Calle de Francisco de Goya

This street in the Nueva España district recalls the Aragonese painter who captured, like no other, the gentle and the dark face of his century. It should not be confused with the long calle de Goya in the Salamanca district; here his full name sets him apart. He rose to first court painter to Charles IV and recorded the war against the French in prints that still unsettle. Around the age of forty-six an illness left him deaf, and his gaze turned inward. On an estate by the banks of the Manzanares he covered the walls of his house with fourteen somber scenes, the Black Paintings; that house became known forever as the Quinta del Sordo. Saturn Devouring His Son came off those walls and now hangs in the Prado.