Saturn Devouring One of his Children
Francisco de Goya Y Lucientes

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Painted on the walls of the Quinta del Sordo (Villa of the Deaf Man) this painting was later transferred to canvas and depicts the Titan Cronus, the Romans changed it to Saturn. Cronus feared that his children would one day overthrow him and so as each one was born, the legend says, he ate them.
This work was never intended for public display by Goya and in fact he never named the painting others named it for him. Goya at the time of painting this and other works in the series of black paintings was going through a pertiularly hard time in his life, he had survived two serious illnesses and was becoming disillusioned with the civil war that raged at the time in Spain. Is it any wonder that this and the paintings he produced at this time are dark and haunting, and even shocking in this case.