Saturn Devouring His Son is a deeply unsettling and powerful work of art that continues to resonate with viewers today, conveying a timeless message about the destructive power of tyranny and oppression. Todorov, Tzvetan, La pintura de la Ilustración: de Watteau a Goya, Galaxia Gutenberg: Círculo de Lectores,, Barcelona, 2014, pp. 163. Goya had witnessed famine, poverty and cruelty, from Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and Ferdinand’s Inquisition. And, significantly, he had painted man’s inhumanity to man before in his famous May 1808 paintings and in his previous “ The Disasters of War” series. Now, it seemed, Goya merely returned to this theme, in isolation and at liberty to paint what he wanted in secret. Because of his political leanings, Goya was a marked man. Ferdinand VII thought Goya had collaborated with Napoleon. Ferdinand warned “Goya, not only do you deserve the death, but the Gallows! If I forgive you, it’s because I admire you.”

Alicia’s other areas of interest in Art History include the process of writing about Art History and how to analyze paintings. Some of her favorite art movements include Impressionism and German Expressionism. She is yet to complete her Masters in Art History (she would like to do this abroad in Europe) having given it some time to first develop more professional experience with the interest to one day lecture it too. Nordström, F., Goya. Saturn and Melancholy. Studies in the Art of Goya, Almqvist & Wiksell, Estocolmo:, 1962, pp. 185-201, 220.Pérez Sánchez, A. E., Cómo las pinturas de la Quinta del Sordo se convirtieron en Pinturas Negras, en Guillaud, J. (dir.): Goya. Las visiones magníficas, París; Nueva York:, 1987, pp. 89-108. Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya was painted between 1819 and 1823, during a period of political and social turmoil in Spain. Goya had witnessed the horrors of the Peninsular War, which had raged across Spain for six years and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The war had been fought between the French and Spanish armies, with many Spanish citizens forced to fight on both sides. Vergara, Alejandro, The Presence of Rubens in Spain, I-II, A Bell & Howell Company, Ann Arbor, 1999, pp. 426.

Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier, Escultura y pintura del siglo XVIII. Francisco de Goya., XVII, Plus Ultra, Madrid, 1965, pp. 346. Casalduero, Joaquín, Significado del Saturno goyesco, Boletín del Museo del Prado, IV, 1983, pp. 167-169. Luna, J. J., Moreno de las Heras, M. (dir.), Goya: 250 Aniversario, Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1996, pp. 318-319, n. 38. Quelle que soit la volonté de l’artiste, cette fresque est extrêmement moderne. A un moment où un Néo-classicisme précis et lumineux domine, il peint avec une touche libre, une palette restreinte et une grande violence. Avec cette image sombre, Goya pose les jalons du Romantisme noir. Viñaza, C. Muñoz y Manzano, Conde de, Goya. Su tiempo, su vida, sus obras, Manuel G. Hernández, Madrid, 1887, pp. 276, n. XII.Saturn devouring his sons (c. 1797) by Francisco de Goya, red chalk on laid paper; Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Goya a sans doute été inspiré par un tableau de Pierre Paul Rubens de 1636 portant le même nom. La toile de Rubens, qui est aussi au Musée du Prado, est plus claire avec un traitement du mythe plus conventionnel, Saturne étant représenté avec moins de férocité que dans l'œuvre de Goya. The intense paintings often depict haunting images and distressing themes. They reflect Goya's fear of insanity and his dreary view of humanity during a time when conflict such as the Napoleonic Wars created significant social and political turmoil and change in Spain. Goya's pessimistic attitude towards humanity reflect his own the fear and experience during conflict as well as his fear of relapsing following two serious illnesses. Saturn Devouring His Son was painted in the artist's dining room at Quinta del Sordo (Deaf Man's Villa). The villa was named for its previous owner, who was deaf. Goya moved to the villa outside of Madrid in 1819 when the artist himself suffered from hearing loss. His hearing loss was caused by an unknown illness when he was 46, leaving him almost completely deaf. Two Old Men Eating Soup, for example, seems to her a kind of joke about greed. One of the men is practically a skeleton, already dead and decomposing, but still “eating like crazy, trying to get all he can”. She says: “Look at the expressions on the faces in these paintings, how each is a different personality. They’re not real, they’re caricatures, but they show Goya’s deep interest in human beings, in what we do and why. He was almost like a writer in a way, learning the worst about people and laughing about it in his work.” Here was an artist operating in his own space and time, not communicating anything to anyone, expressing himself to himself alone

The painting is also significant for its departure from the neoclassical style that had dominated Spanish art during the 18th century. Goya's use of chiaroscuro and his expressive, emotional brushwork were a departure from the strict formalism of neoclassicism and foreshadowed the emergence of Romanticism in art. AnecdotesBozal, Valeriano, Francisco Goya. Vida y obra, II, TF Editores, Alcobendas:, 2005, pp. 254, 319-320.