(Anatomy of An Enigma p.42).
Indeed this is exactly what he did. Arriving at London and painting pictures that seemed to be devil worshipping. Painting pictures of male organs and naming his master pieces with names that seemed to be related to religion. Why were these paintings so ugly, what was Francis Bacon saying with his pictures? While many critics thought his paintings were pointless, he was actually reliving his childhood, and life to date. As a young boy Francis was the weakling of the family. He was called ugly by his parents, and was affected by World War I and the death of his youngest brother who he lost to asthma. Francis recalls how he would visit his grandmother and watch her second husband cut the claws off of cats, fetch them to dogs, and them tie them up by their legs and torture them. This he would see every visit and seemed to enjoy it. Francis's paintings are telling the story of this young, ugly boy who was not loved by any of his relatives. His paintings are expressing and showing everyone his homosexuality and how his sexuality was the most important element of his life besides painting. These paintings are reliving World War I and II for he lived through both wars and was heavily affected. Francis was also a huge movie fan and loved horror movies. Most of his paintings are also influenced by early horror films such as Fritz Lang's Classic Metropolis and Sergei Einstein's Battleship Potemkin. (Anatomy of An Enigma p. 46).
During the time that Francis Bacon was painting, which was the twentieth century, seemed to be at time which artist would paint freely and express how they felt. These painters were known as abstract expressionist. Francis is categorized in this group but he is quoted to once have said, "I am not an expressionist, you see, as some people say, after all, I have nothing to express." (Anatomy of An Enigma pg 98) Francis wanted his paintings to be different as well as indefinable for he believed that once an image could be explained: it was worthless.
