Goya

Goya developed from a decorator of churches to a court artist, accomplished portraitist, satirical graphic artist and a painter of dark, nightmare visions. His work at court, for Carlos III and Carlos IV, involved both decorative work and a series of portraits of key figures who moved in court circles. As his official, public work became more sought after, however, he developed a parallel career as a graphic artist that seemed to express more freely a private view of the injustices, vices, follies and inhumanity of contemporary society. This shift coincided with his own increasing deafness. It also intensified as Spain was wracked by the grief and suffering of war provoked by the Napoleonic invasion. Some of the art that emerged from the Peninsular War and its aftermath suggested a shift of interest away from Enlightenment reform and towards more troubled, private fantasies and preoccupations. And yet the public at large perhaps was not ready for this. Although Goya’s first major engraved series, Los Caprichos, went briefly on sale before being withdrawn, his later series, Disasters of War, was not published during his lifetime.

In his 1792 address to the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Goya had stressed the importance to artists of studying nature, as opposed to the uninformed, servile copying of Greek statues or the following of rules proposed by those who have written about art:

Figure 4: Francisco de Goya, Charity, Plate 27 of Disasters of War series, 1810–14, etching, 16.3 x 23.6 cm, private collection. Photo: Index/ Bridgeman Art Library.

Figure 5: Francisco de Goya, What Courage!, Plate 7 of Disasters of War series, 1810–14, etching, private collection. Photo: Index/Bridgeman Art Library.

Figure 6: Francisco de Goya, A Heroic Feat! With Dead Men!, Plate 39 of Disasters of War series, 1810–14, etching, 15.6x 20.8 cm, private collection. Photo: Index/Bridgeman Art Library.

Observation of nature, in the form of his contemporaries and their lives, certainly nourished Goya’s own art. Increasingly, however, he engaged in a liberated form of artistry in which imitation became subservient to creativity: this was one of the key shifts inherent in the move from Enlightenment to Romanticism. His etching from the Los Caprichos series, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (Plate V2.1) encapsulates this shift as a contest of truth and imagination. When first drawn and etched in 1797, this was envisaged as a frontispiece and was accompanied by the caption: ‘The Author Dreaming. His only intention is to banish those prejudicial vulgarities and to perpetuate with this work of caprichos the sound testimony of truth.’ Creatures of the night represent those ‘prejudices’. We see owls and bats (which then represented ignorance and the forces of darkness) and a lynx, emblem of the power of sight. It is an ‘ignorant’ owl that prompts the artist into action. The total effect is one of ambiguity. Will darkness predominate in the artist’s mind, or will his vigilance and alertness help to expose and banish these creatures of the night, as befitted the satirical intention of the series?

Click below to view Plate V2.1 The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.

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