Francisco de Goya: Personal Disruption Affects the Artist—Affecting Their Art

As addressed by Nick Cave in Faith, Hope, and Carnage, the death of his 15-year-old son, Arthur, profoundly changed him as a person and his direction as an artist. Thus, the advent of his son’s death also affected his art. Cave says that his lyrics became more abstract, and the narratives of his songs mimicked his newly ruptured life by being similarly disrupted. When Arthur died, Cave was working on his album, Ghosteen, and he mentions how he feels that his son’s soul resides in the album. Already a work in progress by the time Cave heard the tragic news, this album became about Arthur by the time it was finished. On one hand, loss can be destructive to our daily functioning and fundamentally alters our lives, but Cave acknowledges that major life events, even deeply saddening ones, also allow for “transformation.” As an artist who has been active for decades and gone through various artistic developments, Cave is familiar with transformation. His understanding that his life and art are intertwined and inseparable, with each perpetually affecting the other, allows him to grow and persevere through suffering as both a musician and human.

The “Black Paintings” of Spanish artist Francisco de Goya continue to shock those who lay eyes on them. Although all are haunting, the most notable, and perhaps most gruesome, of these paintings is called “Saturn Devouring His Son” (shown above). This, and the other paintings in this series, was inspired by tumultuous events in Goya’s life. After falling ill in his forties, Goya experienced permanent hearing loss—crippling for a man who loved listening to music and engaging in conversation. As his physical and mental health further devolved, Goya’s art became observably darker and bleaker, abstractly portraying his suffering. In the early 1800s, when Napoleon invaded Spain and the French massacred Spanish citizens involved in uprisings against their reign, Goya, who originally supported the French, bore direct witness and became heartbroken. He was later suppressed when King Ferdinand took back the Spanish throne from Napoleon and sought to question all who were amicable to the French. The Black Paintings, never intended for public viewing, are the final works of Goya and exemplify the influence of life’s disruptions in an artist's work.