FRANCISCO DE GOYA: A dog, 1820-22– Fresco transferred to canvas, 134-80 cm. -Madrid, Prado Museum

In 1819, Goya moved to a property in the outskirts of Madrid -later known as the “Quinta del Sordo” - and begins to decorate it with a series of terrible paintings of horror, witches and devastating scenes like the infamous “Saturn devouring one of his sons”. In the middle of such panorama, next to the door, next to the door, single and abandoned, we found a dog. This is perhaps the most enigmatic painting of the entire Quinta. It depicts a dog, totally hidden with the only exception of his head, in the middle of an ochre background. Nothing else it's said to us about the protagonist or the meaning of this fresco. Where is that dog? To where or at what is it looking at? Is he sinking, or on the contrary it shows its head with caution, afraid of which we are not able to intuit? There are infinity of interpretations of this painting, associating to the dog to the infernal figure that guides the dead souls to the Hell, and suggesting it as a symbol of the abandonment and the neglect.