The whole messy investigation
Right, so this started because I stumbled across a picture of Saturn eating his son. You know the one – looks like a nightmare. Gruesome. And the caption said it was by this Goya fella. Weird, I thought. Didn’t peg him for that kind of vibe. Mostly knew him from those royal portraits. So, curiosity properly poked, I grabbed my laptop.
Typed “why Goya black paintings” straight into the search bar. Simple as that. Found squat. Tons of pictures, sure, paintings looking like somebody smeared mud and despair across a canvas. Real grim stuff. But a decent, straight why? Nothing obvious. Lots of fancy art words dancing around. Annoying.
Dug deeper. Read summaries until my eyes crossed. Apparently, he painted them right onto the walls of his house near Madrid. Like, his actual house walls. Who does that? Especially huge, dark, messed-up scenes. “The Dog” is just this tiny thing sinking into… nothingness? What was that about? Seems insane. Was the guy losing it?
Needed clearer answers. Poked around historical stuff next. Spain was a mess back then. Wars, political purges, the king was a joke. Goya went deaf after a bad illness. Life kinda sucked. Maybe that’s it? Just pure rage and sadness splattered on the plaster. Like a visual scream?
Found some stuff hinting he never meant anyone to see them. They were private. His secret freak-out space painted onto the dining room? That changed things. Not art for show. Art for him. Felt more like desperate magic, like trying to trap his demons on the wall.
Then, the house thing clicked again. He painted straight onto the walls! Massive paintings! “Fight With Cudgels” – two blokes beating each other stupid forever, trapped on the wall. Imagine living with that staring at you every damn day. Heavy.
The more I stared at the images – witches flying, weird gatherings, that despairing dog – the more it felt less about storytelling and more about feeling. The sheer physical effort too, an old, sick, deaf dude climbing ladders to pour this intensity out directly onto his house? That’s not just art; it’s something raw.
So, putting it together?
- His world imploded politically.
- He went deaf.
- He nearly died from illness.
- Then he bought a house and covered its walls with pure, unvarnished doom and despair.
Maybe the why wasn’t one thing. Maybe it was the whole horrible pile crashing down. Seems like the Black Paintings were less about “making art” and more like bleeding onto the walls. Didn’t try to be special. Just terrifyingly honest. That’s probably why they claw at you.
