possible, both are likely, and the ‘three’ he mentioned are probably among those that surfaced later.

It would be easy to argue that Bacon’s work is not so terribly similar to the original. Quite apart from the way they are painted, there is just not so much of the Pope. I’m not talking about the absence of the top of the head in the modern version, but about the format – Bacon’s is only a bust length work. Indeed, some have suggested that he was actually inspired by the version which found its way into the collection of the Duke of Wellington, and can still be seen in Apsley House.

But this just makes me think that ‘some’ should retire from the History of Art, and start looking at paintings instead. The Apsley House version does not have a visible throne, nor does the pope reveal his white sleeves. Both features were clearly visible to Francis Bacon, as both are included in Head VI – so we can forget Apsley House’s minor masterpiece and concern ourselves with the main event. But why was Bacon so obsessed with it? Well, because he knew how good Velázquez was. In an interview with the art critic David Sylvester in 1962 he said that the portrait ‘just haunts me, it opens up all sorts of feelings and areas of – I was going to say – imagination, even, in me.’ He was in awe of the way the Spaniard handled paint, and how he used it to go beyond the surface and reveal the character of his subject – whether the ‘subject’ was a portrait or a narrative. At one point he said that he wanted ‘to paint like Velázquez, but with the texture of a hippopotamus skin’. It had to be as good, of course, but rougher, and tougher, as he 20th Century demanded. The one thing that Bacon feared most was to be merely illustrative. In the 1962 interview the modern master said that what he admired in his Spanish predecessor was the latter’s ability ‘to keep it so near to what we call illustration and at the same time so deeply unlock the greatest and deepest things that man can feel’. It was the communication of the greatest and deepest things which most interested Bacon.

Much of the detailing we see here was the artist’s way of holding on to what interested him most, of pinning it down, and stopping it from escaping our attention – or, in his words, his need ‘to trap the fact’. The framing elements are his way of focussing our attention on the subject matter – something he believed that other artists did as well:

I think that the very great artists were not trying to express themselves. They were trying to trap the fact, because after all, artists are obsessed by life and by certain things that obsess them that they want to record. And they’ve tried to find systems and construct the cages in which these things can be caught.

In Head VI, the ‘fact’ is presumably – in some way – the inner life of Innocent X, and so it is on him that we must concentrate. His being is not, in this case, related to his mobility – so the legs are of no value – and everything we need to know is contained within the thinly sketched white cage, a feature, common in Bacon’s ouevre, which is often referred to as a ‘space frame’. Innocent is defined by his status – enthroned, as a monarch – and so the vaguely sketched gilded structure of the throne is also important, and also functions as another way to ‘trap the fact’. Notice how the painted image of the face does not go higher than the gilded chair, and the eyes – absent or veiled – are on a level with the back of the throne. Let’s have another look at the Velázquez.

The throne contains the Pope in much the same way that the space frame contains his 20^th Century descendant – the arms contain his arms, and the top of the chair – although above his eyes – helps frame him in much the same way that there is a gilt-wood frame around the painting. Both help to ‘trap the fact’. What is this? In part, I think, ‘the fact’ that Innocent’s attitude is not clear. Is he in control, or clasping the arms of the chair in fear? Comfortable with his power, or afraid of the fall?

In the lower half of the painting our interest is refocussed on the subject by the presence of so much raw canvas – this is the material of the work, but that is not what it is about. The diagonal closure of the space frame runs parallel to where the chair arm would be – although higher, as we cannot see the whole arm. But what we do see is an incredible painterly display, broad brushstrokes of ‘dry’ paint (i.e. a low amount of oil compared to the amount of pigment) dragged and smeared across the canvas, and across wet paint where it mixes, the strokes flowing or creeping down towards the join in the mozzetta, or papal cape. The colour, you might say, is not ‘right’. This is definitely purple. Velázquez painted a deep red, heightened to pink by the reflections. You could go on for a long time about the problems with colour reproduction, the transient nature of some paints, etc, etc, but you would be wrong. Velázquez painted red, Bacon painted purple it’s that simple. But why? Because that colour expressed Bacon’s feelings more profoundly? Probably not. The reason is probably one of the most surprising facts about his obsession with this painting: he never saw it. Even when he spent some months in Rome in 1954 – five years after this particular version – he didn’t go and see it. He didn’t paint from life, life was too distracting, it was bound up with time and place, with mood and with gut responses. He painted from photographs, as they got closer to ‘the fact’. Admittedly there is a suspicion that, when he was in Rome, he might not have wanted to see the real thing, just in case he realised he couldn’t live up to it. Or worse, that it would disappoint him after years of building it up. Nevertheless, in an interview with Sylvester just four years after the other, in 1966, he regretted that his versions of the masterpiece were ‘records of it, distorted records.’ But it wasn’t just this great work of art that he painted ‘second hand’. Even the portraits of his friends and lovers were painted from photographs, commissioned from another friend, John Deakin. He also hoarded a vast archive of source material, in books and magazines, or torn out from them: I’ll show you more of these on Monday. Here, though, is one of the images that influenced him most.

It is a film still – the nurse from the ‘Odessa Steps’ sequence of Eisenstein’s 1925 masterpiece Battleship Potemkin, a film that Bacon saw even before he started painting, and which influenced him greatly in a number of ways. In his 1962 interview he said, ‘I did hope one day to make the best painting of the human cry. I was not able to do it and it is much better in the Eisenstein and there it is.’

But why? Why the concern with suffering? There is, perhaps, a little hint of an answer in another odd detail here, a tassel which seems to dangle above the Pope’s nose. It occurs in other paintings, and is, in some ways, like the arrows which can be seen elsewhere in his work – it is another way of drawing your attention to what matters. It falls between the eyes, or where the eyes should be, or where the eyes were. It is almost as if they have been burnt away, or, like the nurse, as if the Pope’s glasses have been broken (not that Innocent X wears glasses). This blinding, the end of sight, is a sign of fragility, an intimation of mortality: one day, the lights will go out. This tassel could be a light pull. But actually it comes from another photographic source: a photograph of Hitler leaning out of a window. In that image, it appears to be part of a cord to pull down a blind, a way of shutting things out – the darkness, or the light – or, when lifted, of revealing, in that theatrical way which has cropped up more than once in my talks recently. That the tassel may have some relationship to Hitler hints at the levels of human suffering which are involved. Eisenstein’s nurse wasn’t Bacon’s only source material for the scream. He also had a collection of images of leading Nazis declaiming at rallies, their mouths wide open as they rabidly spewed out their venom.

Bacon lived through two world wars. Too young to serve in the first (he was only five when it started), he was too sick for the second. He was a lifelong sufferer from asthma, which was triggered particularly by dogs and horses – just one reason why his ex-military father, an unsuccessful race horse trainer, was disappointed in the second child of five. Father was also disappointed by his son’s effeminacy, and so horsewhipped him, as well as having him horsewhipped by the grooms. Bacon was all too aware of man’s inhumanity to man, and of the way in which we, with our supposed sophistication, can behave worse than animals. As the Second World War ended, the full extent of the Nazi horror became known. It did not help that the sense of triumph over evil was undermined by the means used to end another part of the conflict, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For many, God was dead. For Bacon, he had never existed. He described himself, though, as an optimist, because, if there is no God-given purpose to our existence, then life is what we make it, and Bacon was determined to make as much of it as possible. Nevertheless, that underlying fear of being left ‘on our own’ spawned Existentialism, with its fear of the Void, and even for those not philosophically inclined, there was the gnawing angst inspired by the possibility of nuclear Armageddon. Was this the source of ‘the human cry’? Was this the ‘fact’ that Bacon wanted to ‘trap’? He was, from his own experience, only too aware how thin the veil separating our sophistication from our animal instincts can be. We are all flesh and blood, we are all meat – and that applies to the Pope every bit as much as to – well – anyone else. It is, perhaps, also worth remembering that – with one medieval and one modern exception – there is only one way to stop being Pope. Basically, you’re there until God wants you back. Or, to put it another way, you’re trapped there till you die. I think I’d scream, under the circumstances.

Now, having said all of that, I really hope I haven’t put you off joining me on Monday! Francis Bacon is undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of the 20^th Century, dealing with issues that must concern us all: the nature of being alive, the full scope and depth – and depths – of humanity. For Bacon, being human during the 20^th Century – missing only some of the first and last decades living, as he did, from 1909-1992 – put him in the best position to see what was going on. And the exhibition Francis Bacon: Man and Beast lives up to that ambition.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Nicolaes van Bambeeck, 1641. Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.

At the end of last week’s talk I said that the Royal Collection contained some of the best portraits ever painted. I’m not going to talk about them today – I will leave that until Monday, as they are included in the exhibition Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace, which will be the subject of this week’s talk. There will be more portraits – of a very different type – in the following week as well (Monday 31 January), when we move on to consider a pair of Pre-Raphaelite Sisters who painted, according to one contemporary critic, with Uncommon Power. Thank you to those who were there last week – and for those who were not, my problem with Constable’s rainbow has finally been solved. I’m now assuming that everyone else knew what was going on – but as Stephen pointed out to me in a comment on last week’s post, ‘isn’t it simply that the sun sets at around 310 degrees around the summer solstice, so a low sun (the rainbow appears ‘tall’) would be in the right place to form this rainbow?’ Yes! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that, and why did no one else tell me?! Having learnt as a child that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, I have never moved it from these fixed points – despite being aware of the declination of the Earth. Sunrise and sunset are only due East and due West on an Equinox. So, my end of term school report would be, ‘Physics: fine; Geography and Astronomy: poor’. Even the Physics turned out to be ‘not so good’, which is one of the reasons why I am now an Art Historian! Enough. Time to move on. Today I am going to look at a portrait which is not entirely unconnected to those in the Royal Collection – Rembrandt’s painting of the wealthy wool merchant Nicolaes van Bambeeck.

Soberly dressed, as good citizens of Amsterdam were wont to be in the 17^th Century, with a black hat and cloak, the painting is perfectly presented in a black ebony frame, itself beautifully carved, and highly polished. Bambeeck himself looks entirely serious, as sober as his monochrome outfit, all black and white – with the exception of the calf-skin (?) gloves. These harmonise with the sandy-coloured background, the stone of the pilasters seen on the right, and the diffuse golden light which illuminates the sitter with a healthy glow. His starched collar shines brightly in its puritanical whiteness, and the same stiff cleanliness must surely also apply to the two cuffs, although we can’t be certain as they are painted in different depths of beautifully graded shadow. However, sober as he appears here, Bambeeck was not always so serious. He was also depicted as the Ensign (or flag bearer) in one of the many groups of voluntary city guards which existed in The Netherlands at the time, The Company of Captain Reinier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz Blaeuw.

Bambeeck is the one on the far left – holding the flag – with Reael and Blaeuw sitting next to him. This group portrait is one of many such images, a genre in its own right in The Netherlands, and in most of the paintings the sitters are – how can I phrase this politely? – well, they have far fuller figures. As a result, this particular group has come to be known as The Meagre Company. It was commissioned from Frans Hals in 1633, but he didn’t like the idea of travelling to Amsterdam (from nearby Haarlem) in order to paint it. A long dispute ensued, and after three years the Company hired Pieter Codde to finish the work. Bambeeck’s was the only figure Hals completed in its entirety. Although the Haarlem master planned the whole painting, and executed some of the portraits, and a few of the fabrics, it gets less like his style the further to the right you go.

That this is indeed Bambeeck can be seen by comparing details from the paintings by Hals and Rembrandt.

The angle of the face is slightly different, but that is nothing compared with difference in temperament. Hals gives us a smug, fashionable socialite, Rembrandt a contemplative scholar. But that nose is unmistakable – long, with a rounded, but almost beak-like tip, coming down below the nostrils, with a kink in the bridge.

So who was Nicolaes van Bambeeck, other than an embodiment of the styles of Holland’s two leading painters? Well, his family had originally come from Flanders, but fled to Holland after Nicolaes’s grandfather was executed by the Duke of Alva in Brussels in 1568. Alva had been sent by Phillip II of Spain to crush the rebellion in the Low Countries, but his heavy-handed tactics – exemplified by executions such as that of Bambeeck grand-père – led some of the Netherlandish provinces to break away from Spanish rule, resulting in the Eighty Years War and the establishment of the Dutch Republic as an independent nation state in 1648. Bambeeck’s father – also Nicolaes – married in Leiden in 1598, and moved to Amsterdam, where he died in 1615, leaving mother as the richest woman on her street. Nicolaes himself married in 1638, and at first the couple lived with his mother-in-law, in a house which just happened to be diagonally opposite Rembrandt’s. Within two years, they were well enough acquainted for Bambeeck to lend the artist money. He also lent money to Gerrit Uylenburgh, an art dealer, son of Hendrick (one of Rembrandt’s business partners) and cousin of Rembrandt’s wife Saskia. It was a close-knit group.

Bambeeck’s money came from trade – he was a cloth merchant, dealing mainly in Spanish wool, although he doesn’t seem to be showing off the latter in either of these portraits. But then, as I said last week, I’m not an expert on clothing.

Nevertheless, the focus in the portrait – by dint of the brilliant illumination – is the cotton collar, starched and smooth, with sharp pleats to give it its form, and minutely stitched hems. It is trimmed with copious quantities of lace. Collars had been fashionable since the 1630s, taking over from the ruff as they allowed for longer hair (as we saw when looking at Hals a few weeks back) and lace was always in favour. It may have been modestly coloured, perhaps, in chaste white, but it was hugely expensive, both to make and to clean. Note the way that, over the left shoulder (on our right), the edge of the lace just curls up and catches the light, not so very far from the signature at the top right of this detail.

The space itself is poorly defined – but then, excessive detail would distract us from looking at the sitter. Bambeeck’s face is at the height of some architectural detailing, part of two pilasters which mark a corner of the space in the background at the right. This is precisely where Rembrandt chose to paint both signature and date (1641). The whole is contained by the sober black frame – perfectly matching the blacks and greys of the costume – and just catching the light thanks to its perfect polish. The sitter wears his right glove, but has taken off the left one, and holds it in his right hand, allowing us to see his sophistication and elegance (gloves were that significant), but also, from the condition of his hand (if we could see it – sorry) that he is not a manual labourer, but a successful businessman who never needs to get his own hands dirty. He rests his right arm on a parapet – much as Rembrandt himself does in his Self Portrait at the age of 34 (which also has a semi-circular top), or for that matter, like the subject of Titian’s Portrait of Girolamo (?) Barbarigo, which was Rembrandt’s source for this motif, after he had seen the painting on the art market in Amsterdam. Both paintings are now, coincidentally, in the National Gallery in London.

But why did I trim the detail to cut off Bambeeck’s hand like that? Well, because it is precisely at this point that the painting gets truly interesting. He is resting his right arm on the parapet, yes, and he rests his left hand on it too. But is this really a parapet? And if so, of what is it made?

Well, it’s not a parapet at all. It is a picture frame – a beautifully polished black ebony picture frame. We see three glints of light reflecting off it in the bottom left-hand corner, defining its inner edge and two mouldings. But this is not the actual picture frame, as the edge and one of the mouldings are interrupted by the hem of Bambeeck’s satin cloak with its black lace trim, and then by the fingers of his empty left glove, which also cross the lower moulding. In the right corner the reflections are not so bright – although the form of the frame is still perfectly defined. The fingers of the subject’s left hand curl around it. The surface of the painting has dissolved, and the transition between our space and the space occupied by Nicolaes van Bambeeck becomes invisible – he is here with us, in one of the most brilliant trompe l’oeuil games that I know. He really could reach out and shake us by the hand (although maybe we would prefer it if he took the other glove off first). All of this should make you realise – if you hadn’t before – that the light glinting off the frame at the top right is not reflecting off the frame at all, as it is, of course, part of the painting.

The capital of the pilaster on the fictive frame sits just above the architectural detailing in the background. The bright white reflections draw our eyes towards them, and the upturned brim of the hat also seems to point the way. Just below this, this most bravura display of skill, is where Rembrandt tells you who he is, as if to see ‘Look at this! See what I can do!’ And of course, this is just above the subtly illuminated section of curling lace. ‘Put your name by the best bit’ – something else he could have learnt from Titian. The brilliance of the illusion is the result of Rembrandt’s ability to make paint look like polished ebony. This is precisely why paintings like this really should always be seen in their frames – even virtual reality can’t create such an effect: see how well the painted reflections match the reflections from the three-dimensional frame. From a photograph it is still hard to work out exactly which is which.

I said earlier that, three years before this was painted, Nicolaes van Bambeeck had married, but I didn’t tell you to whom. Her name was Agatha Bas, and she was the daughter of the mayor of Amsterdam, arms dealer Dirck Bas. Together with today’s painting Bambeeck commissioned a portrait of his wife as a pendant, and below you can see a detail from it: it is, of course, one of the Treasures from Buckingham Palace which I will be talking about on Monday. The two portraits seem to have stayed together until at least 1802, but by 1814 they had been separated. I shall reunite them in a few days’ time, when we will see what equivalent surprises Agatha has up her sleeve. Or rather, just beside it.