Picasso was the first person to produce figurative paintings which overturned the rules of appearance; he suggested appearance without using the usual codes, without respecting the representational truth of form, but using a breath of irrationality instead, to make representation stronger and more direct; so that form could pass directly from the eye to the stomach without going through the brain.
Francis Bacon was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, emotionally charged imagery. He produced series of images of popes, crucifixions and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical cages, set against flat, nondescript backgrounds.