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| Black Paintings | |
|---|---|
| Name | Black Paintings |
| Caption | "Saturn Devouring His Son" by Francisco de Goya |
| Year | 1819–1823 |
| Medium | oil on plaster transferred to canvas |
| Location | Museo del Prado, Madrid |
Black Paintings are a sequence of dark, somber works produced in the early 19th century associated with the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya and executed on the walls of his house, the Quinta del Sordo, during a period marked by political upheaval and personal exile. These images reflect a convergence of personal illness, the aftermath of the Peninsular War, and wider European currents in Romanticism and pessimistic portraiture. They have been central to debates in art history, conservation science, and museum studies since their transfer to canvas and acquisition by the Museo del Prado.
The cycle, created ca. 1819–1823, comprises fourteen large-scale panels that include nightmarish visions, allegorical scenes, and intimate portraits, often cited alongside works by Francisco Goya's contemporaries and successors such as Édouard Manet, Honoré Daumier, Francisco de Zurbarán and Hieronymus Bosch. Scholars link the series to movements and events like Romanticism, the aftermath of the Peninsular War, and the broader cultural shifts following the Napoleonic Wars, with resonances in later bodies of work by Edvard Munch, Francis Bacon, and Pablo Picasso. The panels' provenance includes private ownership, royal acquires, and institutional transfer to the Museo del Prado, intersecting with Spanish state cultural policies under the reigns of Ferdinand VII and the regency contexts preceding the Spanish Constitution of 1812's legacy.
Goya painted the house murals during his later life in the village of Quinta del Sordo near Madrid amid political repression after the restoration of Ferdinand VII. The genesis connects to Goya's earlier commissions for institutions such as the Royal Tapestry Factory and portraits for members of the Spanish court including figures tied to the Cortes of Cádiz debates and the aftermath of the Peninsular War campaigns against Napoleon. Art historians trace stylistic antecedents to works by Diego Velázquez, El Greco, and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and link iconography to events like the executions and terror reported after the Dos de Mayo Uprising and the repression of liberal factions during the Ominous Decade.
The most famous panels include "Saturn Devouring His Son," "The Dog," "Witches' Sabbath," and "The Pilgrimage to San Isidro," all attributed to Francisco de Goya and often compared with paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, prints by Rembrandt van Rijn, and etchings by Albrecht Dürer. Debates about authorship, workshop practice, and studio assistants cite archival records linked to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and collectors such as the Marquis of Salamanca and Pedro de Madrazo. Later artists who engaged with the imagery include Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Max Ernst, and Jackson Pollock in critical and curatorial dialogues at institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
Executed in oil directly on plastered walls, the panels incorporate a limited palette, heavy glazing, and aggressive impasto, techniques echoed in earlier Spanish mural practices exemplified by Diego Velázquez and medieval fresco traditions found in the Alcázar of Segovia and churches of Toledo. Scientific studies using infrared reflectography, X-radiography, and pigment analysis by laboratories associated with the Museo del Prado and the Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España revealed lead white, bone black, and earth pigments consistent with early 19th-century Spanish supplies traded through Seville and Cadiz. The later transfer from plaster to canvas involved lining methods debated in conservation literature and techniques compared with interventions at sites like Pompeii and murals by Michelangelo.
Interpretations emphasize themes of madness, famine, historical violence, and existential horror, linking iconography to biographies of figures such as Mariano Goya's social circle, liberal exiles associated with the Cádiz Cortes, and broader European intellectual currents from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Arthur Schopenhauer. Critics have read the series through lenses informed by studies of trauma from the Peninsular War, commentary by contemporaries like Leopoldo Robert and later commentators including Ernst Gombrich and Arnold Hauser. Comparative readings place the cycle in dialogue with the grotesque imagery of Gustave Doré, the symbolism of Odilon Redon, and the political allegory found in works addressing the French Revolution and the upheavals of 19th-century Europe.
After acquisition by the Spanish state and transfer to the Museo del Prado in the 19th century, the murals underwent a controversial process to remove paintings from the Quinta and mount them on canvas, a practice documented in records held by the Museo del Prado and debated at conservation conferences hosted by institutions like the International Council on Monuments and Sites and the ICOMOS committees. Contemporary conservation employs noninvasive imaging, environmental control strategies implemented in galleries alongside protocols developed at the Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, and interdisciplinary research published through collaborations with the Spanish National Research Council and universities including the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.