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Radical Prints Up Close and In-Depth

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Berkeley #46 Title: American is Devouring its children - mass picket Oakland Induction Center May 26 Description: 38 x 84 cm ; red & black on white ; computer paper Image: person eating person - encapsulated - slide

Saturno devorando a sus hijos (Saturn Devouring His Children) Francisco de Goya, 1819-1823

This poster assimilates one of Goya's famous Black Paintings, and uses it to make an intelligent and powerful commentary on current events. The original painting, by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, explores the Greek myth of Cronus (Saturn) who devoured his children (the Olympian gods) fearing a prophecy that his offspring would one day overthrow him. In the myth, Cronus swallows the children whole, and they eventually re-emerge from his stomach to defeat their father and rule under the leadership of Zeus.

Goya's version disdains this literality, and explores the dark psychology of the act. His painting is at once nightmarishly surreal and painfully accurate. The god is hunched over and contorted, his powerful limbs bunched together with a simian strength. He does not swallow the child whole but must eat it one bite at a time; this one macabre note of realism reinforces the scene's raw materiality. The bloody reality of the act has driven him to apparent madness, but even in the midst of his horror and disgust, his fear forces him to finish the task. The body is not that of a baby but a grown person in miniature — an illogical representation, and yet one that is completely appropriate within the context of Goya's bleak art.

All of these factors combine to make this image especially suitable for assimilation by protestors of the Vietnam War. America, the home of the brave and the land of the free, is transformed in this print into a crazed Titan, gigantic with power and stupid with fear. The paranoia of Cold War anti-communist ideology becomes a driving force behind the Titan's quest to devour his own children in a relentless war. The print suggests that it is not communists abroad who truly frighten America's political elites; rather, they fear the youth at home, who will one day rise to supplant them.

The myth also offers a hope of redemption for the American bodies that are consumed; for just as the Olympians one day re-emerged to topple their father, the discouraged 'children' of America can retain hope for a future victory.

This image achieves a feat of remarkable compression, simultaneously utilizing an ancient myth and a canonical work of art to establish some powerful parallels. With both conceptual sophistication and visceral force, the print is one of the most impactful in the UBC Berkeley collection.