howardpark/fine arts

Goya made this picture in the last years of his life and painted it directly onto a wall of his own house (his dining room, in fact). Part of a series called the Black Paintings, it is based on a scene from Greek mythology. The titan Saturn (Greek: Kronos), upon hearing a prophecy that he will be overthrown by one of his children, determines to eat them all. Jupiter (Greek: Zeus) escapes and later returns to take revenge for his cannibalized siblings; thus the attempt to circumvent fate provides the impetus for its fulfillment. Why would Goya put something so horrific (not to mention unappetizing) in his dining room?

One explanation lies in the other deity with which Saturn was traditionally conflated--Chronos, the god of time. Perhaps Goya, then in his seventies, wanted to reflect on the cruelty of time, which destroys life so relentlessly and indiscriminately. Another explanation is that the painting is an allegory of the civil wars which raged across Spain in the early 1800's and which became an obsession for Goya. This interpretation has particular relevance today. Napoleon, in command of the most powerful military machine the world had ever seen, invaded Spain on the pretext of "liberating" it. He had expected to be greeted with flowers after a quick victory on the field of battle. Instead he faced an unending stream of insurgents and "terrorists," against which his mighty army was powerless. In the end, he succeeded only in splitting the country into factions that spent four decades slaughtering each other.

To me, the picture has a more basic meaning. It represents the damage that current generations are doing to future ones without even thinking. The vacant stare in Saturn's eyes reminds me of the heedlessness with which we gorge ourselves on the luxuries of modern life, regardless of the cost to our children. Whether it means racking up huge debts that they will have to pay, or bankrupting the government that they will need to protect them, or destroying the planet that they will have to live on, we seem to be concerned only with satisfying our own monstrous appetites.

(The painting is Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son.)