 The full @-@ length golden curtain @-@ like folds painted in heavy brush <unk> are in part influenced by <unk> but also similar to <unk> 's 1558 Portrait of Cardinal Filippo <unk> . <unk> <unk> the Old Master 's device to isolate and distance the sitter from the viewer ; the black ground @-@ paint is visible through the folds , making the separation all the more affecting . <unk> had already used similar forms in his Chicago panel , and they were to become a feature of his most acclaimed 1950s works , especially in his " screaming <unk> " . He became fascinated with the veil or curtain as a motif in painting , and collected many reproductions of works by <unk> and <unk> in which it is employed . He had begun his career as an interior <unk> and designer of furniture and <unk> in the mid @-@ 1930s , and later said that he liked " rooms hung all round with just <unk> hung in even folds " . <unk> or <unk> appear in <unk> 's earliest works , notably the 1949 Study from the Human Body , always in portraits and always in front of , rather than behind , the figure . 
