The Bacon Scream

I always take very seriously the way that teenagers look at Bacon. They see the purity of that scream and they respond to it immediately. They know that it is right, that Bacon got that scream absolutely right because he formalized the subject matter and not because it points to any outside meaning. They stand before those paintings in an open display of their own essential desire, revulsion, lust, anger, fear. There it is. Scream.

I read this article shortly after returning from the Bacon exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There is no doubt that his work is profoundly disturbing but I have come to appreciate it over time and after reading critiques and seeing this great doc that I posted quite a while ago. That said I can't imagine hanging a Bacon painting in my home - well perhaps the Rothkoesque Blood on Pavement (left). I just could not live with the anguish.
I saw the Velasquez portrait of Pope Innocent X, to which the article refers, at the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome last year. I'd seen many reproductions of it over time but it was only after seeing the original that I got a sense of its power. Bacon transforms this image into something dark and frightening.
This show exhausted me and I suppose that says something about Bacon's own artistic power.
I also have a 6 degrees of separation experience with Bacon that I'll share with those of you who might be interested.