“BION AND THE POPES OF HORROR“

 

by Prof. Dr. Luís Delgado,
Applied Psychology Research Center Capabilities and Inclusion (APPsyCI) – ISPA – University Institute, Portugal

 

 

Abstract:

In this communication of psychoanalysis (extra-therapeutic) applied to artistic productions the author focuses on the (in)ability to think of horror through two of the, roughly, forty interpretations made by the painter Francis Bacon – The Screaming Pope (1953) and Figure with Meat (1954) – of the portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650) by Diego Velázquez, which can be understood in the light of Wilfred Bion`s Theory of Transformations (1965), in which each interpretation/transformation leads the painter to the intensification of an unnamed terror, viscerally felt, without any capacity for mentalization, for naming, for a dream and the diffusion of the feeling of identity. For this, he created a technique capable of reproducing the deep psychic reality instead of the appearance of people. His aim was not to paint the horror that gave rise to “scream”, but to paint the very “scream” of terror, so as to make the inaudible audible.

Keywords: Velázquez, Bacon, Bion, Horror, Transformations theory.

 

Short Biography:

Luís Delgado studied clinical psychology at the Institute Henry Piéron – Université René Descartes, Paris V and is a professor at Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada – University Institute – Lisboa, where he teaches methodology and projective techniques in clinical and teaches master and doctoral seminars. His greatest interest lies in the study of the psychodynamics of creativity and in psychoanalysis applied to artistic and literary objects. He has published two books on this subject and several articles in national and international journals. Luís Delgado is psychoanalyst and psychotherapist and, in addition to clinical practice, gives training to the students of his association of psychoanalysis – Associação Portuguesa de Psicanálise e Psicoterapia Psicanalítica – and promotes clinical cases supervision groups in a dynamic perspective. He is full member of Applied Psychology Research Center Capabilities & Inclusion – ISPA – University Institute, which provides investigation of psychological and social problems.