Francisco de Goya, The Dog (Perro semihundido)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 131 x 79 cm

The scene is quite simple: the head of a dog is sticking out of a ditch, it seems to be looking at something to the right and slightly higher up, but there is nothing there - even though one historian has suggested some birds fluttering around; behind the dog there is an undefined space.
X-ray studies of this work have made it possible to discover that of all the Black Paintings this is the one that suffered most when it was transferred to canvas. Goya may have left this work unfinished - although we cannot be sure in this respect - but his imagery is no less effective, whatever the damage. It has become an emblematic image for modern art, in its darkest and most anguish-ridden aspects. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, Asmodea (Al aquelarre, o Asmodea)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 127 x 263 cm

Of all the Black Paintings, this is the most hermetic. The title corresponds to the inventory made by Goya's friend, Antonio Bruguera, and he must have had his reasons for calling it so. Whatever these reasons were, the work itself gives no hint of them. Asmodeus, in masculine form, is the devil that appears in the Book of Tobit, who is responsible for the death of the husbands of Sarah, none of whom were able to consummate their marriage. The last of her seven husbands, Tobias, followed the counsel of the Archangel Raphael and drove off the demon, who fled into Upper Egypt where the archangel tied him up and immobilized him.

Another literary source for the subject of the painting which has often been considered is El diablo cojuelo (''The Limping Devil'') by Luis Vélez de Guevara, as suggested by A. R. Lesage and D. de Torres Villaroel. In that narrative Asmodeus is a devil that flies, a popular superstition who ''eavesdrops'' on households.

In these and other possible sources, there is only one aspect that might be related to the present painting: travel or flight. But there are many which do not fit into the image: above all, the fact that Bruguera refers to ''Asmodea'', not ''Asmodeus''. On the other hand, Goya has introduced some soldiers firing away in the foreground to the right and what would seem to be an military baggage-train in the middle ground. It is impossible to know whether the soldiers are are firing at the baggage-train or not, and all of this affects any iconological interpretation that adheres closely to classical sources: the world of Goya's time is very much present in the uniforms, the rifles, the horses, the soldiers, etc. This much said, it would also be only right to mention the fact that, on the contrary, the clothing of the figures in the air may correspond to the classical world. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, The Fates (Las Parcas, o Átropos)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 123 x 266 cm

Goya turns to three mythological figures: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, daughters of Night, who grant mortals the powers of Good and Evil and persecute both mortals and gods who commit offenses. In his Theogony Hesiod tells us that these goddesses ''never cease to apply their bitter punishment to whomever commits an offense''.

There are four figures in Goya's painting, the three goddesses and another figure that seems to be a man whose hands are (tied?) behind his back as he is carried along by the Fates. The artist has altered the traditional iconographical attributes of the Fates. Clotho is holding a figure - a doll, an ex-voto of human being? - instead of tow or distaff; Lachesis is not spinning, but rather looks into a lens or a mirror, the symbols of time; Atropos, who in traditional iconography snipped the thread of Life, here carries a pair of scissors. The male figure, unarmed, looks towards the viewer.

If the nature of the subject matter is important for understanding this painting, so are the elements which Goya has introduced into the story. First among these is the disappearance of all trace of the heroic sublime or mythological. The Fates are powerful deities and they are represented as such in visual and literary tradition. But this is not the case in Goya's work: their faces are deformed and brutish, especially that of Clotho, and that even the identity of their gender is hidden. Goya's vision of the divinities of Night has a little to do with the ideal nobility of Neoclassicism as it does with the sentimental terror of many Romantic creations. If anything leaps out in these figures it is the brutal sordidness with which they are conceived. Other European artists of the period were concerned with representing nocturnal deities, but only Goya dared to see them in this way, eliminating everything positive, transcendental, or ideal that our concept of ''divinity'' usually entails.

This is not the only thing that seizes the viewer's attention. No less interesting is the nocturnal landscape in which the action takes place: its moonlit beauty, with its silvers and golds, the luminosity of the firmament and the reflections off the trees and bushes, and the angular disposition of the picture space are all fundamental elements of Goya's painting. The overall effect is that of a dream, and it finds consistency in the evidence of oneiric phenomena. The contrast between the figures and silent Nature, the caracter of the Fates, the dummy-like profile of the man being carried along through the air, all contribute to achieving expressive effect. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, The Holy Office or Pilgrimage to the Fountain of Saint Isidore (Peregrinación a la Fuente de San Isidro o El Santo Oficio)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 127 x 266 cm

Goya represents a procession which seems to be led by a member of the Holy Office who is the figure in the right foreground wearing clothing of seventeenth-century fashion, with a rather comical face and gesture. The figures that surround him are elderly pious women who are in no way the envy of the sorceresses of the Witches' Sabbath or the ones who appear in the artist's drawings and prints. The same may be said of those coming in from the right, some of whom, deformed or hunchbacked, stagger along with great difficulty. The pilgrimage is headed for the spring which may bring them a cure, but the characters in the foreground indicate that Goya is rather skeptical in this regard.

This is perhaps the only one of the Black Paintings that has a clearly satirical meaning. The member of the Holy Office does not frighten us, neither do the pious old women who surround him or follow him in procession. It is not surprising that they prompt a grin. Goya's attitude, his approach to the subject, is possibly due to a known fact: at the time this work was painted, the court of the Inquisition had been abolished. It would never be reestablished, not even with the return to absolutism and in spite of the pressure brought to bear by Ferdinand VII.

The Inquisition had assumed religious functions, but it had also become a political instrument, as the Church hierarchy themselves had often recognized. Its presence had done much to shape Spain's cultural life. Goya himself had been investigated by the court on several occasions. First, for his series of prints called Los Caprichos, and later, after the Peninsular War, when hos autorship of the paintings called Las Majas, the property of the first minister, Manuel Godoy, came under scrutinity because they were considered to be obscene. The disappearance of this institution was most surely a relief for the elderly painter, as this work seems to tell us. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, The Cudgel Fight (Duelo a garrotazos)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 125 x 261 cm

This is one of the best known and most widely published of all the Black Paintings. It represents a brutal fight to the death in which the two duellists are buried up to the knee as they bash away at each other, without any hope of escaping. There is no room for doubt as to what is going on in this scene, but no one would interpret it anecdotally. It is perceived as a kind of allegorical reflection on the violence of Spanish life in Goya's time, which was riddled with confrontations, and even the age-old congenital violence of Spanish life which is characterized by our strong urge to fratricide.

The viewer may interpret this scene in its broader sense or in a more limited one, but whichever approach he chooses, he surely can never forget the tragic drama of the image, the inexorability of the duellists' fate, or the extreme violence expressed with such simplicity. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, The Reading (La lectura, o Los políticos)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 126 x 66 cm

During the three years of liberal government (El Trienio Liberal, 1820-1823) the edition of newspapers, pamphlets, and all types of publications, especially of a satirical and political nature, reached a peak thanks to freedom of the Press. People read alone or in groups, such as the one Goya has depicted here: a group of men have gathered to listen to one of them read some sort of broadsheet. From the painting alone we cannot tell what sort of publication is being read, anymore than we can make out exactly where the reading is taking place - such readings tended to take place in cafés, in the street, or in private houses. Once more, Goya has left us in the dark with regard to this part of his subject matter. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, Two Women and a Man (Dos mujeres y un hombre)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 125 x 66 cm

The posture and gestures of the man and both women have always given rise to much comment as well as diverse and unsatisfactory interpretations. Nowdays it is generally held that the subject is masturbation: the man is masturbating and the two women looking on are laughing at him (or with him). However, the painting makes no moralizing comment at all.

It is possible that the three figures are in some kond of interior space, but it might also be out-of-doors, maybe even in the street. Goya is imprecise in this respect. The light is concentrated on the man's arm and elbow, his white shirt and part of the lap of the woman immediately behind him. Shadow engulfs the scene as we move away from the lighted focal point. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, The Saint Isidore Pilgrimage (La Romería de San Isidro)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 138,5 cm x 436 cm

This painting easily brings to mind the ones Goya made in the eighteenth century of public holidays and fêtes, especially the cartoon which was never made into a tapestry called The Meadow of the Hermitage of Saint Isidore. The atmosphere of playfulness, the luminosity and interplay of tones, the animation of the figures, the precise location of place where the activity transpired..., all this has given way to a world that is completely different. Shadows are the dominion of this procession of pilgrims advancing in our direction. Their songs, if there are any, have more of a tragic and desperate air than they do of happiness. The beauty of the woman, partly hidden by mantillas, is lost in the sordid group. The setting has lost any attraction it might once have had, yet it is suggested by the landscape that frames the background, even in some of the figures who have joined the procession.

The scene has been interpreted by many historians as a saturnalia, a feast in honour of Saturn who, like Saint Isidore, is patron of farm workers. This may well be the subject of pilgrimage, but here the excess and revelry characteristic of a saturnalia are nowhere to be found. The scene painted by Goya does not take us back into the past, as befits a nostalgic return to classical mythology; on the contrary, it all seems very immediate. The characters, their dress, and even their appearance, belong to Goya's own times, and are even less defined than that. Here the artist is not trying to make an historical reconstruction, just as he never does in any of the Black Paintings. If he uses the subjects of classical iconography, it is to speak of the present, of the world which was taking shape at the threshold of the nineteenth century.

The group of figures advancing towards us makes up a frieze of many different types. Some are beggars; others, craftsmen or labourers; there are society ladies and people of the middle classes; people from all walks of life, and all of them are participating in the pilgrimage. We are part of the procession, too. Not only is the crowd coming towards us, some of the figures in the foreground establish eye contact with us, thus setting up a dialogue that we cannot avoid. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, Witches' Sabbath - The Great He-Goat (El aquelarre, o El Gran Cabrón)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 140,5  x 435,7 cm

All of the witches are facing a demon in the form of a male goat that presides over the ceremony, ''aided'' by a ''secretary'', to his right. At the other end there is a young woman, almost a girl, seated on a chair, waiting for the initiation to begin.
The group of witches that are the focus of the scene are not moving about, but neither are they motionless. Goya's brushwork, each stroke, and the overall composition give the group considerable dynamism, as if they were worked up by some sort of ectasy. The faces are deformed, figures are bent, and some of them seem frightened.

In this work Goya returns to themes that had interested him in the final years of the eighteenth century, in his drawings, prints, and paintings. In this series the artist eliminates all sense of comedy, even the critical approach he had used in earlier years. He does not criticize witchcraft, neither does he ridicule it; he limits himself to presenting the world of darkness. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, Two Old People Eating (Dos viejos comiendo)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1821 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 49,3 cm x 83,4 cm

Only one of the old people, the one holding a spoon, seems to be eating and the figure seems more like that of an elderly woman than a man. The figure gesturing alongside looks like an eyeless corpse, as if it were the image of Death itself...
These figures are part of the repertory of witches and old hags that Goya depicted in his drawings, his prints, and his paintings. They are similar to those we find in other works of the series of Black Paintings. They are not so much a representation of the world as an allegory of it. The world they people is a world of darkness and expressive dramatic effects, and this may be understood as emblematic of the whole series of images that Goya painted in this room...
In spite of its small size - it is the smallest of all the Black Paintings - Two People Eating makes a lasting impression on us: the cadaverous faces are not devoid of ironic gesture, or a sarcastic grimace, and in this way the artist ''humanizes'' what would otherwise have been only simple death masks. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, Two Old Men (Dos frailes)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 142,5 cm x 65,6 cm

Companion to Leocadia, situated on the other side of the entrance, here Goya has painted a bearded old man leaning on a large staff and wrapped in a cape, who is listening to what a deformed figure is whispering in his ear. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black Paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, A Manola: Leocadia Zorrilla (Una manola: Leocadia Zorrilla)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 145,7 cm x 129,4 cm

A feminine figure is seen leaning against a funerary mound. In the quinta it was placed opposite Saturn, which it seems to contemplate, as well as Judith and Holofernes. The attitude of the manola corresponds to the established mode of representing Melancholy. Much has been written about the personality of this woman, who is thought to be Leocadia Zorrilla, wife of Isidoro Weiss, whose relationship with the artist is still lost in the shadows. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, Judith and Holofernes (Judit y Holofernes)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 146 cm x 84 cm

This painting forms a pair with Saturn, even though it inverts the terms: here it is a woman who kills a man. It represents a biblical scene (Judith 13) in which Judith cuts off the head of Holofernes. (Valeriano Bozal, Goya-Black paintings)

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Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son (Saturno devorando a un hijo)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Date: 1820 - 1823
Technique: Mixed technique on wall, 143,5 cm x 81,4 cm

The murals that decorated the house of Goya known as the "Quinta del Sordo" have become popular with the title of Black Paintings for use in them is made of dark and black pigments and also by the gloom of the issues. The private and intimate character of this house, caused the artist to express himself in these works with great freedom. Painted directly on walls, the technique must have been mixed, for chemical analysis revealed the use of oils in its composition.

All paintings were ordered to be transferred to canvas by Baron Emile d'Erlanger, who took the "Quinta del Sordo" in 1873. The work suffered greatly with this move, losing a lot of picture layer in the process. Baron finally donated the paintings to the State, being allocated to the Prado Museum, which displays since 1889.

Saturn, at the time of devouring one of his sons, is one of the most expressive images of the Black Paintings. Occupied the wall opposite the La Leocadia (P754) in the downstairs room of the ''Quinta del Sordo''.

The god of mythology could be the personification of a very human feeling such as fear of losing power.

These works, despite the many explanations given by art historians, remain mysterious and enigmatic, however, many problems have aesthetic and moral concerns that appear in the works of Goya.

The murals of the ''Quinta del Sordo'' (Black Paintings) have been determinative in the assessment of the Aragonese painter in the world today. The artists of German Expressionism and Surrealism, or representatives of other contemporary art movements and the world of literature and even movies have seen in this series of compositions of Goya old, isolated in their world and create with complete freedom The origin of modern art.

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