Francisco Goya was an 18th-19th century Spanish painter and printmaker. Odilon Redon was a 19th-20th century painter and printmaker. The two artists, though separated by a century, share a similar style and perspective. Goya lived through the Romantic-Enlightenment era and saw the unraveling of society on the Continent as the Old World values were swept away be Enlightenment philosophy and Romantic dreams. Redon lived to reflect the aftermath of that era: his symbolist paintings show a world that is half-mad, yet totally focused on itself and its grandiose ideas. Together, Goya and Redon cover three centuries of thought and activity in Europe. Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son (1819-1823) and Redon’s The Smiling Spider (1887) both show strangeness in the extreme and depict a frightening aspect of the world that is at once nightmarish and bizarrely humorous. This paper will provide an analysis of Goya’s and Redon’s respective works.
Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son shows Saturn, the Roman god, who ate his children because he feared they would overthrow him. It is a cruel and grisly subject, but one that Goya felt reflected the world in which he lived where so much fighting, violence, and bloodshed was overwhelming Europe. The Protestant Revolution had led to wars (Laux); the French Revolution had led to wars (Holsti); Napoleon had invaded country after country, and the Spanish Inquisition was trying to root out crypto Jews (Elliot; Roth). In short, there was carnage everywhere, much of it being committed by those in power towards those who were innocent and defenseless.
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In other words, the world in Europe very much reflected the story of Saturn eating his own children so that they would not take power from him (Cunninghma, Reich).
The painting is an oil mural transferred to canvas and is 56 in x 32 in. It is quite large to look at, which is appropriate given the immense monstrosity that is its subject. Saturn is depicted like a wild beast of an old man—naked and crazed, his eyes wide with terror as he bites the head off one of his children. Saturn does not appear like a rational man or a man who has anyone’s best interests at heart. The look of terror in his eyes reflects the animalistic terror in his posture. He is crouched as though expecting to receive a blow from any direction at any one minute. To look the subject in the face is to feel like one is looking a cornered, frightened but vicious dog in the face. Saturn is lashing out in the only way he knows how to protect himself—eating those whom he fears. The scene is cast in dark colors. Saturn’s long gray hair, which should be a reflection of wisdom and serenity, is tussled about as though there were a tempest in Saturn’s mind. He is eating into his nude babe as though the child were a steak sandwich. The scene is gruesome—yet humorous because….....
