The Way of All Flesh: Mortality, Vulnerability and Meaning in Francis Bacon's Meat Paintings

I have written extensively in this blog about Francis Bacon’s work. I have even traveled outside the United States on several occasions to see his paintings but I have never paid much attention to his depictions of animal carcasses. Until now, I have always found myself skipping these works. I have locked them away behind a closed door in my mind. But opening that door means confronting the raw, visceral reality of Francis Bacon’s meat paintings. 

Artists like Francis Bacon and Graham Sutherland witnessed firsthand the carnage left in the wake of the World War II bombings. It is not hard to comprehend how they would immediately connect this human devastation to animal slaughter. Francis Bacon stated: “We are meat, we are potential carcasses. If I go into a butcher’s shop I always think it is surprising that I wasn’t there instead of the animal.”

Beyond this wartime context, Francis Bacon developed a fascination for raw meat during his childhood in Ireland, an interest that continued throughout his career. At one point, he even painted a meat canvas while his studio at 9 Market Place in Henley-on-Thames was located right next to a butcher’s shop.

The hanging carcasses in Bacon's work are deeply reminiscent of the crucifixion and its traditional symbolism, yet they strip away any promise of salvation. In a post-war society entirely emptied of grace and humanity, the veneer of polite civilization is peeled back to reveal a nightmarish, violent, reality. Beneath this respectable surface emerges the ultimate truth of existence: that our flesh decays just like flanks of raw meat. Ultimately, it is a destiny shared equally by both the oppressor and the victim.

In Painting (1946), Bacon depicts what could be interpreted as an authoritarian, tyrannical orator, dressed entirely in black, sitting in front of a line of microphones. Behind him hangs a large carcass in the image of a crucifixion. More raw chunks of meat are skewered on the circular railing that surrounds him. The open umbrella casts a shadow so deep that all we see of his face is a snarling, toothy, distorted grimacing mouth. The shades with tassels are identical to the ones shown in photographs of Hitler’s bunker. The painting is steeped in the red of blood.

The only incongruous detail of the painting is the yellow flower on his lapel. Yellow is also the color of the Star of David that Jews were forced to wear on their lapel. Since the painting is full of Nazi symbolism, this interpretation makes perfect sense, with this stark emblem introducing a haunting layer of symbolism that binds the image of the oppressor intimately to that of his victims. 

In Figure with Meat (1954), the inspiration for the work is obviously Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X. But the resemblance stops here. In this composition, the throne is trapped within a slaughterhouse or a glass cage. The space is flanked by two massive, bisected sides of beef hanging around him. While the meat is vivid in its depiction, the Pope himself is a small, decaying, ghostly figure. His terror is palpable in his silent scream. Again, the message is clear: no matter how much power a human being has over others, we are all ultimately meat.

Carcass of Meat and Bird of Prey (1980) reinterprets the meat paintings by replacing the human presence with a bird of prey, but does it really make a difference? It is the unavoidable, physical reality of existence that ties us to the animal kingdom. In this later work, the distinction between the carcass and the bird of prey fades away, disappearing into the seamless, decaying flesh of our inevitable return to dust.

In the 1971 version of Painting (1946), the haunting subject matter remains, yet the context is strikingly modern. While the 1946 original is heavy with the immediate, visceral dread of World War II, the Blitz, and Hitler’s bunker, his 1971 remake modernizes that anxiety. The lines are cleaner, the colors are more electric, and the figure feels less like a wartime dictator and more like a slick, modern media politician or bureaucrat. It shifts the threat from historical violence to the organized, structural power of the 'now.'

Bacon loved painting meat. While he still saw the stark reality of flesh, he also acknowledged a profound affirmation of life through the sheer energy of muscle, bone, and blood. By finding a strange, vital beauty in the animal carcass, his meat paintings ultimately cease to be about despair. They become monuments to the exquisite, terrifying thrill of being alive—a reminder that meaning is found not in avoiding our mortality, but in painting it with all the color we have left.