Goya in Times of War: An Overview
200 Works by Spanish Rococo and Romantic Artist at Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado's exhibition of 200 paintings and works on paper by Francisco de Goya celebrates the bicentennary of the start of Spain's War of Independence.
The Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain commemorates the 200th anniversary of the start of the Spanish War of Independence (1808-1814) with Goya in Times of War (April 15-July 13, 2008). This international loan exhibition features almost 200 paintings and works on paper by Rococo and Romantic artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828). They range in date from immediately before the onset of Spain's hostilities with France to the years following the war's conclusion.
The Exhibition's Organization
Goya in Times of War is arranged chronologically and divided into four sections.
- Crisis and Recuperation: First Court Painter (1795-1800) traces Goya's career from the mysterious illness between 1792 and 1793 that robbed him of his hearing through the publication of his Caprichos (1799) and appointment as Court Painter for Spain's King Charles IV (r. 1788-1808). Goya's personal paintings during this period were largely explorations of violence, cruelty, evil, ignorance and the macabre, seen in The Witches' Flight (1797). Also considered are his aristocratic and ecclesiastical commissions beginning around 1795.
- Facing the New Century (1800-1808) explores Goya's royal and noble portraits. Beginning with the somewhat unflattering Family of Charles IV (1800), the visitor proceeds through works that capture his sitters' images with a great sense of psychological depth and realism.
- Goya in Times of the War of Independence (1808-1814) investigates the artist's reaction to the violence and inhumanity of war as seen in the emotionally penetrating Second of May 1808 and Third of May 1808, both painted in the Summer of 1814 and restored for this exhibition. Also included are a number of still lifes and a pair of Majas on the Balcony (1810-1812) from a private collection, both allegories of female vanity.
- Fatal Consequences of the Bloody War of Spain (1814-1820) features paintings, drawings and lithographs created after Goya was exonerated of collaboration with the French by the government of Ferdinand VII (r. 1813-1833) in May 1815. It concludes with fascinating works from the artist's exile in Bordeaux.
The Colossus: A Conspicuous Absence
The Museo del Prado, citing overwhelming doubts about the attribution of The Colossus (ca. 1808), decided to exclude the famous painting from the exhibition. This pessimistic masterpiece, once thought to be by Goya, is dominated centrally by a naked giant with clenched fists. Its muscular behemoth is widely interpreted by scholars of Goya's oeuvre as the Pyrenees Mountains, Spain's natural barrier against the invading troops of France's Napoleon Bonaparte (r. 1804-1814, 1815). The composition's mountainous foreground is populated by diminutive fleeing villagers and animals. Miguel Zugaza, the Prado's director, has indicated that the scientific evidence regarding the work's authorship will be published shortly.
Sources:
- Brown, Jonathan and Susan Grace Galassi. Goya's Last Works (exh. cat.). New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
- Hughes, Robert. Goya. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 2003.
- Ives, Colta and Susan Alyson Stein. Goya in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (exh. cat.). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995.
- Rishel, Joseph J. Goya: Another Look (exh. cat.). Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999.
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