♡ .*emixan*. ♡

From an excellent post by Jason Davis

From Washington, D.C., the rings would only fill a portion of the sky, but appear striking nonetheless. Here, we see them at sunrise.

From Guatemala, only 14 degrees above the equator, the rings would begin to stretch across the horizon. Their reflected light would make the moon much brighter.

From Earth’s equator, Saturn’s rings would be viewed edge-on, appearing as a thin, bright line bisecting the sky.

At the March and September equinoxes, the Sun would be positioned directly over the rings, casting a dramatic shadow at the equator.

At midnight at the Tropic of Capricorn, which sits at 23 degrees south latitude, the Earth casts a shadow over the middle of the rings, while the outer portions remain lit.

Like imagine you go over to your boy's house for dinner and that's across from you while you eat. Like would you say something or just

He also did an entire series called The Disasters Of War, which were stark presentations of the brutality of war. Goya understood violence. Understood that deep dark part of us that comes out when we are engaged in battle with a foreign power, or even with our own country. His artwork prior to the Black Paintings contains plenty of dark, powerful imagery... But that wasn't all Goya was great at. He also painted the Maja.

While I'm using La maja vestida because Tumblr will probably have me drawn and quartered if I post La maja desnuda, that one's the important one. It was one of the first Western paintings to depict nudity outside of a religious or mythological context and without negativity. It was an unabashed depiction of the female form without any of the usual artistic justifications of the time. It was also one of the first to depict female pubic hair without negative connotations behind that, since usually pubic hair was only presented in artwork of women seen as "unclean" or "immoral", such as prostitutes. Yes, even back in the day, there was that weird anti-pube thing. Goya just... Painted a nude woman. No justification. Just a nude without any of the usual justification.

He nearly got tried by the Spanish Inquisition over it, albeit in the years their power was waning, but that's a story for another day.

Goya was capable of incredible things. His painting of Manuel Godoy is a brilliant piece of subtle, intricate artistic satire, his painting of Charles IV and his family is flattering without being absurd, still presenting them as people, his fresco Adoration In The Name Of God might just be my favorite religious fresco ever.

Look at this. Holy shit.

And of course there's The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters.

Anyway my point is that Goya's artwork was intensely varied, even to the end of his career. One of the man's latest self-portraits (well, self-caricatures) depicts him as an elderly man, thick beard and head of hair, two canes, long robe, and has a single phrase written above him.

"Aun aprendo". I am still learning.

But the Black Paintings are what people know most about Goya, and yeah. I'm with you, the Black Paintings are nuts. They depict the mental state of a man whose mental state was growing darker and darker over the prior three decades.

You see, Goya went deaf because of an unspecified illness. His artwork's increasing darkness following this is often seen as a reflection of his increasing insular, isolated state, the worsening of symptoms such as tinnitus, loss of balance, all led to him becoming more withdrawn. It might've been Ménière's disease. It might've been lead poisoning. We don't know.

What we do know is that Goya proceeded to paint the Black Paintings directly on the walls of his home, the Quinta del Sordo (The House Of The Deaf Man, named that prior to Goya even owning it) due to a conscious decision to withdraw from the public eye following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy and the rejection of the Spanish constitution of 1812, and started to suppress his own works. The Black Paintings weren't meant to be seen. They were the artwork of a man who saw his country start to turn towards the old, bad ways once again, drifting closer to medievalism than it had previously, at the same time he was becoming more and more isolated due to his deafness, his fear of old age and madness creeping up on him, and so he decided to get his despair out through art. Saturn Devouring His Son might be what we all know, but the Black Paintings are 14 paintings, not just one.

And here are a few of my favorites.

The Dog.

Women Laughing.

Fight With Cudgels.

Witches' Sabbath.

The Fates.

sharing my pink desk setup 🎀