Goya, Saturn Devouring His Children

When he was in his seventies, Goya painted a series of so-called “black paintings.” Since they were not commissioned, these late pictures reveal some of the artist’s most intimate preoccupations. Saturn Devouring One of His Children, of about 1820-1822, is a disturbing indictment of man’s bestial nature.

According to mythology, Saturn devoured his children to thwart the prophecy that they would overthrow him. But the children were gods and therefore immortal. They survived to fulfill their destiny and became the twelve Olympians. Goya’ Saturn, on the other hand crushes the figure like a flimsy doll and tears away its arms and head. His savagery is accented by the red of the blood outlining the upper torso and flowing across his hands.

Saturn stares wildly out of the picture, his gaping mouth tearing off a piece of the child’s body. Goya depicts the Titan as a crazed, wide-eyed cannibal who is barely contained by the picture space. The loose brushstrokes especially in the long hair and body, reinforce his bestial nature. In this frenzied, un-Classical image of a father devouring his child, Goya confronts humanity with an example of its “blackest,” most primitive forms of behavior – infanticide and cannibalism.^[1]