Francisco Goya
The Dog is the name usually given to this painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It shows the head of a dog gazing upwards. The dog itself is almost lost in the vastness of the rest of the image, which is empty except for a dark sloping area near the bottom of the picture: an unidentifiable mass that conceals the animal's body. The label for The Dog in The Prado indicates the dog is in distress, quite literally drowning.
The Dog is one of Goya's Black Paintings, which he painted directly onto the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823 when he was in his mid-70s, living alone and suffering from acute mental and physical distress. Goya was likely to have been concerned with his own mortality then and was increasingly embittered by the conflicts that had engulfed Spain in the decade preceding his move to the Quinta del Sordo. Although he initially decorated the rooms of the house with more inspiring images, in time he overpainted all of them with the intense, haunting pictures known today as the Black Paintings. He did not intend the paintings for public exhibition, and they were not removed from the house until 50 years after Goya had left.
P.S. The Black Paintings are keeping Goya's darkest secrets. Click here to read about them!
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