The Black Paintings - Goat

Goya Goat Paintings

Goat
also called
Witches Sabbath

1820-23 Oil on gesso
55 1/8 inches by 172 1/2 inches
140 cm x 438 cm
Prado Museum, Madrid

(Click on the images for enlarged detail images.)

 

The term "black painting" was spawned by art historians wanting to classify the images in some nomencultural way. The individual titles, such as "goat" (shown above) were derived from what Goya's children called the images after Goya's death.

"This is probably the most well-known of the black murals from the House of the Deaf. An awestruck congregation gapes at the silouhetted goat-devil. A white shrouded figure* in the centre of the picture appears to be issuing from a hole in the ground, a grave or tomb. At the extreme left of this extraordinary scene of resurrection by sorcery sits the demure figure of a young girl. She is veiled and heavily draped in black, her hands hidden in a muff. What is her significance? Is she put there to heighten the grotesqueness of the others, or is she part of the ceremony, a seemingly innocent victim like the adolescent figures that are supposed to have a strong affinity with poltergeists? Certainly she heightens the horror of the scene."
Bernard Myers, Goya, Spring Art Books, London, 1964, page 39.

*The 'shrouded white figure' can clearly be seen to possess a human female face. Instead of a suggestion of a shrouded spectre, the figure would more likely suggest the habit of a renegade nun. The closeness to the goat also suggests a relationship between the two figures and also that the identity of the 'goat' is that of some ecclesiastical authority.

 

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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