This paper utilises the classical Indian aesthetic theory of Rasa grounded in Bharatamuni’s (1st millennium BCE) Nātyaśāstra to make sense of two canonical modern Spanish paintings: Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Son (c. 1820–1823) and Salvador Dalí’s The Face of War (1940). Both the paintings were painted during wars and have traditionally been viewed under Western aesthetic frameworks. In a break with this orientation, the current study takes an Orientalist turn where it adopts the classical Indian aesthetic framework to examine works set in a modern European cultural setting rather than apply Western literary theories to discuss Indian texts. The paper puts the viewer’s response ahead of the artist’s intentions, placing it within hermeneutics of art. Utilizing the perspective of Rasa theory, the research exposes which Sthayibhavas (mental states) are aroused in the viewer: Bībhatsam (odious/disgust) and Bhayānakam (terrible/fear) are present in Goya’s painting, while both Bhayānakam and Kāruṇyam (compassion/empathy) arise collectively within Dalí’s. The analysis proves that Rasa theory operates as a formidable cross-cultural interpretive methodology that not only travels across spatial-temporal frameworks but also describes emotional complexities beyond dueling narratives of the art's power from the simply terrifying to the transcendent, and horror to empathy. According to the paper, the Sthayibhavas ‘distributed in both paintings’ allows the viewer to pass beyond stable cultural and historical meaning into fixed reading which affirms Rasa (an aesthetic flavor) theory as an appropriate and fruitful methodology for cross-cultural deploy of Western fine art.