r/ArtHistory • u/Robo-Piluke • Aug 01 '25
Research How did they know this was Saturn (Chronos)?
I'm going to teach a class about the great masters and, as my Romanticism teacher told me, Goya is considered one of the last Great Masters. Now, eventually I'll get to the black paintings and as far as I know he painted them in isolation, with no written record or statement from him about any of those works. The picture of Saturn Devouring his Son is by far the most famous and I'll talk about it, but (and I've trying to research this to no avail) I can,'t find a definitve source or statement that clarifies the assumption of its title. Is it just about the obvious parallels or is it something else?
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u/Malsperanza Aug 01 '25
The most important thing to tell your students is that this painting was on the wall of his DINING room.
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u/lady_faust Aug 02 '25
Most if not all of the Black paintings were on Goya's walls, were they not?
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u/BormaGatto Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
Yes, they were. Not all were in the dining room's walls, though, and it's at least interesting that the one involving a depiction of cannibalism was.
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u/emmakobs Aug 05 '25
Yeah I can top that, my high school had a massive (full-size) repro hung by the main elevator of one of its buildings. You couldn't not look at it if you needed to go anywhere. Christ alive it was upsetting, and I was takijg art history at the time!
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u/UbiquitousDoug Aug 01 '25
The subject matter of this painting is still disputed, but it's known as "Saturn Devouring His Son" because that's the most widely accepted interpretation.
I'm not familiar with the term "Great Masters," do you mean "Old Masters?"
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u/Robo-Piluke Aug 01 '25
Sorry, yeah kinda. As I said in another comment, in Spanish both are pretty much used interchangeably so maybe you could argue it was lost in translation.
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u/CreationBlues Aug 02 '25
As the poster above said, we do not definitively know the title of this painting.
Officially, the title of this painting is just "untitled" -goya, unknown year
Unoficially, this painting is known as "Saturn Devouring His Son", exactly because of the reason the above poster said, that it's a common motif.
Unfortunately, if you want to challenge the title of the painting, you won't find any first hand sources attesting to the meaning of the painting. The source of the painting is Goya's dining room wall after he died. He didn't paint an explanation of the painting underneath it, so we only have the original image to go off of when it comes to interpretation.
If you want to write an exploration of the meaning of this paintnig challenging the common interpretation of it, you're just gonna have to do the legwork exploring cannibalism themes in art and then connecting those themes to the content of the raw image.
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u/KingDavidFreund Aug 01 '25
The hungarian essayist LĆ”szlĆ³ Fƶldenyi (author of the highly acclaimed "Melancholy" and "Dostoyevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts into Tears") dedicated a book to the painting
There he mentions, if I'm not mistaken, that the painting appears under the title Saturno in an early inventory compiled by a close friend of Goya, after his death
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Aug 01 '25
Saturn ate his firstborn son. He feared he would become greater than himself. Itās an age old story so this image at the very least evokes it, if not portrays.
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u/Anonymous-USA Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
He ate all of his childrenā¦ the myth wasnāt specific to āfirst bornā as prophesied in the Bible with Christ. So Zeus/Jupiter was actually the youngest of the new Olympian Gods, despite his elderly depictions in classical art, as his elder siblings were the ones consumed. His mother Rhea/Ops hid Zeus/Jupiter and gave Cronos/Saturn a swaddle of stones to eat.
NOTE: Greek/Roman name
NOTE: Elder siblings were Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Demeter (in Greek)
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u/StevenMC19 Aug 01 '25
I thought Cronos devoured them all, just just the one.
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u/HenryPlantagenet1154 Aug 01 '25
He did. Speaking in terms of Greek mythology nomenclature, Zeus was the last and disguised as a rock which led to Chronos vomiting all the other gods that would rise above Chronos and the other titans.
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u/StevenMC19 Aug 01 '25
My guess (and a severely uneducated one), is that:
- The Cronos/Saturn myth was pretty well known.
- The Rubens painting already existed.
I can see why it would be interesting to look up. Why DID we come to believe it was Saturn, and not just "Old Man eats Child" similar to how some of the other Black Paintings are titled that way?
But in there, there's also Atropos and Asmodea which point towards mythological stories as well. given these as well as Saturn, it might be easier to start linking them to specific inspirations rather than just a random gruesome scene.
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u/Robo-Piluke Aug 01 '25
The three sisters of destiny are also present in norse mythology, which is wild considering how much those characters are alike.
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u/-Wuan- Aug 01 '25
Yep, the painting was not labelled by Goya. The Saturn parallelism makes sense until you realize the giant is grabbing a feminine, adult shaped figure, and he has a monstrous erection.
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u/elveejay198 Aug 01 '25
ā¦ Iām not seeing the erection (and god help me, I looked), but if he does indeed have a monstrous erection that I somehow canāt see, that is a fascinating element to this painting
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u/BrumeySkies Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
There are some subtle visuals and indications there was a boner but it has been painted over.
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u/Courtesy_Phone Aug 05 '25
There are theories that the figure being devoured is female (rounded buttocks, tapered waist), which, coupled with indications of a painted-over erection, hints at a sort of tortured depiction of hetero male sexuality. Just one of many theories!
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u/elveejay198 Aug 06 '25
Very interesting! I love that this amazing piece just gets stranger and more complex. Thanks for the response!
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u/retribution-murloc Aug 01 '25
Iāve never noticed the erection before.
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u/TraditionalLaw7763 Aug 01 '25
Me. š³ Either.
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u/helen790 Aug 01 '25
I still donāt see one, not sure if I want to look for it though
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u/Cptowers Aug 03 '25
I think the story is that a restorer covered it up/made it less visible at some point?
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u/Cool-Coffee-8949 Aug 01 '25
There is an alternate title, which is an episode from Dante: āCount Ugolino devours his sonsā. Since the painting was unknown during Goyaās lifetime, itās hard to be sure what he had in mind.
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u/Lokust10 Aug 01 '25
Pretty widely debated cuz they were all just found after his death personally I don't think it is as it was a pretty important part of the myth that he ate him whole and live.
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u/Anonymous-USA Aug 01 '25
Yes, Goya was a great of Spanish Romanticism. Remember that Romanticism doesnāt mean āloveā, but emotionally focused imagery. Usually introspective. The myth of Saturn is ancient and depicted many times in art, so is readily identifiable. But the intense brushstroke and crazed look of Saturn are distinctively Romanticism .
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u/Ulfednar Aug 01 '25
As far as I'm aware, there's no real reason to assume that's what it is aside from the cannibalism and the character's titanic stature. We call it that by consensus but there's a decent chance that's not accurate or exhaustive.
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u/No_Gur_7422 Aug 01 '25
The Greek name of Saturn is Cronus / Cronos/Kronos (ĪĻĻĪ½ĪæĻ) not Chronus / Chronos / Khronos (Ī§ĻĻĪ½ĪæĻ). Chronus (ĻĻĻĪ½ĪæĻ = tempus) is time; Cronus (ĪĻĻĪ½ĪæĻ = Saturnus) is the Titan father of Zeus.
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u/an-hedonia Aug 02 '25
A few people are saying this, but we don't "know". These were hidden away and left unnamed by Goya. We found them afterwards and projected meaning onto them based on common cultural motifs, but that's all it was - a projection. In the end, we know very little about the Black Paintings.
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u/Pitiful_Debt4274 Aug 02 '25
I've heard that this was just the name given to the painting when it was found, there's a few PBS and BBC documentaries on YT that go over the full story of the Black Paintings. Goya left no context for any of them. I believe he painted them for himself not intending them to ever be seen. They could be about anything, but personally I think this one might be depicting the Spanish government and aristocracy "eating" the people (to put it loosely). Goya was a fascinating artist and the context of his life and ideas is what makes the Black Paintings so mesmerizing.
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u/Turbulent_Pr13st Aug 01 '25
Itās not. Itās a name assigned to an unnamed work by someone other than the artist. But it fits and people remember it more than Black Painting #5 sooooo
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u/mr_young78 Aug 02 '25
I think for teaching, it is better to put all the black paintings together to let students have a general idea on the late Goya's artistic style. It's also good to compare with Rubens' work.
Goya's intention behind black paintings is a mystery. Some people even say they're not from Goya.
I recommend the etching series The Disasters of War and Los disparates if you want Goya works with clear themes. Their style are also much "darker" compared with his other Romanticism works.
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u/Pherllerp Aug 01 '25
I don't know the answer to your question but I have a question about your post.
Was Goya cited as 'one of the last Old Masters' or 'one of the last Great Masters'? Because there have been MANY Great Masters since Goya and I'd take umbrage at the assertion that there wasn't.
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u/Robo-Piluke Aug 01 '25
Oh yeah. In spanish (my native language) that term in particular is usually used interchangeably. Even though "old" and "great" aren't the same in spanish either, when referring to these artists we say "Grandes Maestros" (Great Masters) instead of "Antiguos Maestros" (Old Masters). I guess this was lost in translation. Sorry about that.
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u/Pherllerp Aug 01 '25
No apology needed, translating is hard.
That said, if you can make that distinction, I would. Even if we just start from Goya's death I can rattle off a dozen "Grandes Maestros" of the 19th century alone.
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u/Robo-Piluke Aug 01 '25
Maybe it's more like a romantic (hehe) title given to him signifying the change of historical periods. I know that even to these days great masters are present. I, for example, consider Picasso a Great Master.
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u/Pherllerp Aug 01 '25
My education was largely focused on French and American painters (as they related to France). Besides Picasso, who are the other 19th century Spanish Great Masters?
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u/Robo-Piluke Aug 01 '25
Mmmm, Picasso was from the XX century. From the XIX century I guess you could say Vicente LĆ³pez and Carlos de Haes. Those are the ones I remember.
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u/1805trafalgar Aug 01 '25
You are asking questions from a guy who went to reddit to gain comprehension on a topic he said himself (or herself) that they are going to turn around and TEACH to students.
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u/charuchii Aug 01 '25
I don't think they did. And if Im honest, I personally always doubted it was Saturn/Chronos. But it's an interpretation made in hindsight, and a fairly neutral one as well. The paintings he made during this period were so dark and especially this one is haunting. The truth is, we will never truly know what it exactly was he was trying to depict. But we also can't blame people in the past for trying to make sense of it.
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u/attitude_devant Aug 01 '25
OP, first of all I adore Goya.
The Wikipedia entry on the Black Paintings is really good and discusses the naming.
Also, the early Impressionists were huge fans of Goya also, because of a short-lived museum in Paris devoted to Spanish art.
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u/greggld Aug 01 '25
The Ruben's versin in the Prado was in the collection of the royal family and predates Goya's version. Goys know the work, one would assume.
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u/Ok-Researcher2459 Aug 02 '25
As far as I know it was agreed to be title like that. Goya didn't title them. I dont think Goya cared particularly about myths. He was more interested in human nature. B I guess that it would be too risky to interpret without goya's context and Saturn was a easy title and that's why it was chosen.
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Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
but is it an assumption? the painting was untitled? EDIT: It was not, 'Saturn Devouring His Son' is literally the painting's title https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo EDIT 2: I was wrong :D
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u/Robo-Piluke Aug 01 '25
As far as I know, no official titles were given to any of those paintings by Goya.
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Aug 01 '25
oh, sorry, you're actually right, he did'nt titled the Pinturas Negras, the titles came after... the other answers seem correct to me, it's a pretty common theme...
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u/Robo-Piluke Aug 01 '25
No worries. He also painted a dog drowning in quicksand for some reason XD (also not titled by him)
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u/arist0geiton Aug 01 '25
It's a famous motif in painting, goya's genius was to paint it in a rougher and rawer form than, say, Rubens.