Rumor has it that this painting started off as a garden scene. The end result, Figure with Meat, is obviously a far cry from flowerbeds and butterflies.

Vegetarians be warned! This nightmarish scene is classic Francis Bacon- a psychological stare-down featuring a raw animal carcass to stimulate the olfactory senses. You see it, you smell it. Like the memory of a meat counter, the central figure screaming himself purple may also ring a bell for some. It’s a re-appropriation of Diego Velázquez’s Pope Innocent X. Bacon made some forty-five versions of Velázquez’s masterpiece, and this was the special one that made it to stardom.

Existential to the core, Bacon used to paint without knowing what he actually wanted to make…so the upshot was completely unpredictable. In this case, a garden scene transformed into a screaming pope with sitting in cleaved cow carcass. After World War II ended, Bacon felt like he had to tell the world what kind of mindless butchery went on in those years, in case they missed out. Hence all the bloody meat.

This gruesome painting also a glimpse into the mind of a real tortured artist – one who attempted to annihilate himself with endless debauchery, gambling and copious amounts of alcohol. All that plus a history of abuse as a child, could definitely make the mind a dark and twisty place. That screaming abyss of a mouth, framed by a hanging crucifix of meat, trapped in a steel cage, the black void of the background sucking you in, and possibly your soul out as well! It’s a regular house of horrors! Bacon makes sure that everyone gets a feel for his troubled state of mind.

Even if you didn’t know or care about the artist’s issues, this painting is rich with imagery that opens it up to many interpretations. It could allude to carnal desire, a hunger for power, deliverance, indulgence in things material and transient… or E) all of the above!

But what really gives Figure with Meat its claim to fame is a cameo in Tim Burton's delightfully weird and creepy "Batman" (1989). The infamous Joker, played by Jack Nicholson, destroys a whole bunch of paintings in the Gotham City Museum, but opts to leave this one, saying in that gravelly voice, “I kind of like this one, Bob. Leave it.” If a wicked villain like the Joker is so fond of it, you know it’s something special. Or at least especially disturbing.