Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ImRonBurgundy?]

In my class tonight, we viewed several pieces of Francisco Goya's artwork, and I noticed an effect it had on me that I've never experienced with any sort of classical artwork, or static artwork of any kind, really.

It disturbed me, on a very profound level.  It literally made me physically uneasy, and a little frightened.

Especially this piece, Saturno devorando a un hijo (Saturn Devouring His Son)


Everything about it makes me shudder.  The detail of the half-eaten body, clearly drawn from the scenes of violence that Goya saw every day in his war-torn country during the era of Napoleon, the howling madness of Saturn's eyes, filled with not even any sort of conscious maliciousness, but washed over with a complete lack of regard for, and even incomprehension of, the horrific act he's perpetrating.

tl;dr: Good God, this painting absolutely frightens me.

[tomselleck69]

There is an homage/pastiche of this painting entitled "Santa Devouring the Children" in the form of a magnet on my refrigerator.

[camelpimp]

I honestly can't find it frightening mainly because this is the first time I've ever seen the unedited painting. I've seen it edited like a bajillion times on SomethingAwful, so that trivialized for me. Damn you internet.

[PacoSees]

One of the more disturbing ones, in my opinion, would be the one of the old man eating and the skeleton behind him.

They're chuckling and pointing.

It haunts my nightmares.

[De_El]

This picture makes me kinda hungry. Does that mean there's something wrong with me? Francisco Goya was really fuckin' good, though.

[michaelicious]

Of course there is nothing wrong with you.



Goya Beans are firm and flavourful!

[Cartilage Head]

 I like Goya's art a lot! However there is a much creepier and better painting by Peter Paul Rubens from 1636, which is thought to have inspired Goya's painting.

[Alex C]

I dunno if I would call Rubens' painting better; the crazy proportions in Goya's painting always made the scene more surreal to me. Goya's made me think "WTF!" while Rubens' made me think "Creepy old dude eating children." Then again, maybe I've got a bit of Goya fanboy in me; I liked his work better than Ruben's work in general when I was in humanities class.

Also, Tomselleck69, if you know of a picture of this magnet or perhaps even know of a place where I could purchase a copy, I'd be eternally grateful.

[De_El]

Yeah, in Goya's Saturn looks more like a madman, and less like a grumpy old man.  It's the eyes, the posture.

[ImRonBurgundy?]

The hair, too.  It's arranged like a mane, which lends him a predatory, animalistic appearance.

[tomselleck69]

Also, Tomselleck69, if you know of a picture of this magnet or perhaps even know of a place where I could purchase a copy, I'd be eternally grateful.

http://agooart.com/store/santastore.html

[Alex C]

You are a god among men.

[PacoSees]

Frickin' excellent.

[OrigNES]

I've always like Goya's work aswell as Francis Bacon's Figure with Meat

[KvP]

Saturn reminds me of Bob.

[Cam]

I was staring at the Goya painting and instead of being disturbed I thought, "Hey, it's time for lunch.  Let's get some Szechuan Chicken."  I think the internet may have broken me.

[SevenPinkerton]

I feel bad because I kept trying to figure out what the thing was on his crotch.

Either way, very disturbing picture. His stuff reminds me of some of my favorite Bosch paintings.

[Johnny C]

The work of Francis Bacon is by and large the most disturbing art I've ever come across. His studies of Pope Innocent X are harrowing beyond belief.

I suppose I ought to comment on Goya though. His ability to capture the horrors people perpetrate on themselves was remarkable - look at The Third Of May or the muted, inhuman tones of The Inquisition Tribunal. It would be shallow to suggest, though, that all of his work is grim and bleak. Paul Richardson of The Washington Post said it best:

Goya's pictures show us reassuring beauty--and beauty's scary opposite. Few women in the history of European painting are as lovely as the young Dona Antonia Zarate, whom Goya portrayed graciously in 1805-06. She is proud, demure, intelligent. That swiftly painted wonder of golden silk and healthy skin, black hair, black eyes, black lace, hymns the thought of womanhood--which Goya's "The Old Women (Time)," c. 1808-12, savagely insults. Two hags share a looking glass. They are among the ugliest in European art. The bejeweled blonde is toothless; her eyes are rheumy red. The brunette who sits beside her has been depicted just as cruelly. Some hideous disease, syphilis perhaps, has eaten at her nose. ("Que tal?"--"What's up?"--is the question inscribed on the mirror; are we supposed to laugh?) The figure of gray, winged Death looms behind the women. Instead of a scythe, he lifts aloft a broom, for that is all that's needed to sweep such withered lives away.

The two extremes of his work - quiet, contemplative human innocence and overwhelming monstrosity - create such a wonderful thematic strain in his work. Is more humanity revealed in the acts of violence, or the periods of rest and joy between them?

[Lines]

I've always like Goya's work aswell as Francis Bacon's Figure with Meat

I hadn't seen that painting before, but wow that's awesome.

I enjoy Goya's work. Well, not enjoy, as a lot of it can be grotesque, but I think he's an admirable painter and his work has a large impact on his viewers.

[De_El]

I always thought of Francis Bacon as a famous occultist before I knew he was a painter, and then when I saw Figure with Meat I thought it was fucking boss. Then again, I listened to Marilyn Manson as a child. I retain a fancy for pseudo-...actually how would you describe this? Demonic? Maybe just haunting? It is spooky, that's for sure.

[OrigNES]

The way I see it, Goya's Black Paintings were just brought out by his fear of death after being severly ill, and as for Bacon, it wasn't really demonic, his studies of Pope Innocent X, were showing human anger.

[Lines]

actually how would you describe this? Demonic? Maybe just haunting? It is spooky, that's for sure.

I'd call it unsetteling on the verge of grotesque.

[Uber Ritter]

Speaking of the internet breaking people, was I the only person that thought:

NOM NOM NOM

[Lines]

I don't think that...

[ImRonBurgundy?]

I was imagining more like CRACK KKKKHHT SPLUT GNASH CRUNCH SLOBBER DROOL GROMP

I think that's another reason why the painting affected me so much, was because I could vividly imagine him tearing huge chunks of flesh and bone from the body and crunching them up, with blood and meat squeezing between his teeth.

[KharBevNor]

Stop it, I haven't eaten yet.

My favourite Goya is The Colossus:



I've seen some Goyas at the Louvre, definitely one of those painters where the full power of the work is utterly lost in reproduction.

Also, since we are not even discussing Goyas etchings, why is this in the comics and drawings forum not the arts forum? Man, these forum divisions are confusing! I have said before, we should have one forum for discussing visual arts, and one for posting visual arts what we have created.

Or shall I post an etching?

[KharBevNor]

Bumping this thread for being more interesting that the other threads here.

[mella]

Very intresting

[Martelore]

What I like about the Saturn painting is that it wasn't transferred onto canvas until after Goya's death. He'd painted it directly on a wall in his house, uncommissioned, just for him to personally see.

Goya was seriously hardcore.

[Cartilage Head]

 It is kind of funny imagining the Colossus kind of hopping up on that ledge to get out of the water. Or sitting down then turning around and standing up.