Did this person depict lots of mythological figures?
Nope! It’s been a few decades since my art history lectures but my memory is (and wikipedia agrees) that he did a lot of portraits and battle scenes. IIRC his battle paintings inspired Picasso’s. His late work is especially dark - madness and horror type stuff. Sinister distorted figures. They’re often called The Black Paintings.
if this is common knowledge
Quite the opposite. This painting was used in a slide in my greek mythology class during the lecture about the titans and chronos. Then in an art history class I learned the context, which I feel is much less known.
Various interpretations of the meaning of the picture have been offered: the conflict between youth and old age, time as the devourer of all things, the wrath of God and an allegory of the situation in Spain, where the fatherland consumed its children in wars and revolution. There have been explanations rooted in Goya’s relationships with his son, Javier, the only of his six children to survive to adulthood, or with his live-in housekeeper and possible mistress, Leocadia Weiss; the sex of the body being consumed cannot be determined with certainty. If Goya made any notes on the picture, they did not survive, as he never intended the picture for public exhibition.
Wait, I knew what it was normally called but never heard of the context. Did this person depict lots of mythological figures?
Apologies if this is common knowledge, I am incapable of remembering certain things.
Nope! It’s been a few decades since my art history lectures but my memory is (and wikipedia agrees) that he did a lot of portraits and battle scenes. IIRC his battle paintings inspired Picasso’s. His late work is especially dark - madness and horror type stuff. Sinister distorted figures. They’re often called The Black Paintings.
Quite the opposite. This painting was used in a slide in my greek mythology class during the lecture about the titans and chronos. Then in an art history class I learned the context, which I feel is much less known.
TIL!