ive completed my latest work
oh, have you?
where will you present it?
i’m going to hang it in my kitchen
so everyone who comes to the house for a meal can see it while they eat
how innovative
what is the subject?
well
a father and son are sharing a meal together
which is why i thought the kitchen would be a good place to put it
of course
and the father? who is he? is it a pastoral painting, biblical, heroic…?
well
the father is eating
and also the son is there too
you’re taking an awfully long time to describe something that should be fairly simple
I’m getting concerned that there’s a horrifying twist to this
what horrifying twist
this is just my kitchen painting
for people to look at while they eat things
no it’s always
you say something that sounds normal
and then I ask you for more details
and then it becomes clear that it’s actually full of horrors
so what is it
what is it, are they eating a meal in a, in a giant bird skeleton
or wearing hats of alcoholism and pus
no
no he’s just eating in front of a black background
i had no idea you felt this way
here look
oh christ in hell
oooh
what a good idea for a painting
all right i thought about your criticism
and i thought to myself
what’s normal
and then i thought, sleeping
okay
and you know how when you fall asleep
horrible bat-winged things and unblinking owls and hateful massive nightcats emerge from the shadowy darkness and surround you
mm there it is
I CALL THIS ONE OLD MEN EATING SOUP
mmm again that is STRICTLY true
but why do they have to be HORRIFYING old men eating WRETCHED AND LOATHSOME soup?
horrifying men eat soup too
horror soup
it slithers into their craws and coalesces below
how lonely do you think a dog could get
what?
i mean how much loneliness do you think one dog could experience
if it lost everything
and was very very alone
i don’t know
i don’t spend a lot of time thinking about lonely dogs
well what if you did
i don’t WANT to think about lonely dogs
i painted you something
is it of a
it’s a lonely dog
he’s alone and he’ll always be alone but he doesn’t know that so he keeps looking for someone but there’s no one to find
mm
i call it The Loneliest Dog
it’s already in your bedroom so you don’t even have to carry it home
could you just maybe do one painting of people smiling or laughing or having a nice time together
for old times’ sake
all right
how’s this one
i call it “Women Laughing”
what is wrong with their eyes???
is that not what laughing looks like
that’s not what anything looks like
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Tags: goya, texts from
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“I’m concerned there’s a horrifying twist.”
We all are, really. By now, it’s the only logical reaction to “[seemingly pleasant article title] by Mallory Ortberg”
Hey, it’s the only logical reaction to JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET OH GOD BRING ME THE BRAIN BLEACH
Spaniards, man.
I visited Madrid a few years ago, and went to El Museo Del Prado. And just when I was about to suffocate under the layers of high-status, perfectly-posed good taste, there was dear, horrifying Goya to make things right again.
EDITED: A friend reminded me that I had forgotten that Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” was in El Prado. So my formulation is not quite correct.
I had the same experience at the Prado!
Somebody gibe that puppy a fucking hug.
I just want to photoshop a person with a tennis ball, winding up to throw it, on the right-hand side of the frame — that’s the dog-look this painting reminds me of.
Goya, Goya, Goya. If you’re willing to make the king look like inbred Ramsay Bolton, what’s stopping you from completely eviscerating everything else on the planet?
I just read a Joan Aiken book set in Spain where, in the afterword, she says, in effect, “The King, Queen and Crown Prince really were terrible people and if you don’t believe me, look at Goya’s portraits of them!”
horror soup for dinner, horror soup for lunch
That was the official motto of my college dining hall.
Horror Soup is the best punk song that will never exist.
I’m a chef by trade. Be assured that “WRETCHED and LOATHSOME Soup” will be appearing on my specials board tomorrow morning. Quite possibly garnished with THE CROUTONS OF DOOM and a light dusting of THE PARSLEY OF DESPAIR.
ugh I feel like every time I buy parsley it looks normal and then I put it in my fridge and the next day it’s parsley of despair
Parsley of PAIN
Picked in the Forest of DEATH and BLOOD
With a side of HELL ON TOAST
Yes. But. I’m going to visit the Goya exhibition that’s just opened in London, and it’s all portraits. Frilly ladies and naked ladies and maybe frilly men too.
Oh yeah, definitely! When Goya wasn’t drawing monsters or gnarly hateful people, he painted staggeringly great portraits. Goya and Velazquez pretty much have “greatest portraitists ever” on lock for Team Spain, is what I’m saying.
Frilly, naked ladies?
BUT BUT BUT did you see the Goya exhibition in London that was all the black notebooks? Not a frill in sight! But plenty of naked and lots of horrifying.
I took my non-art historian friends and they have not forgiven me.
Was this the one at the Courtauld? Because I missed it 🙁
Yes! It was pretty great, in a strange and somewhat traumatic way… Really keen for the portraits show though
Last weekend my 3rd-grade brother who I rarely see asked me “Why do you only paint dead people?” (not strictly true). Later, my friend’s English parents were discussing my business card. Before her dad saw it, he said over his shoulder “she’s mad, so it must have something mad on it.” He flipped it over to see the illustration that’s in my icon right now and just said “yep.”
All of this is to say, I really relate to ol’ Goya.
(not strictly true)
bahahaha lol forever
do you remember what day it is?
-it’s may 3rd. why do you ask?
oh, no reason
No, I promise, it’s just galpals primping in front of the mirror. http://www.eeweems.com/goya/_imagery/viejas_500.j…
As the product of an Expensive and Tasteful Education, I am obliged to point out that all of the images above (except for The Sleep of Reason) were painted by Goya, near the end of his life, directly onto the interior walls of his own house. That’s right, he painted these expressly so he could see them (and ten others, all equally brutal) every day for the last years of his life. Francisco Goya, METAL AS FVCK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings
Oo! There’s also talk that the black paintings might not have been painted by Goya, but instead by his sketchy, angsty son Javier (“If it was possible to sell his mother, [Javier] would have”) and then passed off as Goyas after his death. Which… dirtbag (Javier) Goya time? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/magazine/the-se…
I did not know that. That’s really interesting!
IT’S A PICNIC
This is one of the greatest things I have ever seen.
Goth as fuck.
FIIGHT! CUDGEL FIIIIIGHT!
I was having a fine morning until I got to the part about slithering horror soup. Thanks Mallory.
Re: nightcats –
I finally made a commenter account in order to deposit this fact here: two of the words for “owl” in Chinese, translated back into English, are “night cat” and “cat-headed raptor”.
I AM HERE FOR WEIRD ASS CHINESE ANIMAL NAMES
unrelated to this article but definitely related to weird ass Chinese animal names: the Mandarin for “kangaroo” translates to “bag rat” and it fills me with joy every time I think about it
When my toddler first saw raccoons, she said, “cat!” then, brow furrowed, “bear?”
She just stared and looked perturbed and said back and forth, “cat” “bear” “cat” “bear”
The fact that it was two raccoons having sex didn’t seem to register with her one way or another.
P.s. Why doesn’t spell check like the word “raccoons”? Is that not the plural of raccoon?
Your toddler sounds very astute.
“i painted you something” is when i started crying with laughter. This was marvelous. And I think I have a new favorite painting (hint: there is a yak in it).
The scene in “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell,” in which Goya sketches Strange surrounded by the corpses he’s reanimated but can’t return to the dead seems mild compared to some of these. Anyone know if the incident in the novel was inspired by an actual Goya sketch?
“hateful massive nightcats”
Aaaand there’s my new band name.
"hateful massive nightcats"
Aaaand there's my new band name.
That FUCKING painting. The one of a father and a son sharing a meal together? I read that description, and I braced myself for the inevitable, and I STILL flinched. Having that painting in your kitchen… feh. YES THANK YOU THE KITCHEN IS THE NIGHTMARE ROOM NOW WE DON’T EAT WE JUST HOWL INTO THE OVEN AND CRY
This was great.
Also delightful is the Wikipedia descriptions of the works – particularly ‘Women Laughing’
Yep. I feel exactly the same as that dog.
I like to imagine the beleaguered souls who receive these texts. They’d have to be peculiar enough to associate with artists like Goya and Bosch, but not so peculiar as to grow complacent about horror soup and fanged mermaids. I am, to my occasional misfortune, a perfect candidate. I have an artist friend with a drug problem and no one else to text his narcotic-fevered ideas for virtual reality voodoo sex dolls. That one started with something normal, too.