Painting Analysis: Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya

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As mythology has always piqued my interest, Roman and Greek mainly, it is only natural that Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya stopped me from turning the page. This piece has been burned in my head since I was a junior in high school. The painting doesn’t have a lot of color, light, patterns, or textures but it draws you in instantly. It is a horrific image to look at, but the same time you can’t look away at this man savagely eating another human. As gross at this painting may be I believe it holds some strong messages.
This painting is classified as a romanticism painting as the artist has one job and that is to convey his point in his audience. Looking at the piece it has an equally balance of positive and negative space, the negative space being the dark black background in which Saturn looks like he emerging from it. The positive space is Saturn himself, which is where the emphasis is. In doing this, Goya was very successful in getting his message across that this was a dark time.
The colors are very dark giving a sense, to me, of dread and death. The greys, black, and fleshy browns are very harmonious. Goya kept from using light colors expect for the focal points. In my opinion, there is more than one focal point or that the focal point is large, from Saturn’s face to the lifeless body. The corpse is hanging in Saturn’s tight grip is deathly white and has bright blood red where the head and arm had been. I think that is a symbol, the body being faceless and no way to tell the gender, besides from the title, means that it could represent anyone. Also, if you look Saturn’s knuckles are white to as if he is squeezing the body as if it may get away from him. He also uses the technique chiaroscuro. The light draws y...

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...th color, the way he used color when it was used conveyed what was important in the piece. The body as it hangs lifeless from Saturn’s death grip is dripping with blood and it is even between the white knuckles of Saturn. In having Saturn’s knuckles white it emphasizes his grip that is so strong on the body he is drawing blood from the back. It is showing his passion in that the deed has to be done. His expression is wild and his stance is cowardly showing that he may not have wanted to do what he was doing. The message in the painting is that time consumes us all, and that is by having the god of time eating a faceless body. There is another message in this too, I believe and it is that people will do almost anything to keep their reign in power. I found this painting very stimulating and gave me many emotions. I think just because of that the piece is successful.

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