Goya's Witches 

My favorite part was when he said “There’s something even more terrible than a child’s corpse. Three corpses…” Ah, as I have always said “three corpses are worse than one”

There is no other artist that has been able to replicate the feeling of a nightmare like Goya

I could be wrong but I noticed in the flying witches painting, there are a lack of shadows below the witches, when the covered man clearly has a shadow. Which supports the idea that theyre just illusions even more :0

The last one was always the scariest for me cause the devil looks 2d while everyone else is 3d. That just makes it so uncanny, like he's defying the laws of physics and reality, so much so that even the witches are caught off guard

I've seen the black paintings in person and both times i saw them i was impacted. They're so gruesome, so horrible and so dark, they truly give an atmosphere to the room they're in of something luring in the shadows. Truly a master if u ask me

Why is this channel so underrated? This channel presents art in the most premium, professional, and sensible way possible .

The Witches’ Sabbath inspires fear, but I think there is a reason why to be found and you almost said it. The more you look the more horrifying it gets. The image of the goat is the first thing the eyes are drawn to, so much so that you don’t even notice the dead, dying and hanging infants upon first glance. Superstition acts as a cover and a justification for horrible actions. (You could also apply this to the church and using deities as a scapegoat but I’m not sure how historically accurate that would be to Goya’s views)

Anyone else find the giant donkeys in "The Bewitched Man" to be really frightening? There's something nightmarish about their size and the way they loom over the subject.

"The oldest and strongest emotion is fear. The oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." HP Lovecraft Fun fact. HP Lovecraft mentions Goya in his story Pickman's Model. That story was very likely inspired by these paintings.

My interpretation of the first Witches' Sabbath painting is basically about how women have a very intimate relationship with both life and death, and how that might be scary to outsiders and perpetuate the idea of witches. When we first glance at the painting we see women and children in concerning states. But we don't know how these children died. Some of the children look more like fetuses, pre-born. Women have to live with the reality of miscarriages and stillborns more closely than others. At the time, child mortality might have been higher and women's job would have been primarily caretakers. This would increase the close relationship with these situations. Given that the patron was a woman, her perspective might have had an influence. The woman holding up the small skeleton could just as easily be begging for life for a sick toddler as offering it up for death. The ambiguity may be intentional. But that's just a thought without having done any real research. I could be way off.

i remember having to do something in history about his art and i have to say he best work is the painting of that tiny dog i love it it’s amazing

I liked your remarks about the Unknown at the end of the video. The allure of the Unknown is why I appreciate Lovecraftian/Cosmic Horror so much, which deals with threats and forces beyond our understanding and derives its fascination from its appeal to our imagination. The same is true for Goya's painting: while hanged babies are surely a gruesome sight, they pale next to the atrocities the human mind can come up with - especially in a time even more susceptible to superstition than ours.

Goya = genius

I'm fascinated by your channel

I love the mood Goya conveys with his pieces. Even if his painting can look rough at times, how he uses his rough skill to convey his ideas was incredible. I also hadn't seen these paintings before, so it was great getting to learn about them!

It's the ambiguity that gets me. I fear for the child in white robes in the foreground as it seems to be the subject of everyones attention.

I don't see how the last painting is creepier. The unknown doesn't frighten me at all. Seeing a giant devour a man while staring directly into your eyes to me is much more creepy/horror inducing.

Great stuff! I need to go back and have a look at what I've missed. Your writing and editing is very natural.

Very nice choice of paintings for this spooky time! Keep up the good work!

Hey, you’re probably the greatest art interpreters I’ve seen on RU-vid. Thanks for making your videos as enjoyable as ever!

Witches Flight hangs in my bedroom, I loooove it.

Stumbled across your account these past couple of days and you've re-sparked my love for art history. I graduated with an art history minor from college and lost some of the inspiration of it these past couple of years, so thank you for helping me find it again. Also, this might be one of my new favorite artists!

Best channel on yt atm. Continue the great work!

Your channel really open my mind about art

I love your voice it's so calming and you have great art history knowledge

Your content is gold and I am happy I found it

The painting of the flying witches reminds me of the end of "the VVitch" by Robert Eggers. Was he inspired by the painting? In Eggers' second film there is a lighthouse painting.

I've seen the painting with the children before, this channel called Big Joel has it on the wall in a lot of his videos. What a terrifying painting, thank you for introducing me to Fransisco Goya!

Quite fascinating. I hadn't seen either Witches' Sabbaths before but had seen the 3 flying witches & Saturn/Son. Hearing the historical perspective gives Goya's paintings even more interest. Thank you for your insights. 1st time viewer here too & I subscribed.

This was the first video I ever saw on RU-vid including the first video I've seen of the Canvas

the art in this is so beautiful

The Canvas: VERY INTERESTING & INTRIGUING!

Love this channel so much!

The goats horns are an inversion of omega, maybe. I just love the fact that you present these painting to your audience. Continue with the good work. I would love to go to a gallery or museum with you. I a sure it would end up being a major life event.

The fact that these videos and analysis are free to watch is fantastic. One may educate itself and enjoy the narrator amazing tone, rhythm and work combined with a high end quality image which is a pleasure to watch. Also, teachers in highschool have access to such a brilliant, brief but rich content to show their students and perhaps, stimulate a young boy or girl mind and passion for this deep, magnificent world we call art.

2:02 I love that the painting initially looks so cryptic but in true summary it's saying "Look at this jackass"

I think a way to interpret the witches Sabbath is to kinda view it in a way we'd watch a horror movie today. The point could be to scare but not necessarily in a way that's mocking way as shown in Los caprichos. Check out goya by Robert Hughes it's a really good read and was extremely useful for my paper on goya.

The duchess of Osuna seems like a friend i need to time travel to meet!

I got the cance to see them in person. The last painting felt what i can only describe as "slimy" as all the crowd seems to be melting into each other

GREAT PAINTER ❤❤❤❤

I adore this channel

Used one of ur vids as a leaping off point for my 7 page paper in my Aesthetics Writing class in college. Made an A+ for my final!!!

Thank you for this video

Hi, just found your channel and have to say, great job!!! 👏🤗❤️ Lovin' it!

Thorough analysis

one of the witches ( 3:08 ) appears as a character in the game Blasphemous, that game has a lot of inspiration from Goya and the Spanish holy week

This documentary inspired a painting of my own.

Love the channel! This one is so interesting.. #Subscribed 👍 (Edit: the positioning/composition of the last painting, (the Sabbath), reminds me of Da Vinci's Last Supper! No?! I also felt very strong vibes suggesting this 'Sabbath', maybe depicted a play performed by actors in a tavern or somewhere similar!).. Which could fit, as Goya's messaging was of the 'made up', the fantasy ..the imagined..the 'glamour'...?!

I don’t think they’re biting, they’re giving pleasure. Something like the painting by Octave Tessaert, “La Femme Damnée”. Maybe the sheet just fallen from the person’s body to the man’s eyes below them

Great video thanks 😊

I just saw many of these in Madrid, juxtaposed to his more royal and religious works, it was a real treat!

amazing

Thanks a lot for CC, i'm an artist and i try to improve my english, see your videos it's so helpful

amazing video

It's like catching the zeitgeist forever and showing his surrounding society a mirror

Oh wow, over the garden wall referenced the bewitched man!

Brilliant! I also just watched your video on Dr Tulp. Bravo! M. John Angel (Studio Director, Angel Academy of Art, Florence)

Great video

Love the video

Goya Beans are pretty good as well.

Idk who else here has seen Over The Garden Wall but it just occurred to me that the Woodsman might very well be inspired by "The Bewitched Man" given the premise of never letting the lantern go out due to believing the Beast's lies and the attire of both the Woodsman and the subject of this painting. Now I want a video documentary about the different art inspirations for otgw. I would do it if I had the equipment and time lol. Anyways, I love your videos and how they introduce me to artists I've never heard of and challenge me to think deeper about what I see. Goya is very quickly becoming an inspiration for my own art ☺️❤

I love your channel

A brilliant video! A classmate of mine worked with me on a commentary of Goya’s witch paintings and we discussed the witches sabbath a lot! The only reflection of superstition we could find was that midwives in medieval times would often employ charms and incantations when delivering babies. This depiction of women offering children up to the devil gave us the feeling that Goya found the dichotomy between medieval piety and the implementation of pagan superstition at crucial moments such as childbirth to be foolish? Although, to be honest, that interpretation was definitely a reach even for us... we ended up settling on Goya’s determination to portray the irrational but very real fear that people of logic have of the illogical. Just my 2 cents 🖌

Good stuff…

i was already getting spooked out by this and of cause a spider had to decend infront of my face

I have watched another video you covered over Goya's paintings, and could not help myself the time I saw this in my suggestion. I knew it would not be a waste of time, and you proved it! I just so love your videos❤!!! Besides, I also want to share a view of mine, I hope you would not mind it. I believe the Witches' Sabbath is also mocking the medieval beliefs. I take the priestlike he-goat as the propagator of those beliefs, clearly denoting the stupidity that is taken to be absent at first glance as there is no donkey representing people's foolishness. The supposed 'witches' are nothing but the victims believing those groundless and decimating ideas, that result into nothing but the complete destruction of the 'new lives' as denoted by the babies they hold or adjacent to them. The unfortunate babies are, as if, sacrificed by their own mothers, who are completely blindfolded with those misleading beliefs; this is clearly suggested with the eagerness they perform those 'rituals' -- their postures and body-language disclose enough things, I think, to support this argument. Further, to efface the fact, the propagator is hiding the gruesome evidence at his back-- three corpses of babies hanging in a stick tied around by neck, -- at a 'safe' distance, far from any general supervision. As a whole, I think, the picture not only mocks the anachronistic beliefs, but also depicts the unavoidable demolishing consequences of believing them with complete acquiescence. Thanks again, keep posting these beauties💫!!

the painting at the end really feels like the end of lovecrafts story „the festival“

"The creepiest is the unknown " -canvas(200iq)

Ngl I read the title as Goya’s bitches at first

Goya, for me, isn’t a great painter, and many here in Spain agree with me, but boy he is a great artist. He had that special ability to transmit feelings and emotions through any art form he used. He also was very petty and shady (look for the royalty painting’s he did) which is very respectable imo. It’s one of my favorite artist and the guy didn’t even paint that well. Also I live in the city where he was from and months ago I had an sleep paralysis and I saw two old women that I’ve seen in a dark Goya painting, it was scary

Just woke having a nightmare about a black goat bitting my hand. Then i find this on my RU-vid feed sigh.

My interpretation is that the goats that are supposed to represent the devil look like dolls ( a stuffed animal and a scarecrow), an empty idol that could be any religion or ideology. The real evil in those paintings is the people with twisted faces and dead babies in their hands.

Anyone who’s played Blasphemous is especially terrified of the witches in flight.

You miss the silhouette of the ‘Comedy’ 🎭 mask composed of floating witches, complete with sharp Egyptian dog ears, sneer & mask ties It wasn’t accidental

Wow

0:27 ok, I knew this image was familiar, pretty sure it inspired Slayer's "Hell awaits" album cover, there are 3 demons ripping a man apart in the exact same position

6:51 I like to think of this painting as _panic_

Will you ever cover video games, tv, and comics?

I love the dark works of Goya. Have you seen the video game “Blasphemous “? It’s mostly inspired by works of Goya. The spirits in the pairing The Flight of Witches were used for the lady who has swords in her chest. Subscribed! 👍

A hymn we were made to sing when I was a child: "Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning. Give me oil in my lamp, I pray. Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning. Keep me burning till the break of day. Sing hosanna, sing hosanna, sing hosanna to the King of kings!"

“Sorrowful be the heart Penitent One”

Definitely one of Junji Ito's inspirations.

3:10 those are Sleeping Beauty's Three Good Fairies

I'd love a more detailed Video about all of this...

The goat represents Moloch. The babies are sacrifices.

I didn't know the last one. To me it feels like that crowd is so united, to psyched, completely enthralled by what the devil is telling/singing, they're like a wave that's not aware of you yet, but if they'd see you, they'd just come pouring out of the screen. I guess adolf hitler wasn't a one off tyrant, one of a kind. Another scary thing certainly at the time the painting was created, was the shape of the heads: low foreheads.... As indicative of very little mental activity or control. Cool video!

I was at the Prado today and noticed that "In Flight", titled "Witches' Flight" at the Prado, has a different interpretation on the official sign, so I took a picture to share the Prado's interpretation to share: Witches' Flight 1798, Oil on canvas Goya depicts figures wering headdresses resembling mitres to indicate their priestly status, adorned with serpents that symbolise Masonic wisdom. They hold up a figure, into whose body they blow superior knowledge in the manner of a rite of initiation, saving him from ignorance symbolised by the ass and by the two men who covers (sic) their eyes and ears. This Canvas belongs to a series of six small-format works that Goya sold to the Duke and Duchess of Osuna in 1798, one year prior to the publication of his series of etchings entitled the Caprichos. Some prints in that series depict simiar scenes of witchcraft. I am no judge of any of this, I just found the difference interesting. Thanks for the amazing work!

popular superstition at the time believed the devil often fed on children.

what date was thisvideo posted on youtube?

The witch with the dark head scarf was a reference for the witch that gave snow white a poison apple.. Walt Disney must have seen this painting when he was making the movie snow white 🧐🤨🤔🍎 🎯🏆📸💡

Very nice, but nothing is as creepy as Saturn devouring his son

The witches sabbath is my wallpaper. One of my favorite paintings by Goya

I find a strange beauty in Goya's black paintings, which I have seen at the Prado. I don't think that this makes me, or Goya, anything other than decent people, it's just that there is a certain honesty about recognising the dark side of life. Goya had the ability to make even the most gruesome subjects aesthetically pleasing, and the witches notebook drawings that I saw at the Courtauld are just staggering in their skill, even when all hell has broken loose or a witch is carrying dead babies away.

I think the political context of the time period and his struggle with his deteriorating health are equally important subjects to consider when looking at the black paintings. Spanish Inquisition, French Revolution and the Peninsular war were all contributing factors to the black paintings. Seeing in that light I believe them to be a portrait of society or humanity, which I think makes them even more terrifying than the depiction of any supernatural evils.

I find them beautiful, not creepy at all. Psychologist Carl Jung explored the connection of the dark subconscious to the conscious and how that may trick us. It’s simply this: repressed states. If we integrate instead of repress than these witches may even appear humorous or archetypical. We accept the shadow and even play with it, just like Goya & many artists before and after him.

I do have a habit of imagining the worst possible scenario, but I think #2 with the hanging children is most disturbing. The images of hangings (lynching) represents the awful, cruel depths humans have sunk to in order to sustain their way of life. *shudder*

It's Chronos eating his babies except Zeus.

Goya is my grandmother's name, should I be worried?

my witchy ass viewing this with 66,665 views

you're doing some insane stretching in this one maybe he believed in witches and wanted to depict them scary.