Goya in hell: the bloodbath that explains his most harrowing work

His horrifyingly bleak Black Paintings are said to be a result of Goya going deaf. But is there another reason? As the National Gallery show opens, Jonathan Jones finds the shocking answer in the artist’s hometown of ZaragozaA dog is drowning in quicksand. Its grey head pokes defiantly out of the brown sludge, even as a dead yellow sky above insists there is no hope. No saviour. In the next painting, supernatural shapers of the world reveal themselves, but they are grinning hags floating e