Goya’s Dark Paintings

Francisco Goya was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. His works, specifically his Black Paintings, resonate deeply with viewers still today. His life saw a series of complications that only worsened, leading to the subjects of his art getting increasingly darker and darker. In our current tumultuous atmosphere, work like this can really strike a personal chord and we can see bits of ourselves in these maddening Goya paintings.

Early Life and Works of Francisco Goya

While Goya’s inspirations were great painters like Diego Velázquez and Peter Paul Rubens, Goya started off at the age of fourteen, apprenticing under an undistinguished artist. He applied for various competitions until one landed him a religious commission. In 1778 he published his group of etchings based on Velázquez's work which were very successful, and these were what led to him being hired as deputy director at the Academia of Madrid in 1785.

His painting prowess quickly moved him up the ranks, first as the portraitist of many leading members of Madrid society, then later as a court painter for Charles IV himself. As always, Goya’s work is tinged with a hint of the satirical; his royal paintings were never quite flattering, to say the least. His painting, Charles IV of Spain and His Family is a good example of how Goya saw the corruption of the royal family and portrayed that. 

The king’s wife, Louisa, was often thought to be the one with power, so Goya depicts her at the center of the piece. Goya himself is included in this painting. You can spot his self-portrait in the back left, looking out to the viewer, and the painting behind the group is a depiction of Lot and his daughters, a Biblical story about the downfall of corruption and decay.

Goya’s Deafness and Declining Mental State

Unfortunately, near the end of 1792, Francisco Goya was burdened by an illness that left him not only incapacitated for most of the year but also left him deaf. In 1799 Goya published the Caprichos, a series of 80 aquatinted etchings, with the caption “the sleep of reason produces monsters.” One of the first of many nightmarish paintings by Goya was done around this time, Yard with Lunatics. A dark depiction of the treatment of the criminal or the insane, this Goya art reflected the fears of the artist, as he believed his mental state was worsening. 

A reason for this decline was most likely due to the French declaration of the Peninsular War on the Spanish. Another reason for Goya’s rapidly deteriorating health would be due to the lead white paint that he ground himself, leading to lead poisoning.

The Discovery of Goya’s Black Paintings

There are very few records of the end of Goya’s life as he worked in private at this time, plagued by his old age and fear of madness. He lived in near-solitude in the 1810s, living in a farmhouse converted into a studio dubbed “La Quinto del Sordo” (the house of the deaf man). This is where Goya’s Black Paintings were discovered later, painted onto the plaster walls of the house itself. 

These were paintings that were never meant to be exhibited or seen, and it’s likely that Francisco Goya never spoke of them. They are currently on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. The paintings were mounted onto canvas and suffered some damage from the transference.

On a closer look, these paintings by Goya are a mix of satire, dark humor, and a certain sort of lingering despair. The famous Saturn Devouring his Son, is only named thusly as historians could find no other suitable name; Goya had no writing or titles alongside these paintings. Saturn’s eyes are wide and filled with an unidentifiable emotion, driven to eat his son. Perhaps it is terror? At himself, and the drive he feels to eat his son. Or perhaps disgust at having to do such a thing. The Drowning Dog by Goya depicts a dog trying to keep its head above water, the large expanse of brown mud that he will at some point, inexorably sink into. But for now, all the dog can do is tread water and hope to keep afloat for even a little while longer. 

Two Old Ones Eating Soup shows two gluttonous men, eating as much as they can possibly stuff into their frail mouths. Although with a tinge of dark humor, one of them appears to already be a skeleton, perhaps explaining his need to fill something that’s forevermore hollow. All of these paintings are colored with a certain desperation in the artist’s strokes, and it’s clear to any viewer that the paintings are shocking and hard to look away from. There’s something hypnotic in the horror of these Francisco Goya paintings and they will stay with the viewer for a very long time. 

The Impact of Goya’s Artworks

It’s true that the human experience consists of a broad spectrum of emotion, and because of this, every human has felt a low point in their lives. Perhaps we can connect with these paintings because we might see a flash of ourselves in the never-satisfied skeleton, a twinge of relatability at the dog struggling to keep its head up, or even some familiarity with the self-disgust of Saturn. These paintings by Francisco Goya will continue to connect with viewers as long as our feelings of despair exist, and for now, it seems, despair is rife in the air.