The exercise showed me how hard it is to apply the category of religious painting. There’s a Bacon screaming pope and three figures quite unsuitable for the foot of a Crucifixion. But if anything Bacon is the painter of Original Sin, or the human condition if you like.

I WAS WONDERING what the most religious work was in the exhibition All Too Human at Tate Britain. It’s an impressive selection from British painters over the past century who have striven to depict human figures and their doings, with the focus on Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, but with representations from Auerbach, Bamberg, Kitaj and others.