GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de, Featured Paintings in Detail(1)

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de

Featured Paintings in Detail

(1)

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Nude Maja (La Maja Desnuda)1799-1800Oil on canvas, 97 x 190 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Nude Maja (La Maja Desnuda) (detail)1799-1800Oil on canvas, 97 x 190 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deCharles IV and his Familyc. 1800Oil on canvas, 280 x 336 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deCharles IV and his Family (detail)c. 1800Oil on canvas, 280 x 336 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Parasol1776-78Oil on canvas, 104 x 152 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Parasol (detail)1776-78Oil on canvas, 104 x 152 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Duchess of Alba1795Oil on canvas, 194 x 130 cmCollection of the Duchess of Alba, Madrid

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Duchess of Alba (detail)1795Oil on canvas, 194 x 130 cmCollection of the Duchess of Alba, Madrid

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GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Duchess of Alba

Goya had a close and lasting friendship with the Duchess, who was the last of an old noble line, and famous for her beauty, wit, and intelligence. When Goya was stricken with the mysterious illness that paralyzed him for a time, she arranged devotedly for his care.

The full figure portrait can be interpreted as fervent thanks for her friendship. The painter has put his affection into the picture in a dedication written in the sand, to which the Duchess pointing: "A la Duquesa de Alba. Fr. de Goya 1795." The band of friendship on her wrist also bears his initials. Goya

wanted to show her to posterity with a mild but watchful gaze. Her candid expression is emphasized by the raised brows and the framing curly hair. The palette is reduced to a few colours, the landscape is bare and the simplicity of the handling may stand for the sincerity of their friendship. Goya kept the

painting, intending never to part with it.

Goya painted the Duchess two years later, dressed in black lace, and the motto to which she is pointing betrays their relationship: "Solo Goya!"

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Parasol

María Luisa, Charles's wife, wanted cheerful scenes for the tapestries in her dining room. Goya responded with this picture of an elegant young lady with a lapdog beneath a green parasol.

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deCharles IV and his Family

Goya clearly had in mind for this royal group the composition of Velázquez's Meninas, which he had copied in an engraving many years before. Like Velázquez, he has placed himself at an easel in the background, to one side of the canvas. But his is a more formal royal portrait than

Velázquez's: the figures are grouped almost crowded together in front of the wall and there is no attempt to create an illusion of space.

The eyes of Goya are directed towards the spectator as if he were looking at the whole scene in a mirror. The somewhat awkward arrangement of the figures suggests, however, that he composed the group in his studio from sketches made from life. Goya is known to have made four

journeys to Aranjuez in 1800 to paint ten portraits of the royal family. Since there are 12 figures in the group it is likely that the woman seen in profile and the woman whose head is turned away — the only two whose identity is uncertain were not present at the time.

Goya's magnificent royal assembly is dominated not by Charles IV but by the central figure of the Queen, María Luisa, whose ugly features are accentuated by her ornate costume and rich jewels. For some unknown reason this was the last occasion that Goya is known to have painted any member of this royal family, except for the future Ferdinand VII, who stands in the foreground on the left. The unusual figure composition on the

wall behind the group has been identified as Lot and his Daughters, but no such painting has been identified.

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco deThe Nude Maja (La Maja Desnuda)

Goya's Majas (fashionable young women) are two of his most famous and most discussed masterpieces. Their date, for whom they were painted and the identity of the model are problems that are still not satisfactorily solved.

The first mention of The Nude Maja is in the diary of the medallist Pedro Gonzalez de Sepulveda describing a visit in November 1800 to the house of the Minister, Manuel Godoy, Goya's patron and the target of his satire: 'In an apartment or inner cabinet are pictures of various Venuses... [among them] a naked one by Goya, without design or delicacy of colouring' and Velázquez's 'famous Venus'. There is no mention of The Clothed Maja and

presumably it was not there, probably not yet painted.Godoy's position at court and his known taste for paintings of female nudes (there were many others in his collection) makes it likely that both

Majas were painted for him. An alternative suggestion is that they were in the Duchess of Alba's collection and acquired by Godoy after her death, together with Velázquez's The Toilet of Venus and other pictures. Goya's relations with the Duchess of Alba have made her the most popular

candidate as a model for the Majas, at least as a source of inspiration, supported by the many drawings of herself and members of her household he made during his visit to the Duchess's country estate.

The lack of resemblance to the heads of Goya's earlier portraits of her is usually explained by the need to conceal her identity. Whoever the model may have been and for whomever the pictures were made, Goya's nude Maja is unique and unprecedented in his oeuvre and in Spain, even in

Europe, in his time. Velázquez's Venus, which Goya must have seen in the Duchess of Alba's collection, is its only comparable predecessor in the life-like portrayal of the female nude. But where the Velázquez is also a mythological painting, Goya's The Nude Maja makes no pretence of being

anything but the rendering of a naked woman lying on a couch.

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de

Francisco de Goya is an innovative Spanish Romanticism painter, one of the great Spanish masters.

As an artist, Goya was by temperament far removed from the classicals. In a few works he approached Classical style, but in the greater part of his work the Romantic triumphed.

Straightforward candor and honesty are present in all Goya's works.

The subversive and subjective element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of later generations of artists. For the bold technique of his paintings, the haunting satire of his etchings, and his belief that the artist's vision is more

important than tradition, Goya is often called "the grandfather of modern art".

Francisco de Goya became one of the most influential figures in Spanish art of all time. He was also extremely important in the development of modern aesthetic sensibility, a forerunner of Romanticism, both in the content of his paintings, with their in-depth

exploration of reality and references to the dream world, and in his very original technique.

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de, Featured Paintings in Detail(1)

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