[Music]
what's the scariest painting in art
history
there are some strong contenders like
the judgement of Kim by seas by gerard
de vide hieronymus Bosch's rendering the
hell henry Fuseli's nightmare and
Edouard monks the screen but there's
only ever really been one painting that
has seriously disturbed me this one
Francisco Goya is Saturn devouring his
son what you're seeing here is the
legendary Spanish painter's depiction of
the Greek Titan Cronus who after
usurping power from his father was told
a prophecy that one of his own sons
would do the same and usurp him in order
to prevent this every time his Queen
Raya bore a child Cronus would eat it
unfortunately for him in the end Raya
conspired to hide away their youngest
son Zeus who eventually fulfilled the
prophecy exiled his father and ended the
reign of the Titans the story is a well
known Greek myth but look at how
gorgeous jump out right away first in
the myth Cronus devours his children by
swallowing them whole in fact they
remain alive in his stomach boy his
painting is a much more gruesome affair
he takes some inspiration here from
Peter Paul Rubens a Flemish baroque
painter who depicted the same event as
well in Rubens Saturn the Titan seems to
be sucking the life force from his child
even for such a terrifying
subject-matter Rubens displays all the
drama richness even beauty that marks
the baroque style he helped to make
famous n'gou his version that beauty is
gone we're left with a frightened crazed
monster discovered in the dark as if by
some explorer with a torch who wandered
into the wrong cave Saturn Kronus is
Roman name has already chewed off the
head of his child his black mouth opens
around the elbow of the left arm ready
to bite it off at the joint his angular
body is crouching in an awkward position
his hands
into the spine blood runs down his
child's arm and neck and shoulder a
startling primary color and if we take a
closer look we noticed that this is not
a child at all but one of Saturn's kids
grown up there's something even more
terrifying in knowing that the victim
knew what was happening and tried to
fight back but what's most disturbing of
all I think is when and where this
painting was found late in his life
Francisco Goya purchased a house on the
outskirts of Madrid called the Quinta
del sorta or the villa of the Deaf after
its previous owner an interesting
coincidence since by that time in his
life
Koya was deaf to his physical and mental
health declining boy have painted 14
murals often referred to as the black
paintings directly onto the interior
walls of his home Saturn devouring his
son was in the dining room the
photographs you're seeing now
were taken over 50 years after that time
Koya never mentioned the paintings
himself he never intended for anyone to
see them to this day people still puzzle
over the meaning of the black paintings
why was Goa creating these pessimistic
and fantastical scenes in the solitude
of his home to understand this it might
help to go back through goiás career he
grew up in Zaragoza Spain the fourth of
six children in a lower middle-class
family by all accounts he was a
light-hearted and joyful kid as he
studied painting in Zaragoza Madrid and
Rome his first serious job was at the
royal tapestry factory where he created
tapestry cartoons to adorn the palaces
and stately homes of the city these
tapestries take their cue from the
Rococo style elegant playful light
scenes of both nobility and peasantry
enjoying the normal activities of their
day boy eventually became the court
painter for King Charles the fourth a
disappointing monarch unlike his father
Charles the third who was beloved by the
people for enacting reforms that began
to bring secular enlightenment values to
Spain in 1793 an unknown illness
left Kuya Jeff though he still took
commissions from his royal clientele
this disease was a dark turning point in
his life and art you can see it in yard
with lunatics from 1794 bodies grapple
and cry out in anguish the difference
between this and the tapestry cartoons
is shocking
his hearing gone Goya began to see the
country around him with a grim clarity
in a series of etchings called Los
Caprichos or the caprices he sends up a
Spanish culture that is both tragic and
comic a student of the Enlightenment
himself Koya sees the country
backsliding on the road to modernity the
king is withdrawn and the people are
superstitious and too stupid to know
what they need you can see him fusing
all the corners of his imagination the
quest for anatomical truth the need for
social critique and an obsession with
beasts and creatures it's all summed up
in this one aptly titled the sleep of
Reason produces monsters in the
following years things got worse for
Spain Napoleon invaded the country and
brutally massacred those who resisted
his campaign Koya was witness to the
bloodshed and it affected him deeply his
painting on the subject the 3rd of May
1808 is a revelatory depiction of war
resistance and brutality before this war
was a highly composed theatrical subject
in painting here Koya gives nothing but
brute force it's emotion unmediated by
artifice it would be five years until
Spain regained its throne in the interim
resistors developed the constitution of
1812 which called for liberal reforms
like national sovereignty freedom of the
press and free enterprise but on gaining
power the new king Ferdinand the seventh
squashed the Constitution right away and
arrested those who made it Koya
withdrew disheartened the country which
in his youth had reached toward a new
world was now swallowed again
by autocracy scarred by war scarred by
illness he began to paint nightmare
scenes onto the walls of his home in one
ayat in' by the father he was prophesied
to usurp by now Goya knows progress
isn't assured and when it's defeated
it's not painless it's horrific and slow
and the victim can feel it happening
there are a lot of ways that you can
read Saturn devouring his son
maybe Goya was trying to exorcise the
demons of his mind or the demons of his
country or maybe he was just trying to
paint honestly about one terrifying
facet of man's nature using the skills
and techniques he learned and pioneered
through a lifetime the black paintings
changed the history of art but what's
maybe scariest of all is that Goya
didn't care he doesn't care how we read
this painting because he didn't paint it
for us or for anyone Saturn devouring
his son exists beyond interpretation its
brute force horror without mediation a
monster looking out from a dark wall in
a dark room chewing
[Music]
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