Goya: Man and Myth
Every society has its myths, stories that explain the time-honored order of things. Humankind does what it does now because of ancient prototypes. As Man does, so did the gods. But what of a society in a state of turmoil? What of a man whose very life is filled with questions? Saturn devours his children, subverts the natural order of the universe. With brutal forthrightness, Goya used an ancient myth to capture the questions of his times and of his life. Humanity is but the plaything of a capricious fate, a helpless doll in the hands of a wild-eyed giant. Yet not only the subject of the painting, but even the manner in which it is painted speak to the horrors of Goya's age and to the hidden darkness of his own mind. Quick brush strokes, sketchy outlines, colors merging into shadow, all comprise the anguished cry of a man lost in a world without easy answers, a world where nothing is black and white, where the line between dream and nightmare is hopelessly blurred.
Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes was born in a small village in the bleak Spanish province of Aragon in the year 1746. Blue skies and golden sun, brown earth and sun-parched stone -- such were the colors of the Spanish landscape. The Spain into which Goya was born was a land of religion and despotism, a place where ancient pride and past glory gave meaning and substance to a state in decline, to a people increasingly cut off from the mainstream of European thought and culture. Goya's family was of the Hidalgo class; petty noblemen who had no more than a name, and so were forced to make their own way in the world. (Buchholz p.8) Thus for Goya the painter,...
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