Saturn Devouring His Son is a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It is traditionally considered a depiction of the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus, whom the Romans called Saturn, eating one of his children out of fear of a prophecy by Gaea that one of his children would overthrow him.
The work is one of the 14 so-called Black Paintings that Goya painted directly on the walls of his house sometime between 1820 and 1823. It was transferred to canvas after Goya’s death and is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
I find it interesting he didn’t actually title any of these paintings and as far as I know, no explanation was given either. Perhaps he was thinking of the myth, but for all we know he wanted it to be titled ‘‘Indigestion’’. I think of it more as ‘‘black painting 4’’ or some other description without imposed meaning.
Watched a documentary about Goya on an educational TV channel years ago. The documentary tells, among lots of things, how he got progressively tired, sick of playing the role of the boot licker who would paiting anything those brainless and entitled nobles, politicians and rich merchants would want. No matter how whimsical, futile the subject. Exactly the way they wished, no matter if every brush stroke was a lie. Never putting anything shady on negative on them. Until he told his wife he was about to snap and needed to “vent the poison”. He stopped accepting painting orders, locked himself at home and began to frantically, obsessively paint the “black paintings”, one right after another, non-stop.