Romanticism in Spain: Francisco de Goya

Romanticism in SpainFrancisco de Goya

Vicento López y Portaña,

Portrait of Francisco de

Goya, 1826

The Spanish painter Francisco de Goya was a leading representative of

Romanticism

Francisco de Goya, Charles IV and His Family, 1800

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

He began his career as a court painter to Charles IV of Spain, an enlightened

monarch



This portrait of the royal family captures all the glitter and finery of a monarchy that

was soon to be toppled by Napoleon’s invading troops



The artist can be seen in the background, at work on a large canvas – recalling

Velazquez’s painting of Las Meninas



The royal family is depicted with a remarkable lack of flattery, their unglamorous

appearance seems at odds with the glittery spectacle of their costumes



In the wake of the French Revolution the very concept of monarchy was in

question, and Goya – a supporter of Enlightenment ideas – seems to capture this

uncertainty in the figures’ furtive expressions

Carle Vernet, Napoleon at the Gates of Madrid in 1808, 1810

In 1808 French troops invaded Spain and Napoleon’s brother was made King of

Spain

Jean Baptiste Joseph Wicar, Portrait of Joseph

Bonaparte, King of Spain, 1808

Francisco de Goya, Lo mismo, etching from Los Disastros de la Guerra, 1810-15

Image source: NYPL Digital Library

The Spanish populace rose up against the French occupying armies

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1109924

Francisco de Goya, Frontispiece, Los Disastros de la Guerra, 1810-15

http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Goya__Guerra.pdf

Goya chronicled the atrocities he witnessed in a series of etchings called “The

Disasters of War”

http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Goya__Guerra.pdf

Francisco de Goya, Y no hai remedio (“And there is no help for it,”) etching from Los Disastros de la Guerra, 1810-15


“In eighty small, compact images, each etched with acid on copper, Goya

told the appalling truth. He aimed a high-power beam on hideous sights:

guerrillas shot at close range; the ragged remains of mutilated corpses; and

the emaciated victims of war’s partner, famine. Never before had a story of

man’s inhumanity to man been so compellingly told, every episode reported

with the utmost compassion, the human form described with such keen

honesty and pitying respect.”

Voorhies, James. “Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and the Spanish

Enlightenment”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History


http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/goya/hd_goya.htm



In this scene, we see a man about to be executed by a firing squad just

outside the edge of the picture

All that can be detected of their presence is the menacing muzzle of their

rifles




In the foreground lies the corpse of a man who has already been

shot, while in the background more prisoners are meeting a similar

fate




The utter hopelessness of war is expressed by the caption which

reads: “Y no hai remedio” (“There is no help for it”)


Francisco de Goya, No quieren (They do not want to), plate 39 from The Disasters of War, c. 1812/15, published 1863

Prado Museum

There are images of women being brutally raped and murdered

Francisco de Goya, Ya no hay tiempo (There is no time), plate 19 from The Disasters of War, c. 1812/15, published 1863

Prado Museum

Francisco de Goya, Lo Mismo (The same), plate 3 from The Disasters of War, c. 1812/15, published 1863

Prado Museum

And of Spanish rebels fighting back with the same degree of brutality

Francisco de Goya, Esto es peor (This is worse), plate 37 from The Disasters of War, c. 1812/15, published 1863

Prado Museum

The atrocities that Goya chronicles makes us recoil in horror; in this scene,

a man has been dismembered and impaled on a tree, while in the

background soldiers are murdering more men, and dragging their corpses

Francisco de Goya, Esto es peor (This is worse), plate 37 from The Disasters of War, c. 1812/15, published 1863

Prado Museum

In Goya’s eyes, war does not inspire heroism and nobility; instead, it

reduces us to our most animal nature

Francisco de Goya, Grande hazaña, con muertos (Heroic Feat! With Dead Men!), plate 39 from The Disasters of War, c. 1812/15, published 1863

Art Institute of Chicago

In this image, we see men who have been dismembered and impaled on a

tree; the caption reads “Grande hazaña, con muertos” (Heroic feat! With

Dead Men!)

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/124886?search_id=28

Francisco de Goya, Grande hazaña, con muertos (Heroic Feat! With Dead Men!), plate 39 from The Disasters of War, c. 1812/15, published 1863

Art Institute of Chicago

Its as if Goya is asking: “what compels human beings to commit such

brutal acts on men who are already dead?”

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/124886?search_id=28

Francisco de Goya, Tampoco (), plate 36 from The Disasters of War, c. 1812/15, published 1863

Prado Museum

This image is particularly chilling, as it shows a soldier gazing indifferently

at a man who has been hanged, his trousers pulled down around his ankles


Prado Museum

The soldier’s lack human compassion recalls the impassive pose of the

Assyrian king in Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus


Prado Museum

But it also bears a chilling resemblance to the photographs of American

soldiers who tortured prisoners at Abu Graib with similar indifference

Goya also completed a major painting chronicling the war, titled The Third

of May 1808

Francisco de Goya, Third of May 1808, 1808

Prado Museum

It depicts a French firing squad executing unarmed Spanish peasants in

retaliation for an uprising against the occupying army


Prado Museum

The scene takes place at night and is illuminated by a lantern


Prado Museum

Our eyes are drawn to the spotlighted figure whose arms are raised in the

pose of the crucified Christ as he is about to be executed

The bodies of the men who have already been

shot lie in a bloody heap on the ground

Goya makes us sympathize with the peasants by focusing on their anguish

as they await their fate

The firing squad, on the other hand, is faceless as they carry out their brutal

task

The grouping of the figures is an ironic reference to David’s Oath of the

Horatii, as if to suggest that the heroic patriotism of the Revolution had

been transformed into a heartless killing machine

Goya’s painting was painted on the grand scale of “history painting,” but it is

radically different from modern history paintings such as Benjamin West’s

Death of General Wolfe, or David’s Death of Marat


Prado Museum

The painting is different because it does not celebrate virtue, nor does it

glorify a modern “hero”


Prado Museum

Instead, Goya focuses on the helpless victims of social injustice


Prado Museum

In contrast to the Neoclassical celebration of noble virtue, Goya presents us

with a modern anti-hero – the Romantic victim of human brutality, and of

man’s inhumanity to man

During the later period of his life, Goya worked on a series of so-called

“Black Paintings” that decorated the walls of his Madrid house

Francisco de Goya, Dos viejos comiends sopa, 1819-1820

They are amongst the most horrifying images in the history of art

Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring

his Children, 1819-23

This painting depicts the Greek myth of Saturn, one of the Titans who,

fearing he would be overthrown by his children, ate each one upon their

birth

Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring

his Children, 1819-23

In their dark and brooding exploration of the bestial side of human nature,

Goya’s Black paintings reflect a profound loss of faith in the Enlightenment

belief in human Reason, Heroism, and Nobility

In Goya’s eye, man is nothing more than an animal

Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa is another example of artistic social

commentary

Theodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa, 1818-1819

16’ x 23’ Louvre

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice_popup.jsp?CONTENT<>cnt_id=10134198673236500&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE<>cnt_id=10134198673236500&FOLDER<>folder_id=9852723696500815&bmLocale=en

To prepare for the painting

Gericault read everything he could

in the press, and interviewed

survivors

He visited the local morgue to study

cadavers and brought body parts

home to study them as they

decayed



As one critic complained: "Monsieur Géricault seems mistaken. The goal of

painting is to speak to the soul and the eyes, not to repel."


Joel-Peter Witkin, Raft of George W. Bush, 2006

Photograph

Image source: http://www.edelmangallery.com/witkin33.htm

http://www.edelmangallery.com/witkin33.htm

The Enlightenment invented the

radical idea of freedom and equality

for all

Neoclassicism’s faith in Reason

and Science was not prepared to

account for the inherent irrationality

of human behavior

George Cruikshank, The Radicals Arms, 1819

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

It took Romanticism to discover the

complexity of the human psyche

Francisco de Goya

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

From Los Caprichos

c. 1798

Romanticism in Spain: Francisco de Goya

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