The Black Paintings - Atropos

Goya Atropos Painting
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The Black Paintings
Atropos

also called
The Fates
Las Parcas

1820-23 Oil on gesso transferred to linen
123 cm x 266 cm
Museo del Prado Madrid Spain


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"...Goya again includes a small number of clues that suggest a classical myth, only to contradict such a conventional interpretation. In this case we see hovering, floating figures, one of which is intent upon spinning, while another holds a pair of scissors aloft. The action of the central figure is indecipherable but might be interpreteed as measuring and winding the thread of life. The spinning and the cutting of thread are immediately reminiscent of traditional renditions of the Three Fates. But Goya destroys this easy interpretation by including a fourth figure that cannot be explained away. This figure prominently displays what might be either a lorgnon or a magnifying glass. It may well be that Goya began this painting, as well as the Saturn, with a fairly definite theme in mind, which was then altered and superceded by the obsessive and inexplicable intervention of a more personal and enigmatic symbolism that rose to the surface while the artist worked." Fred Licht, from his book Goya, published by Abbeville Press 2001, page 221.

 

Goya's the "Black Paintings"
Atropos (The Fates)
Goat

Fight with Cudgels

Two Women

Men Reading

Old Men

Asmodea

Old Men Eating

Saturn

La Leocadia
Writings about the Black Paintings
The Black Paintings
De Salas on the Black Paintings
Lubow on the Black Paintings



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