As mythology has always piqued my interest, mainly Roman and Greek, it is quite natural that Saturn devouring his son by Francisco Goya prevented me from turning the page. This piece has been stuck in my head since I was in high school. The painting doesn't have a lot of color, light, pattern or texture, but it instantly draws you in. It's a horrific image to look at, but at the same time, you can't look away from this man savagely eating another human. As crude as this painting is, I think it contains some strong messages. This painting is classified as a romantic painting because the artist has one job: to convey his point of view to his audience. Looking at the piece, it has an equal balance between positive and negative space, with the negative space being the dark black background into which Saturn appears to emerge. The positive space is Saturn itself, that's where the emphasis is. In doing so, Goya was very successful in getting his message across that these were dark times. The colors are very dark, which gives me a feeling of fear and death. Fleshy grays, blacks and browns look very harmonious. Goya refrained from using light colors except for focal points. In my opinion, there is more than one focal point or the focal point is large, from the face of Saturn to the lifeless body. The corpse hangs in Saturn's tight grip. It is deathly white and has a bright blood red where the head and arm were. I think it's a symbol, with the body being faceless and there's no way to tell the gender other than the title, this means it could represent anyone. Also, if you look, Saturn's knuckles are white, as if he is hugging the body as if he can move away from him. He also uses the chiaroscuro technique. The light outlines the middle of the paper...the color, the way he used color when it was used conveyed what was important in the piece. The body, hanging lifeless in Saturn's death grip, is dripping with blood and even lies between Saturn's white knuckles. By having Saturn's knuckles white, it emphasizes his grip on the body so strong that it causes blood to flow down the back. This shows his passion to the extent that the deed needs to be done. His expression is wild and his loose stance shows that maybe he didn't mean to do what he was doing. The message of the painting is that time consumes us all, and that's because the god of time eats a faceless body. There's another message there, too, I think, which is that people will do almost anything to maintain their reign of power. I found this painting very stimulating and gave me a lot of emotion. I think that’s precisely why the piece is successful..