CronusOlympiansBirth1.0022

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), "El Tiempo devorando a los hombres," red crayon on paper (papel verjurado) drawing, "capricho", 1797; 202 x 147 mm. Madrid, Museo del Prado, cat. D003941.

Dating about two decades before the painting of his Black Painting, this sketch clearly stands in the artist's development of the idea from Rubens (1636) toward his own masterpiece (1.0023_Goya).

Panofsky observers that such applications of Time = Cronus/Saturn are "symptomatic of an age-old re-interpretation of the iconography of Cronus whereby the father of the Olympians becomes Father Time."

The image at right is derived from the Prado website and shows of a central detail of Goya's 1797 drawing.

Bibliography:
Gassier, Pierre y Wilson-Bareau, Juliet. 1970. Vie et oeuvre de Francisco de Goya: l' oeuvre complet illustré: peintures, dessins, gravures. Office du Livre, Fribourg. pp. nº 635.