Aesthetic Analysis of Grotesque Painting Components in Francisco Goya’s Works

Grotesque is a style in art and literature that originated in Italy in the 16th century and developed throughout the 17th century. Grotesque combines horror and humor or a border between the two, relying on grim or disgusting themes. Many artists have followed this style. Francisco Goya and Pieter Bruegel have created outstanding and influential works in art history using grotesque elements. They used grotesque elements to express their era’s dark and bitter political and social aspects. This research identifies the components of hideous painting and analyzes two works by Francisco Goya. This research aims to familiarize oneself with the grotesque style and its components and explain them in two works: Saturn Devours His Son and The Witches’ Sabbath. In this article, the effort was to address these questions: What is grotesque? And what are its components? And which of them are there in Goya’s works? This research used the library method and qualitative analysis to collect data. This research shows that after discovering strange paintings in Prince Nero’s palace ruins in Rome, the word grotesque was assigned to everything ugly and obscene, unusual, mysterious, and disgusting. This style includes horror, humor, satire, madness, exaggeration and excess, irregularity, inconsistency, and metamorphosis. The combination of humans, animals, and plants and the creation of abnormal images to create conflicting emotions in the viewer are the characteristics of this style, which are studied in two illustrative works during this research.