Fine Art

Saturn Devouring His Son: meaning and analysis

Saturn Devouring His Son is one of the 14 Black Paintings that Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) painted in about 1820–1823 on the walls of his house outside Madrid, the Quinta del Sordo, and a work of Romanticism. It shows the Roman god Saturn, who in the myth devoured his children, holding one of them in his hands. Transferred to canvas, it has been in the Museo del Prado since 1881. The museum now catalogues it simply as Saturn (Saturno); it entered the collection as Saturno devorando a un hijo.

  • What it shows: the giant figure of Saturn, his face intensely expressive, emerges from a dark, neutral background, gripping the body of one of his children in both hands. The red of the blood stands out against the blacks and greys.
  • How it is painted: a very simple picture, bordering on the abstract, made with strong, vigorous brushstrokes over a careful underdrawing. Its way of distorting bodies later inspired 20th-century painters such as José Gutiérrez Solana and Francis Bacon.
  • A mural in Goya’s house: Goya bought the Quinta del Sordo on 27 February 1819 and from about 1820 decorated its two large rooms, on the ground and first floors, with these paintings. This one was on the ground floor.
  • Medium and size: oil, in a mixed technique, on the plaster of the wall, later transferred to canvas; 143.5 × 81.4 cm.
  • From wall to canvas: Baron Émile d’Erlanger, who bought the house in 1873, had the murals transferred to canvas by the Prado restorer Salvador Martínez Cubells between 1874 and 1878. Paint was lost in the process, and the eyes were among the areas repainted.
  • To the Prado: after the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris, d’Erlanger donated the paintings to the Spanish state; this one has been in the Prado since 1881 (inventory number P000763).

Sources: Fundación Goya en Aragón: catalogue entry 660 · Fundación Goya en Aragón: Leocadia (history of the Black Paintings) · Wikidata Q1150997 · J. J. Barragán, Aragón no. 393 (2022), quoting the Prado record

Questions and answers about the painting

What is the meaning of Saturn Devouring His Son?

Goya’s painting shows the god of time devouring one of his children, and scholars have read it as an image of old age and melancholy, although Goya left no known title or explanation. Folke Nordström saw in it Goya’s own state of mind, faced with old age and the illness he suffered in 1819. Salas and others link it to Two Old Men on the opposite wall, since Saturn is associated with old age and melancholy. Nigel Glendinning saw in it a tyrant destroying his own people.

Source: Fundación Goya en Aragón: catalogue entry 660 · Fundación Goya en Aragón: Two Old Men · J. J. Barragán, Aragón no. 393 (2022): Glendinning; title

Why does Saturn eat his children in the myth?

In the myth, Saturn swallows his children as they are born because he has learned that one of his sons is destined to overthrow him. Saturn is the Roman god identified with the Greek Titan Cronus, whose story Hesiod tells in the Theogony: his wife Rhea saved the youngest, Zeus (Jupiter), by giving Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes instead. Zeus later defeated his father and made him disgorge the children he had swallowed. Goya painted the moment Saturn devours one of them.

Source: Hesiod, Theogony, lines 453–506 (tr. H. G. Evelyn-White) · Wikidata Q134388 (Saturn, same as Cronus) · Fundación Goya en Aragón: catalogue entry 660

Where can you see Goya’s painting of Saturn today?

Saturn Devouring His Son is in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, inventory number P000763, and has been there since 1881. The Prado holds all 14 Black Paintings: Baron Émile d’Erlanger donated them to the Spanish state after showing them in Paris in 1878, and a Royal Order of 20 December 1881 brought them back to Spain. The museum now catalogues the painting simply as Saturn.

Source: Wikidata Q1150997 · Wikidata Q1988253 (Black Paintings) · Fundación Goya en Aragón: Leocadia (history of the Black Paintings) · J. J. Barragán, Aragón no. 393 (2022), quoting the Prado record

How is Goya’s Saturn different from Rubens’s?

Goya’s image recalls Peter Paul Rubens’s Saturn (1636–1638), also in the Prado, but the two differ: Rubens follows the god’s traditional iconography, while Goya concentrates on the cruelty of the act. Nigel Glendinning noted that Goya’s Saturn carries none of the god’s attributes, and José Gudiol saw him as an atrocious giant rather than the melancholy god of tradition. Rubens’s version is an oil on canvas of 182.5 × 87 cm; Goya painted his on a wall.

Source: Fundación Goya en Aragón: catalogue entry 660 · Wikidata Q6122115 (Rubens, Saturn, P001678) · J. J. Barragán, Aragón no. 393 (2022): Glendinning, Gudiol

Is the canvas in the Prado Goya’s original mural?

Yes: Saturn Devouring His Son is Goya’s original painting, but it is no longer on its wall. Goya painted it in oil, in a mixed technique, on the plaster of the Quinta del Sordo, and between 1874 and 1878 the Prado restorer Salvador Martínez Cubells transferred it to canvas for Baron Émile d’Erlanger. Paint was lost: the canvas lost its white ground, damaged areas were repainted, and the eyes were among the parts most affected. A photograph taken by J. Laurent in 1874 shows the mural still in place.

Source: Fundación Goya en Aragón: catalogue entry 660 · Fundación Goya en Aragón: Leocadia (history of the Black Paintings) · J. J. Barragán, Aragón no. 393 (2022), quoting the Prado record

Is Goya’s painting in the public domain?

Yes. Goya died in 1828, so his paintings are free of copyright everywhere. A faithful photograph of a public-domain painting adds no new copyright in the United States or the European Union, so you can download this image and use it in personal or commercial projects. Public Domain Images for Commercial Use explains how.

Source: Wikidata Q5432 (died 16 April 1828)

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