Saturn Devouring His Son (Goya)

A wild-eyed, monstrous Saturn crams the bloody, headless body of his own child into his mouth, his face frozen in mad horror, his fingers digging into the flesh. Goya painted this directly onto the wall of his house among the so-called Black Paintings of his last, embittered years, never meaning it for any public. Now transferred to canvas and in the Prado, it is among the most terrifying images in all of art - the myth of the devouring father turned into raw nightmare, far darker than Rubens's earlier version, which is also in this collection.