Monsters Of Reason: Goya’s Black Paintings And Their Psychology

Was Francisco de Goya’s suffering the result of some psychological disorder? Or was it perhaps due to the desperate patina that his age, deafness, and the violence experienced in troubled Spain brought him? Or maybe it was a combination of all this. We cannot ignore the creative universe of every artist: the problems of our own lives are reflected in every fabric and even in the range of colors that get on that fabric.

The so-called black paintings of Goya constitute fourteen works that represented a significant change in his career. He walked from light to shadow. He was a master of colors and ended up living in a home where darkness stained its walls. He, who had been the most famous portrait painter of Spanish Enlightenment society, ended up decorating his home with a deformed, burlesque-like and demonic face.

Those characters perhaps served him to banish his feelings, thoughts, and all the horrors he had seen and experienced before. Thus, and almost unaware of it, Goya anticipates contemporary art. That deliberate transformation and the tone in which the darkness of the tortured soul trembled opened the doors to expressionism.

Goya black paintings and their psychology

Mercury opera, solar pigment, lead white, vine wood black, Prussian blue and ocher yellow in various forms. These were the pigments that Francisco de Goya himself made and that served him to create those famous works by Quinta del Sordo. Thanks to various historical documents and evidence of the era, we even know today where the paintings were located.

On the top floor of the building was a duel with clubs ( Dos forasteros or Duelo a garrotazos ) , Pyhiinvaellus San Isidro source ( El Santo Oficio or peregrinacion a la Fuente, San Isidro ) , Asmodea ( Asmodea or Visión Fantastice) , buried dog ( Perro semihundido or El Perro ) , Atropos ( Átropos or Las Parcas ) and Two Women and a Man ( Dos Mujeres y un hombre ) .

Most interestingly, the most dark-speaking and powerful works Goya made in the dining room, located on the ground floor and used for social gatherings. There was Saturn eating his son ( Saturno devorando a su hijo) , Pilgrimage to San Isidro ( La Romería de San Isidro) , Witch Sabbath / Great Goat ( El aquelarre / El Gran cabrón) , Una Manola ( La Leocadia) , Two monks ( Dos viejos, dos Frailes or  Un viejo y un Fraile ) and Judit and Holofernes ( Judith y Holofernes) .

It didn’t matter to Goya that the few visitors who visited him were shocked by these pictures. And he didn’t care that he could have been reported. Goya was always that unpleasant figure for the Inquisition, for every ecclesiastical institution that saw in Goya an artist who did not hesitate to portray abusers of power.

One of the goals of Goya’s psychology of black paintings has been to understand what made him do them. We don’t just wonder about his mental state whether he suffers from some mental disorder or not. One of the doubts is whether he painted his work out of a mere emotional need, out of simple pleasure, or whether he wanted to leave something to his descendants (and especially to his grandson, to whom he bequeathed his residence in Quinta del Sordon).

Let us next analyze some aspects of Goya’s work to better understand his inner world.

The dream of reason produces monsters: Susac’s syndrome

To understand Goya’s black paintings, it’s interesting to stop first for his Los Caprichos series. Already these 80 prints give us a clue about the life change of this Aragonese artist. At that time, his autoimmune disease was already present.

This autoimmune disease, known as Susac syndrome, was diagnosed in Goya when she was 46 years old. The illness dramatically impaired his physical and psychological health. The headaches were constant, as were dizziness and blurred vision. All of this created a new pigment in the art of the Aragonese master: darkness and anxiety.

One of the neurological consequences of this rare disease was deafness. His sensual abilities were distorted and they lost strength, light, sound, and hope; in the same way as the society in which he was immersed. Los Caprichos was Goya’s first approach to ignorance, toward that inner world where he managed to capture in a grotesque, horrific, and fantastic way that others could not.

Through these prints, Goya brought us a reflection of the superstition of the people of that era; faith in demons, witches and ghosts. These nocturnal creatures invaded the artist’s dreams.

Delirium tremens has a bright but sick mind

We can find disturbing figures in much of the work of Francisco de Goya (1746-1828). Was this a reflection of some mental disorder? Absolutely. They were the exceptional creations of this artist , reflecting the absurdities of the weakened society in which he himself lived and which drove him to despair.

Few faces of the artistic world conveyed so well inner suffering, loneliness, fear, and despair. When Goya arrived at his farmhouse, La Quinta del Sordo, his mind was still captivated by memories, the sounds of executions, the pain experienced in exile, and the burning of disloyalty.

As Dr. Ronna Hertzano of the University of Maryland has explained, Susac syndrome leads to inflammation in the brain. This in turn leads to hallucinations and impaired blood circulation in the eye and ear area. This, in turn, results in a variety of consequences, such as deafness, vision problems, and suffering.

Goya’s black paintings do not contain light because Francisco de Goya felt no hope. He was a desperate man who suffered in an equally chaotic world. His “Saturn,” which eats his own son, or “Judith and Holofernes,” later served as the mythological characters Freud used in his own theories. The symbolic meaning of these last works is nothing more than to represent the worst and most primitive side of man. Our darkest and darkest desires.

Goya connected with them and gave them form. He was the canal that brought to us the darkest sides of our nature, the shadows we don’t always want to see.