Andrew Carter Lectures: Goya’s Black Paintings
Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819-1823
From the pain comes the dream
From the dream comes the vision.
-Peter Gabriel, Fourteen Black Paintings
Francisco Goya
In 1819, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes was a broken man.
Disillusioned with Spanish politics, deaf and suffering from a mysterious illness, he retreated to Quinta del Sordo, his rural home just outside Madrid.
Many people assumed his artistic career was over.
They were wrong.
Between 1819 and 1823, he produced an astonishing series known as the Pinturas Negras (Black Paintings). Working in oil, he adorned the walls of his dining and sitting rooms with images that shocked the world. The artist never gave the fourteen Black Paintings names (that was done later, by others). Goya didn’t intend them to be seen outside his home and he never publicly talked about them. They only escaped their domestic confines after the artist’s death, liberated by Baron Emile d’Erlanger, a French banker. Erlanger intended to sell the Black Paintings but, in the end, he donated them to the Spanish state. They are now on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Why the change of heart?
Many believed that Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings are cursed. Like Shakespeare’s notorious play MacBeth, there were rumors that Goya made a deal with the devil to create his masterpieces. In one modern day thriller, Neil Olson’s The Black Painting, the author goes so far as to suggest a demon may have been actually imprisoned inside one of Goya’s works.
It’s easy to see why these works have such a sinister reputation.
Goya’s fourteen black paintings bristle with violence and despair.
Detail of Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819-1823, Compared to Ivan Repin’s Ivan The Terrible and His Dead Son, 1883-1885
The most famous of them, Saturn Devouring His Son, depicts a famous event in Greek mythology (We think. Remember, the artist never titled his paintings.)
The story goes like this. When Saturn learned of a dreadful prophecy, that he would be overthrown by one of his sons, he devoured all his male offspring to keep the prediction from coming true. Other paintings tried to capture the terrible act, but none captured it as well as Goya. The look of wide-eyed terror in Saturn’s eyes, as he chomps down on one of his children, well…it is very clear that he is not enjoying this moment. He looks like he’s choking, forcing feeding himself the horrible meal.
You can see the influence of this black painting in another depiction of filicide, Ilya Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Dead Son (1883-1885). The two situations, and the horrified expressions on the father’s faces, are eerily similar.
In fact, none of the subjects in Goya’s fourteen black paintings appear to be enjoying themselves. In Witches’ Sabbath, the deity the coven worships has just appeared.
The witches should be rejoicing. This is the moment they have all been waiting for. The Great He Goat, the creature that gives them so much power, has joined them at last. But the crowd surrounding the black goat are huddled together, looking at the figure anxiously. They don’t seem empowered by his presence. If anything, his sudden appearance seems to diminish them, reducing them as individuals. Squashing them into an undifferentiated mass. With the Witches’ Sabbath Goya seems to be saying, “Be careful what you wish for.”
In 2019, the fourteen black paintings celebrated their two hundredth birthday. Their power to stun shows no sign of diminishing. They remain a popular attraction at the Museo del Prado, entrancing even those who don’t appreciate art. As art historian Teresa Vega, who leads guided tours at the museum, observed, “When they walk in, people are always surprised. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a visitor whose expression hasn’t changed. Even a yawning teenager will wake up when they see them.”
Is it the Goya’s skill as a painter that people are responding to? Or is it the dark forces that supposedly lurk just beneath the canvas?
We will probably never know what makes the Pinturas Negras so compelling.
One of the Black Paintings on exhibit in the Museo del Prado, Madrid