Artist: Peter Paul Rubbins
Title: Saturn Devouring His Son
Date: 1636-1638
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 180 x 87 cm
Peter Paul Rubens was
a German born Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style
that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well known for his Counter Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of
mythological and allegorical subjects. According
to some versions of the Greek myth, Saturn believed he was destined to be overcome by his
own sons, so he devoured each of them as newborns to defeat the prophecy.
Rubens painted this horror story quite differently from Goya, who showed a
monster biting the head off a grown man. In this painting, Saturn is a ruthless
murderer intent on the consumption of his own baby, starting with the infant's
tender chest as if it were the succulent flesh of a chicken. This image exhibits true fear within itself, the fear of the
innocence. Within the image you see Saturn devouring his son, however the expression
on the child's face as he is devoured by his own father exhibits pure fear. The
child's expression shows the fear of a child losing his life and yet not
understanding why. This young child exhibits pure fear because all he can do is
trust his father will protect him against the world they live in but yet Saturn
is full of greed and takes his son's life with no remorse, sucking the energy
straight for the poor infants chest. I chose this piece over Goya's because of the intense fear on the child's
face and the amazing artwork to go with .I believe this portrait tells more of
a horror story compared to Goya's
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