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Which Roman myth inspired Francisco Goya’s Saturn?
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Francisco Goya
Detail of Self-portrait, etching by Francisco Goya from the series Los caprichos, 1799.
Francisco Goya’s painting Saturn (1819–1823) was inspired by the Roman myth of the god Saturn, who, fearing that his children would overthrow him, consumed them to maintain his power.12
While the painting takes this myth as its primary subject, it is often interpreted as a meditation on themes such as God’s wrath, the conflict between youth and old age, or the personification of Time devouring all things. Goya’s haunting depiction may have also been influenced by the earlier Baroque portrayal of the same myth by Peter Paul Rubens.12