Line #13 Art/WitchesSabbath1798

Context Art / WitchesSabbath1798

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1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/witchssabbathgoya.jpg]]
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3	''Witches' Sabbath'' (Spanish: ''El Aquelarre'') is a 1798 oil-on-canvas artwork by the Spanish artist Creator/FranciscoDeGoya. Today it is held in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid.
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5	It was purchased in 1798 along with five other {{paintings}} related to witchcraft by the Duke and Duchess of Osuna. The acquisition of the witchcraft paintings is attributed to the duchess rather than her husband, but it is not known whether they were commissioned or bought after completion. In the twentieth century the painting was purchased by the financier José Lázaro Galdiano and donated to the Spanish state on his death.
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7	Goya would revisit the painting years later, sometime between 1821 and 1823, as "[[WitchesSabbathTheGreatHeGoat Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat)]]", part of the fourteen ''Art/BlackPaintings'' that he created near the end of his life.
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9	!!This artwork provides examples of:
10	* HollywoodSatanism: It features various symbols associated with Christian artwork, just twisted so the object of worship is Satan instead of the Abrahamic God. Ugly women reunite around a goat-like demon, offering him a starving child. They are also implied to be insane.
11	* RuleOfSymbolism:
12	** The goat extends his left rather than right hoof towards the child, while the quarter moon faces out of the canvas at the top left corner. Both of these are [[ASinisterClue sinister clues]] that indicate wrongness.
13	** In the middle high ground, a number of bats can be seen flying overhead, their flocking motion echoing the curve of the crescent moon. Moon is associated with madness, suggesting that one has to be utterly (and increasingly) insane to worship Satan.
14	** The child being offered to Satan is so starved, he's practically a skeleton. This is a symbol of death but is also a twist on what proper offerings are. One gives only the best to God but, since this is Satan, the opposite is true -- you give him the worst.
15	* {{Satan}}: He is portrayed as a [[FaunsAndSatyrs garlanded goat]], acting as a [[MessianicArchetype Jesus-esque]] role to a coven of witches. His appearance draws from the {{Baphomet}} archetype.
16	* WickedWitch: The elderly, impoverished women are a coven of witches congregating on their own Sabbath. It's heavily {{downplayed}}, though, since the only stereotypical traits they display are that they have Satan as their god and that they are ugly.

Context Art / WitchesSabbath1798