Spangler 1 Kaitlyn Spangler RCL 137H Rhetorical Analysis Essay Saturn Devouring His Child A man is murdered in front

of your eyes. Slashed. Butchered. An unsightly slaughter. Blood coats the ground with a deep, crimson coating. His human body is no longer recognizable, mutilated by stab wounds. You feel helpless. You feel numb, your feet cemented in place. What just happened? A wave of trauma and fear seize your consciousness, yet your face is blank and emotionless. Your eyes remain locked on the gruesome scene. You cannot look away; you do not want to look away. Francisco Goya y Lucientes is a predator of sorts. His professional skill and dark artistic vision prey on the vulnerability of the human mind, an attack of shock and awe. As painter of Saturn Devouring His Child, 1821, Goya specifically targets what he believes to be the driving force of human existence: an irresistible attraction to terror and destruction (Gudiol 107). Through the logos behind the composition of Saturn and his established ethos as an artist of his time, Goya primarily employs a strong pathetic appeal to make a powerful statement about the savagery within humans and a cathartic release of his own bestial cynicism. As a painter, Goya validated his credibility throughout the course of his life and his variety of artworks, manifesting his own ethos. Beginning at the young age of 14, Goya took after his father and joined the art world. In 1789, he became a Court painter for the king, King Charles IV. His classical and realistic style allowed him to become respected in the world of prestige and wealth. However, in 1792, Goya was contracted with a serious illness, leaving him totally deaf and marking a turning point in his career: a transformative step into pessimism. Consequently, this negativity and feelings of impulsive angst from experiences with bloody

Spangler 2 warfare between Spanish citizens and French soldiers amidst the Spanish Inquisition translated into his retreat to the countryside of Bordeaux, Spain in his Quinta del Sordo (House of a Deaf Man). It was in this solitude where, beginning in 1821, he painted his collection, The Black Paintings (Gudoil 124). Distorted faces, an earthy palette, attention to abstract detail, and a progressively darkening attitude culminate these works into a comprehensive reflection of Goyas career from classical court painter to gruesome, dark expressionist (Gudoil 106). Saturn Devouring His Child is a clear product of his blackened mind, a sparkling example of his atypical and vehement artistic intentions. A bearded giant ravenously consumes a doll-sized human, eyes widened with gluttony and madness. It is a scene of grotesque chaos; it startles its viewer. The mystical story about Saturn, god of Agriculture, devouring one of his children after Mother Earth warned him that they would usurp him was not originally interpreted by the cannibalistic mind of Goya. In fact, Peter Paul Rubens illustrated this scene in 1636, exhibited in Le Torre de le Parade (Tomlinson 245).

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Spangler 3 Rubens composition (pictured left) is much more classical, exhibiting idealized anatomy in both the god and the child. The horror of the moment is greatly underplayed through the subtle grey tones, the symmetrical placement of the figures, and the inability to see either figures expression directly. The pose feels weak, as if tediously planned, and the image is not overtly abrasive, especially at first glance. Upon further inspection, the scene unravels itself as disturbing and uncomfortable. Yet, Goya clearly used this image as a reference and adjusted Rubens Baroque style to implement his own logos. Overall, this scene embodies a gloomy color spectrum, primarily dark blacks, browns, and grays. The pops of crimson red, however, in the dripping blood of the corpse interrupt this glum attitude with gore and provocation, an interruption of the theme of fleshy, subdued tones. Through an expressionistic and focused vision, Goya placed his god askew and off-balance, as if the viewer is stumbles upon this act from a random and unexpected vantage point. The human form of Saturn is no longer idealized but, instead, a thin, wrinkly, and aged body. The victim being consumed is no longer a child but a full-grown man with no time to defend himself, mutilated beyond the point of recognition. The wide eyes of Goyas Saturn emanate crazed paranoia and fear; the visual has distorted into an aggressive confrontation. Although the giant can be understood as an emblem of Goyas increasing age and pessimism and the violence could be connected to the political turmoil in Spain during the Inquisition, Saturn in its entirety cannot simply be reduced to these elementary concepts (Tomlinson 246-247). There was a certain improvisation required to construct such an image, a level of creativity and purpose to synthesize the composition, technique, color, and design into this particular spectacle. Goya has taken a mythical tale with an existing visual representation and has constructed his own. This process of choosing how to manipulate current ideals, like the classical style of painting, deciding what should remain or be erased, like the

Spangler 4 straggly beard of the god versus the representation of the child, or even utilizing an appropriate aesthetic scheme, like the consistently gloomy colors, is where Goyas individual logic is validated in his esteem as an artist. His decisions portrayed through this painting grab the viewer by the hand and welcome them into his own mind, behind each dip of the brush and each swift, illuminating stroke. Saturn allows its beholder to embrace and interpret the ferocity intimately, piercing with methodological daggers. With regard to pathos, this painting is not subtle, nor is it meant to be. Instead, it cuts to the heart of the matter: a direct drive to the complexities and horrors of human fear. By using an aquatint technique that literally emerges the figure from darkness to light by, the emphasis is clearly put on the face of the giant. The viewers gaze darts into those of Saturn, his rolling eyes bursting through his scraggly bearded face. Saturn returns the gaze, into the soul, with desire and terror. Behind this image lies an emotive theme and purpose: to convince the viewer of the existence of the, as Gudoil puts it, savage eroticism and repulsive senility hidden behind the visage of each human being (106). One could get lost in the depths of the eyes bulging toward us, in which he clearly loses his own identity and control. The brutality he inflicts is addictive to him, an unstoppable act, like the steady drip of morphine. The helplessness and distress he expresses with his desperate stare, clenched fists, and voracious hunger suggest that it is not entirely his fault, that within him, good and evil are not distinct; he is currently and constantly struggling between the pull of the two forces that consummate in this point of self-destruction and sabotage. As critic Suzanne Singletary states, Goya appropriated the trope of the cannibal as a metaphor for the abstract concept of irrationality, emblematized in these scenes of predation and bestiality. Using the human form as a vehicle, Goya elaborated a pessimistic view concerning the likelihood of quelling human destructiveness through societal reform

Spangler 5 (Singletary). This emotion is found in the aesthetic of the unfinished that Goya attempts to create. With hasty brush strokes, an abstract human form, and absence of clarity or definition, the audience is meant to feel that nothing is ever completely finished but instead in cyclical transition. Saturn is devouring his own son, a cycle from life-giver to life-taker. Jay Scott Morgan describes it as a perverse communion in which at its most basic concept, a man is consuming his own flesh and blood (Morgan). This unexplainable irrationality combined with the sketchiness of the figures sums up this aesthetic appeal. It reflects the chaotic turbulence of the everyday human experience and translates the experiences between death, lust, greed, violence, and power into one static, cumulative image. The audience of this painting, however, plays a key role in the importance and message of Goyas piece. Saturn was a Black Painting, a painting done directly on the wall of Goyas La Quinta del Sordo. As a wall mural on the ground floor, it was not meant for the general public. Unlike his previous court paintings, Saturn was not officially released, but, instead, Goya painted it for himself alone. It was a source of catharsis and a means of synthesizing his careers goals and influences. No longer was he in need of proving himself to nobility, and he could illustrate his disconnected sense of reality through experimentation with color and form (Tomlinson 247). What better place to do this than on a wall of his everyday living space? Thus, these murals were grandiose in scale, 57.5 by 32.75 to be specific. The viewer inside Goyas house was theoretically consumed by the painting, submerged in darkness and forced to experience the image face to face. The giant figure seemed to emerge from the shadow, a direct influence on the experience of the audience who not only sees but also feels the painting. During his life, Goya did not assign any of the Black Paintings names. So, the title relating this image to Saturn devouring his child was a posthumous addition, in which this painting would have lacked any

Spangler 6 means of narration upon his wall. The viewer is then pushed and prodded into viewing this for no stated reason, in which Goya ignites the ethos of his skill. With this, he needs no permission but presents this painting with an absence of justification to those who stumbled upon it. T Immersing an audience into paranoia and fear for no immediate cause was pioneered by German entrepreneur, Etienne-Gaspard Roberson, at the Principe Theatre in Madrid. By showing a film using a magic lantern he seemingly produces visual images of phantoms and fantastical creatures. Before this theatrical invention, people were left to use their imagination with sources like Gothic literature feeding them dark and brooding images. This magic lantern provided people with a means to confront and experience contact with the supernatural world. Seemingly, Goyas logic was to attempt to recreate this experience. Instead of recreating the illustration of the myth of Saturn, he rethought the essential theme and motivation of the story. Saturn embodies unbounded paranoia (Tomlinson 248). His loss of self maintains potential within all of us, as humans, which is an uncomfortable truth avoided by the everyday conscience. Yet, what Goya thrusts in the lap of the viewer is that this innate hunger for violence and greed is bound to consume us all one day; we are all destined for insanity. In general, a painting is not allowed the privilege of words or explanation. It is an illustration of reality through a specific perspective. In Goyas case, he captured intense emotion through his purposeful attention to detail and composition. This reflects his distortion of the Baroque style in Rubens original print, his quirky and offsetting composition, the bold brush strokes, brooding and gloomy colors, with accents of bright red blood, and his placement of this painting in his own home. Combining these factors and intentions opens the door for this work to be continuously analyzed, fought over, confused about, and interpreted. While putting so much effort into one picture, an artist can only hope that their work continues to remain relevant.

Spangler 7 Goyas Saturn goes beyond the relevance of the 1820s and still continues to invoke thought and meaning into those who try to unpack his rhetorical message. It still encourages us to ask the question: What lies beneath our skin, through our gaze, and into our soul?

Spangler 8 Works Cited Gudiol, Jose. Goya. Comp. Ediciones Poligrafa. New York: Distributed Art, 2008. Print. Moffitt, John F. "Painters 'Born Under Saturn:' The Physiological Explanation." Art History. 2nd ed. Vol. 11. (1988). 195-216. EBSCO. Web. 8 Oct. 2012. Morgan, Jay Scott. ""The Mystery of Goya's Saturn" by Jay Scott Morgan." New England Review, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2012. <http://cat.middlebury.edu/~nereview/223/morgan.html>. Singletary, Suzanne M. "Dystopia: Goya's Cannibals." Aurora: The Journal Of The History Of Art 5. (2004): 56-81. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 8 Oct. 2012 Tomlinson, Janis A. Francisco Goya Y Lucientes: 1746 - 1828. London: Phaidon, 1994. Print.