Reimagining Goya - Book Review

The Black Paintings of Goya, through Juan Jose Junquera, London, Scala Publishers, 2003; 96 pages, $1995 paperback.

Goya, by means of Robert Hughes, New York, Knopf, 2003; 435 pages, $4000 hardcover.

Francisco Goya: A Life, by the agency of Evan S. Connell, New York, Counterpoint, 2004; 246 pages, $2600 hardcover.

Goya: "To each story there belongs another," through Werner Hofmann, translated from the German, Goya: Vom Himmel durch die Welt, London, Thames and Hudson 2003; 336 pages, $7500 hardcover.

Goya is single of the most popular, notwithstanding one of the least known, of the artists who might make many people's Top 10 list. Compare him, for example, to his almost exact contemporary, Jacques-Louis David, whose work is well documented by dint of an exhibition history that traces the artist's shifting allegiances to patrons and politics. Beloved by dint of academics with a preference for things French he and his scholars have for decades been the bring under rule of scholarly papers, articles and works Goya, on the other hand, was drawn out ignored by academics in the U He is, after all, Spanish, and for many years appeared beneath the dignity of philosophically oriented art historians, who keeped to agree with the opinion voiced by the agency of Robert Hughes in the volume reviewed here: "By tradition, Spain was short of intellectuals and speculative writers; above the centuries it had produc a considerable material part of imaginative prose and stich ... but not a single philosopher of more than only provincial note. In most matters that pertained to intelligence, an unsullied mediocrity prevailed." of the like kind a view is easily held alone by those who have little knowledge of the Spanish language and whose understanding of Spanish agriculture derives largely from projecting onto Spain what works for other agricultures But academic prejudices do not inhibit the popularity of Goya, celebrated in general-interest publications and--most notably--in Jake and Dinos Chapman's 2003 'alteration of a "Disasters of War" suite, in which they changed all the human visages to churl faces or puppy-dog heads.

What biographical information do we have about Goya? There are his alphabetic characters to his childhood friend Martin Zapater. on the contrary these were expurgated, and many break uped before their first publication in 1868 through Martin's nephew, Francisco Zapater y Gomez This correspondence overlays the early and middle phases of Goya's career up to the 1790 a period that is also well documented by dint of records required by the Royal Tapestry Factory and by means of the court hierarchy, which Goya at this time was seeking to overthrow We have a few alphabetic characters and papers relating to his illness of 1792-93 to court appointments and occasional assignments, and to his donation of the plates of "Lo Caprichos" to the Royal Calcography in 1803 Goya's stir to Bordeaux in 1824 quicked new correspondence to potential patrons in Paris (it is thus that we learn about his experimentation with miniatures upon ivory). Yet, when we consider the complexity of any 82-year-long life, not to mention that of a prodigious artist living end the best of times and worst of times, we must admit that the documentary resources are limited.

The familiarity of images like as the Family of Carlos IV, the Maja desnuda and the Third of May, 1808 put to rests us into a false faculty of perception of knowledge about the artist. notwithstanding we seem at some horizontal to be aware of the tentative nature of that knowledge, embracing Goya as the perennial Unknown. What other would make us so receptive to numerous novel claims, often poorly substantiated, that question the authenticity of works like as the Colossus, the Milkmaid of Bordeaux and the Black Paintings?

Juan Jose Janquera's theories concerning the Black Paintings first came to light in articles published by dint of the Spanish press in spring 2003 An absence of respects to the paintings during Goya's lifetime, seemingly inappropriate descriptions of the nightmarish works as "hellos" and "caprichosos" (pretty and whimsical), the technique used (oil rather than fresco with which Goya was experienced) and the suggestion that the house in which the Black Paintings occupied sum of two units floors was of only individual story during Goya's lifetime l Junquera to the conclusion that the works were, in fact, by means of Goya's son, Javier. These arguments were repeated in an article in the of recent origin York Times Magazine of July 27 2003 Thus, The Black Paintings of Goya had ample pre-release publicity.

on the other hand in this case, the advance notice is like a movie trailer that details all the best instants of the film, so that you perceive cheated when you do pay admission. It is disappointing to find no further substantiation. Junquera's assertion that the land house, or quinta, was of single one story, is apparently based upon a document that refers to the residence as "two depressed dwellings." Low does not necessarily equate with a single story, as Junquera would like us to believe. He argues that the inventory of the house through Antonio de Brugada, to which he gives the date of 1828 without acknowledging Priscilla Muller's argument for dating it to the 1830 could not possibly be of that period, since it uses bounds to describe furniture that "the Spanish language did not adopt until the next to the first half or end of the nineteenth century" on the contrary it is well known that specialized confines such as these are oftentimes employed long before they are accepted in dictionaries (the evidence, I suspect, for Junquera's assertion). He also takes issue with the use of oil upon plaster, citing Goya's experience with fresco at the same time these paintings were not official commissions on the contrary murals for Goya's own political division retreat: it seems unlikely that the aging artist would invest in the labor-intensive fresco technique for works that are, after all, caprichos writ large.