Saturn Devouring His Son is perhaps the best known of all Goya’s Black Paintings. The painting portrays the Roman god Saturn eating one of his children, it is rather gruesome! The Roman story dictates that Saturn, upon hearing a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him, ate his two children upon their birth to prevent the prophecy coming to fruition. Goya depicts Saturn’s act of cannibalism with horrific savagery.
There is no colocation of this painting. Only one version was ever painted and it was painted on the wall of Goya’s home, the Quinta del Sordo. Whilst the background is black, the limbs and head of Saturn seem to emerge from the shadows. Saturn’s eyes are rather scary, big and bulging from his head as though he were mad. The head and right arm of the child that he is consuming have already been eaten and the only use of colour except for the flesh-tones is the red blood with covers the mutilated upper part of the motionless body which is depicted is a chilling deathly white.
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