In Roman myth, the god Saturn was told that one of his children would overthrow him, so he ate them. Painters had shown the story before, usually with a certain dignity. Goya didn't.

This is one of the so-called "Black Paintings", which Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house outside Madrid in his seventies, deaf and isolated after years of war and political repression. He gave them no titles and apparently never intended anyone to see them.

Decades after his death, the murals were carefully removed from the walls and transferred to canvas, and they now hang in the Prado. This one is the most disturbing: not a god in control, but a wild-eyed, terrified creature consumed by what he's doing. It may be the most frightening painting ever made.