Maintaining that the infinite vastness of the horizon sparks an awareness of perfection in the human mind that, although unseen and immaterial, is ultimately the essential and pervasive character of reality, Martin intended to recreate
this same quiet contemplation of nature in her canvases.
Whereas previous works had presented the Pope as a screaming, agonised phantom, Study for a Head presents a figure submerged in existential
contemplation, riddled with the
same quiet dignity and introspective tension that was to define Bacon's first self - portrait the following year.