Word: goya
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Fantasy almost all but disappears in the second set of etchings which Goya did in the period of the Napoleonic invasions. The world around the artist had become so full of horror that reality was in truth stranger than fiction...
Instead of dwelling on the nobility of generals and the heroism of soldiers, Goya, in these striking works entitled Disasters of War, portrays the stupidity and cruelty of war. His extravagant Spanish pride was able to look through the tragedy and laugh at the "barbarians" that had attacked his country...
Compositionally, the Disasters concentrate on action to the extent of losing visual balance. Goya exaggerates gesture to heighten emotion or point a message. In "No se Puede Mirar" for example, Goya shows who the ends of rifles can outbalance human beings...
...Tauromaquia continues the theme of war and the dark figure of the bull dominates these drawings. In two of the works Goya describes how man has fought this dark creature from time immemorial. In another, he shows that when the bull gets loose he massacres people in the stands. This oldest of Spanish sports, while artistically compelling, was more than a technical exercise for Goya; it contained rampant symbolism...
...Goya's works, the Proverbios or Disparities (nonsense), which were completed immediately following the Disasters of War, remain of special interest to admirers of the artist's work. Harrassed by royal authorities for the frankness of his earlier prints, he undertook these etchings, which he dedicated to the King, maintaining that they meant nothing at all. They seem to have been designed to go undeciphered until long after the artist's life. Recent interpretations conclude that these drawings contain the deepest of Goya's philosophy, in very exacting symbolism...