Le Christ au mont des Oliviers

Goya painted this small panel in 1819, when he was in his early 70s and living just outside Madrid. He gave it to the Piarist fathers of San Anton, whose school stood nearby, and it still belongs to their collection. The subject is Christ's night in the garden of Gethsemane, kneeling in the dark with his arms flung open as an angel brings the cup he must drink. Goya keeps almost the whole panel in shadow and lets one burst of light fall on the white-robed figure. Within a year he would fall gravely ill and paint himself being nursed back from death. This night scene of fear and acceptance came out of that same late stretch of his life, worked in quick, loose strokes very close to the surface.