Europe 1800 - 1900
Course: Europe 1800 - 1900 > Unit 2
Lesson 3: Spain- Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
- Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (quiz)
- Goya, The Family of Charles IV
- Goya, And there's nothing to be done (from the Disasters of War)
- Art historical analysis (painting), a basic introduction using Goya's Third of May, 1808
- Goya, Third of May, 1808
- Goya, The Third of May
- Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son
Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Saturn Devouring One Of His Sons, 1821-1823, 143.5 x 81.4 cm (Prado, Madrid) Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
One of the"Black Paintings" that Goya painted on the walls of his house outside Madrid, this image was originally located on the lower floor of the house known as "la Quinta del Sordo." Goya painted on the walls using several materials including oil paint. The "Black Paintings" had suffered significant damage and loss in their original location and when they were removed from the walls and transferred to canvas by Baron Émile d'Erlanger shortly after he aquired the house in 1873. Please note that Saturn is also known as Cronus or Kronus.
. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.Want to join the conversation?
- What is the process of transferring paintings on a wall, like Goya did in his home, to canvas? How is it done so that the integrity of the original work is maintained?(18 votes)
- From what I can tell, the general process would go like this. Paper would be pasted onto the painted surface and then muslin over that. The panel would then be removed from it's location and get placed face down. Then comes the tricky part of removing the panel itself. The panel would be chipped away until as little of the wood as possible remained. Ideally, the only thing left would be the paint. Then Canvas would be glued over the back and the paper and muslin removed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_panel_paintings(9 votes)
- Wouldn't another interpretation of this piece indicate the idea that time "devours" all, even its own son?(8 votes)
- Only remotely so. It's so obvious an allegory of Spain's political upheaval that any other interpretation would be a stretch beyond the artist's intention.
This painting was later used as a rallying cry against Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and Stalin, and I've ever seen more recent references to it used as a protest against Kim Jong-Un (who has killed many of his own family members), and I suppose soon it may be used as an allegory of America now devouring herself.
Very sad, but very brilliant, on Goya's part...(4 votes)
- Why would Goya want this on his wall?(5 votes)
- Clearly he was in a very dark place and sensing mortality - his own as well as that of his country which was locked in bitter civil strife at the time.(5 votes)
- I thought that Saturn just swallowed his children, not biting their heads off. Am I wrong?(2 votes)
- That's what I thought too. But myths change, and there are hundreds of different variations. Here I would guess that the painter probably just exaggerated the scene.(6 votes)
- What kind of person do you have to be to eat your own child. You shouldn't have a kid in the first place, if you are going to eat them.(2 votes)
- This is a story from mythology. It is not a photograph of an actual event. It never happened. We need to be far more concerned with issues like governments snatching children away from their parents, or allowing rampant poverty to destroy the lives of people old and young. We need to be concerned about governments denying health care to children, or corporations pricing drugs in ways that prevent sick people from getting what they need to live with health. In these ways, current governments devour the children of their nations, like the god in the picture.(4 votes)
- It said Jupiter was the only who got away but didn't his two brothers Pluto and Neptune also get away?(1 vote)
- According to one variant of this myth, they all got away after Zeus/Jupiter cut open his father's belly (or forced his father to cough them up) thus freeing his siblings.(3 votes)
- How does Saturn cause his fate by trying to reverse it? 0:50(1 vote)
- Saturn devours his children to protect himself from them, but it is this very act that causes him to be attacked.(3 votes)
- Was Saturn a god or fictional character during Goya's time? What might have caused Goya to use Saturn to depict this?(1 vote)
- By Goya's time, various forms of Christianity were the dominant systems of belief throughout much of Europe. Ancient Roman/Greek polytheism had long since stopped being a mainstream religion but its legends were still well-remembered and understood by the art viewing public. Goya may have chosen to depict the theme of the state turning on the people it was supposed to protect in an allegorical manner to avoid the political message being too easily linked to current events in case it was considered 'too revolutionary'. This can be contrasted with Picasso's Guernica (1937) which was very explicitly about a specific event in the Spanish Civil War.(1 vote)
- What is the process of transferring paintings on a wall, like Goya did in his home, to canvas? How is it done so that the integrity of the original work is maintained?(1 vote)
- what is the process of what goya did in including. How the process of transferring painting on the wall like goya did at his home(1 vote)
- The slow process of transferring the murals onto canvas began in 1874. The walls of the villa had been covered in wallpaper and Goya had painted on top of this layer which was carefully removed and reapplied to canvas. This work was carried out under the supervision of Salvador Martínez Cubells at the request of Baron Émile d’Erlanger, a French banker of German origins, who wanted to sell them at the Paris World's Fair in 1878. However, in 1881 the baron donated the paintings to the Spanish state and they are now on display at the Museo del Prado.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings(1 vote)