Boundaries, Bodies, and Romantic Medievalisms in Goya's Black Paintings

The early 19th century is often defined by Napoleon’s reign and the wars that engulfed Europe. Ridley Scott’s recent film Napoleon reminds us of the death, bloodshed, and upheaval that reshaped nations and global relations. Napoleon’s occupation of Spain (1808–1814) not only sparked a brutal liberation war but also diminished Spain’s power, resulting in the loss of many American colonies. Yet, amid this chaos, art served as a critical lens through which to process the horrors of war and shifting global dynamics. One striking example is Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings (Pinturas Negras), where the boundaries between personal, national, and psychological spaces dissolve.

Goya, one of the most celebrated Romantic artists, revitalised medieval aesthetics during a time of global turmoil. Like his contemporaries in literature (Matthew Lewis’s The Monk), art (Fuseli’s The Nightmare), and architecture (Strawberry Hill House), Goya drew on the macabre and the supernatural to explore darker human truths. But unlike earlier painters who sought to beautify reality, Goya’s Black Paintings portray a bleak, dehumanised world. Painted directly onto the walls of his home in Madrid, these works blend global conflict, psychological anguish, and medieval symbolism into a nightmarish vision of humanity.

In Atropos or The Fates, Goya depicts the three Fates suspended in a barren, distorted landscape. Their grotesque forms – disproportionate bodies, sunken eyes, and exaggerated features – evoke unease. Their positioning, gazing in different directions, implies omnipresence, as if no corner of the earth escapes their influence. The muted browns and yellows of the background intensify the sense of despair as life, death, and time loom over a desolate world. The painting’s uncanny figures and unsettling vastness transcend traditional human boundaries, blurring the lines between physical and psychological spaces.

^ Atropos or The Three Fates, Francisco de Goya (1820-23), Museo del Prado. (Wikipedia).

Remarkably, Goya never intended these paintings for public display. Their placement on his home’s walls suggests an intimate connection to his psyche, where the personal becomes inseparable from global anxieties. His home, traditionally a private sanctuary, transforms into a canvas for his darkest visions – an interior space reflecting external chaos. This dissolution of boundaries mirrors the broader disruptions of the Napoleonic era, as national borders shifted and global conflict reshaped identities.

Goya’s deteriorating physical and mental health may have further influenced the Black Paintings. Suffering from conditions like Susac’s Syndrome or syphilis, which left him deaf and in poor health, Goya was isolated from the world. His home became both his refuge and his prison, its walls a medium for exploring his internal torment. The psychological dimension of these works suggests that the hellish worlds they depict might reflect Goya’s own state of mind.

Left: Photograph of Quinta del Sordo, c.1900, with Goya’s heirs. Magazine La Ilustración Española y Americana on July 15, 1909. It was demolished in 1909. (Wikipedia).

Right: Diagram of the possible locations of the Black Paintings in Goya’s home, La Quinta del Sordo. (Wikipedia).

Perhaps the most infamous of the Black Paintings is Saturn Devouring His Son. In this grotesque scene, Saturn – a hulking, inhuman figure – devours his child against a void-like black background. The crimson blood dripping from the infant’s mutilated body is one of the few vibrant colours in the Black Paintings, heightening its visceral impact. Blood here is both personal and universal: it symbolises individual suffering and the widespread carnage of war. Saturn’s frenzied expression, with wide, bulging eyes, confronts the viewer directly, inspiring both fear and self-reflection. His face is one of madness and horror, suggesting he is as much a victim of his own violence as his child.

This depiction contrasts starkly with Peter Paul Rubens’ 1636 version of Saturn. Rubens portrays the myth with classical grace: Saturn, though violent, retains a human dignity, set against a celestial background of stars that suggest hope and divinity. His action - striking at the infant’s heart – suggests an emotional tragedy, aligning with classical values that prioritise feeling. In Goya’s version, however, Saturn devours the head, representing the destruction of knowledge and reason. This shift from emotion to wisdom reflects the Romantic era’s preoccupation with the irrational and the grotesque, drawing inspiration from medieval themes of decay and darkness.

Ultimately, Goya’s Black Paintings present a world stripped of hope and humanity, where the boundaries between home and chaos, self and other, are irrevocably blurred. Painted during a time of personal and national crisis, these works are as much about Spain’s loss of power as they are about Goya’s internal struggles. By rooting his visions in the medieval revival while confronting the horrors of his time, Goya created a body of work that transcends the local and personal, resonating with the global anxieties of war, loss, and mortality.