Saturn Devouring His Son

Saturn Devouring His Son is a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It is one of the 14 Black Paintings that Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house. The picture was transferred to canvas after Goya’s death and has since been held in the Museo del Prado.

About Saturn Devouring His Son in brief

Summary Saturn Devouring His SonSaturn Devouring His Son is a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It is one of the 14 Black Paintings that Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house. The picture was transferred to canvas after Goya’s death and has since been held in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. According to the traditional interpretation, it depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus who, fearing that he would be overthrown by one of his children, ate each one upon their birth. Goya may have been inspired by Rubens’ 1636 picture of the same name of the tenor of the 16th century. However some critics have suggested that his rendition of the ferocity of the myth portrayed in the painting is less conventional than that of Rubens. It has been said that the picture is essential to our understanding of the human condition in modern times in just as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is just as essential to understanding the modern human condition as the Rubens picture is to our modern understanding of it.

It was painted between 1819 and 1823, when he left the house to move to Bordeaux, and was never meant to be put on public display. It may have originally portrayed the titan with a partially erect penis, but, if ever present, this addition was lost due to the deterioration of the mural over time or during the transfer to canvas. The only other brightness in the picture comes from the white flesh, the red blood of the corpse, and the white knuckles of Saturn as he digs his fingers into the back of the body.