Saturn's mythological reign was depicted as a Golden Age of plenty and peace. Eventually, this son Jupiter (Zeus in Greek myth) rose up to overthrow Saturn and became the king of the gods. Uranus was the ruler of the universe. The name was given later on due to it resembling the mythological event. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Saturn devouring one of his children, 1637-1638 Madrid, Museo del Prado, inv. The Disturbing Legend Behind Saturn Devouring His Son. Both works are illustrative of a literary theme, passionless, even morbidly comic. The former was much more subtle with Saturn holding a child in his left hand and eating a child captured in his … Goya based this design on a picture by Rubens of the same subject and in seventeenth-century emblem books Saturn signified the weariness of the aged for whom life has become burdensome. From this series, the most disturbing painting is that of Saturn Devouring His Son; a painting that depicts the Roman God Saturn eating his adult, human son. This is an excerpt: On Goya’s Saturn. Father eats his son's eyes Possible Illegal. Saturn (Latin: Sāturnus [saːˈtʊrnʊs]) was a god in ancient Roman religion, and a character in Roman mythology.He was described as a god of generation, dissolution, plenty, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. They were discovered after his death, and transferred to canvas 50 years later. Jay Scott Morgan _____ The Mystery of Goya's Saturn The image is ineffaceable: the cannibal god on bended knees, engulfed in darkness; the mad haunted eyes and black-blooded mouth; the rending fingers, threaded with blood, and the ravaged figure in their grasp--a work of such indelible power, it seems to have existed before it was created, like some deep-rooted, banished memory, inescapable … The most famous painting in the group is arguably Saturn Devouring His Son (Witches’ Sabbath may be a close second). The author refers to Saturn as the “Dweller on the Threshold” and also says that although Saturn is always portrayed as male, it is both male and female and is considered to be the foundation of the world, container of the secrets of matter. Saturn's wife, Ops, hid her sixth child Jupiter on the island of Crete, and offered Saturn a large stone wrapped in swaddling clothes in his place; Saturn promptly devoured it. TIL Goya's most well known painting, Saturn Devouring his Son, was not described or named at all to the public by the artist himself. That god who stares from the picture-space As if he—only now it’s done, The madness slaked—can recognize the face Whose blood and brains he gulped, to be his son, Catches the humanist’s eye. The seventh day of the Judaeo-Christian week is called in Latin Dies Saturni ("Day of Saturn"), which in turn was adapted and became the source of the English word Saturday. As a result of Cronus's importance to the Romans, his Roman variant, Saturn, has had a large influence on Western culture. It occupied the wall across from Leocadia Zorrilla on the ground floor of “la Quinta del Sordo.” This mythological god could be the personification of such a human feeling as the fear of losing one´s power.