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Great Art Explained
Dark Goya (Full length): The later Works
Dark Goya (Full length): The later Works
Great Art Explained
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51:10 · Jan 13, 2023
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/1076
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this video contains images which
0:03
some viewers may find distressing
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in 1819 Francisco Jose
0:14
De Goya illusientes commonly
0:16
known as Goya was a successful and celebrated artist
0:21
then suddenly he withdrew
0:22
from public life left
0:24
Madrid and the Royal Court behind
0:26
and moved into a farmhouse in the
0:29
his wife and most of his friends were dead and
0:32
he had become isolated
0:35
73 years old sick
0:37
and completely deaf his long life was coming to a close but
0:42
he wasn't finished yet
0:45
the man who once painted crucifixions
0:48
Miracles Saints and Priests
0:51
now painted terrifying demonic
0:53
raw and brutal works
0:55
works without even a hint of God
1:22
black paintings were created during his later years in Spain from around 1819
1:27
to 1823 and convey his deeply pessimistic
1:31
view of humanity he went from being the most famous painter
1:35
in the country idolized
1:37
by an adoring public to
1:39
an artist who created his Works in total isolation
1:42
on the bare walls of his secluded Farmhouse which
1:46
were never intended for public viewing
1:48
he never named them or explained
1:51
them and only after his death would they be named the pinturas
1:54
negras the black paintings
1:56
because of the dark colors he used the
2:00
deep dark pessimism and
2:02
their diabolical subjects matter
2:04
to understand his black paintings
2:06
we need to First understand how Goya
2:08
went from Royal portraits
2:10
to the horrors of War to
2:12
arrive at this end point
2:18
Goya was a man from a humble background Who
2:21
Rose through the ranks to reach the upper echelons of high society
2:25
in 1775 he arrived in Madrid from Zaragoza
2:29
at first he worked on tapestry
2:31
cartoons for the Royal residences
2:33
creating painting designs to be woven into tapestries
2:36
for Royal palaces which gave him his first contact with the Spanish royal family
2:42
it was in the tapestry
2:44
Factory that he learned to tell a story
2:47
in 1789 the year of the French Revolution
2:50
he would be appointed court painter
2:52
and eventually worked for three Spanish Kings
2:56
first Charles III the great reformer
2:59
then his son the
3:01
inept Charles IV and then his son the
3:04
Tyrant Ferdinand in between he
3:08
would work for the occupying
3:09
French King Joseph Bonaparte
3:12
in his 40s Goya
3:14
was financially and socially secure
3:16
respected and newly Bourgeois
3:18
but just as he was getting too comfortable his
3:21
health took a Sinister turn while
3:24
at the same time Spain
3:25
went through some of the most enormous
3:27
political and social upheavals
3:29
in its history and
3:31
Goya was in the thick of it
3:34
he had started life at the Royal Court as a naturalistic
3:37
painter of the upper
3:39
but slowly he underwent an unexpected
3:41
revolution of his own from
3:43
the light to the dark
3:45
in 1792 when Goya
3:47
was 46 he developed a mysterious
3:50
illness he survived but went completely
3:53
deaf this profoundly impacted
3:55
his art as he began to explore a more personal Vision
3:59
which became increasingly Visionary
4:01
and he started to produce his most subversive
4:06
work he created Los capricos
4:09
in his 50s the
4:11
disasters of War were
4:12
produced in his 60s and
4:14
then the black paintings
4:15
he made in his 70s
4:18
his later work was mostly produced in secret while
4:21
he was still an employee of the Court
4:24
Goya would be a pragmatist
4:26
in public but a revolutionary
4:28
in private in 1808
4:31
Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain
4:34
ousted the recently crowned Ferdinand
4:36
VII and crowned his own brother Joseph
4:38
Bonaparte king of Spain
4:41
Goya remained in Madrid during the occupation by the French and
4:45
even worked for them
4:47
this would have serious implications
4:49
for him later when
4:50
the French were expelled
4:51
and the Spanish monarchy
4:53
was restored for many Spanish liberals
4:55
like Goya the French invasion
4:57
was complicated like many dictators
5:00
then and now Napoleon
5:02
came in with talks
5:03
of restoring democracy Ferdinand
5:06
was a despised dictator and
5:07
Goya and his liberal friends had
5:09
initially supported the aims of the French Revolution
5:13
they saw French rule as the great hope of liberalization
5:16
and enlightenment and in fact one of the first things Napoleon
5:20
did was to abolish the hated Inquisition
5:22
but the truth is that under occupation
5:25
goya's opinion of the French changed
5:28
after personally witnessing the violent subjugation
5:31
of his countrymen by the occupying
5:33
troops the war and its ensuing atrocities
5:36
affected him and his work deeply and
5:39
we start to see a darker subject matter
5:41
emotional work which shows deep fear for Spain's future
5:46
after a brutal suppression
5:47
Spanish Rebels started a campaign of Guerrilla warfare there
5:51
would be repercussions but
5:53
eventually Napoleon would be forced out in 1813
5:56
and King Ferdinand VII
5:58
who had been living in Exile was reinstated
6:02
Goya had started his Royal career with ferdinand's
6:05
grandfather the Beloved Charles III
6:07
a king who believed in religious reform and
6:10
a constitutional monarchy the
6:13
painter and the King had much in common following
6:15
many of the principles of the Enlightenment
6:17
an intellectual and philosophical
6:20
movement that had spread throughout the world the
6:23
place reason over Superstition
6:25
and science over religion
6:27
all over the world great
6:29
thinkers were talking of a wall of separation between church and state but
6:33
Ferdinand VII declared himself absolute
6:36
monarch he rejected any type of modernization
6:39
reinstated the Inquisition and
6:41
gave the church more power revoked
6:43
the Constitution clamped down on descent with an Iron Fist and began the process
6:48
of dragging Spain back into the Dark
6:56
produced his series on the monstrosities
6:58
of war and human behavior
7:00
called Los disastras de la Guerra or the disasters of War he
7:04
wrote on one of them no
7:05
se puede mirar one
7:08
cannot look at this
7:10
to this day some
7:11
of his work is hard to look at
7:14
in some strange way his deafness and the isolation that came with it gave
7:18
him freedom to work in a more experimental
7:20
vein rather than something a patron had demanded
7:24
his darker work however would either be censored
7:27
or not even see the light of day Francisco
7:30
Goya was a truth teller but not everybody wanted
7:33
to hear the truth
7:38
was painted just before Goya
7:40
was struck and this was painted after
7:49
from 1792 on goya's
7:51
private world would be stripped of color and Light
7:55
the artist said he saw scenes like yard with lunatics
7:58
in the Asylum of Zaragoza
8:00
it shows a scene of violence occurring in an open courtyard
8:03
of an insane asylum
8:04
but despite the yard being open to the skies the
8:08
inmates are shrouded in
8:11
the dark subject matter and the use of Shadow to represent ignorance
8:15
would prefigure his later
8:17
etchings this series of aquitin
8:23
prints Los capricos and the disasters of War has
8:26
long been recognized as one of the Supreme monuments
8:29
of European Arts intalio
8:32
is the name for any technique in which the image is cut into the
8:35
surface and the cut line or sunken area holds
8:40
achieving aquatin tones is
8:42
a very complex printing
8:43
process but here is a rough idea
8:47
for the initial design a
8:49
copper plate is heated then
8:50
it is covered with a waxy acid-resistant
8:53
ground then a design is drawn onto the wax ground with
8:58
an etching needle and so exposing
9:00
the surface of the plate
9:02
because the drawings are etched into soft waxy ground rather
9:06
than directly to metal for example as
9:09
here in the case of
9:11
the etched line is typically clean and can be delicate intricate
9:15
and spontaneous like drawing or
9:18
watercolor the etching is done back to front including
9:22
all the writing if
9:24
there is any as
9:25
the final print will be the Reversed image
9:29
once the design is
9:30
etched the plate is immersed in a bath of acid
9:33
where there is still wax on the plate the
9:36
acid doesn't bite however
9:38
the lines that were etched and so exposed by the artist get
9:42
attacked by the acid
9:44
leaving their design embedded
9:46
in the surface in
9:47
grooves which will hold ink
9:49
gradations of line tone can be achieved by varying the length of time in
9:54
the Acid Bath longer
9:57
periods produce more deeply bitten areas which print as darker lines
10:02
the plate is then covered with ink which is pushed into those grooves
10:06
then most of it is lifted off leaving
10:09
the grooves holding ink
10:11
the paper is soaked in water then laid on top of the Inked Up
10:15
plate and then it is run through the Press
10:19
this initial engraving is the first stage before adding
10:22
aquatin tones aquatant is used to create tonal
10:27
effects rather than lines here
10:29
we can see three stages of an aquatin
10:32
print at first the
10:34
etched design is printed
10:36
then one tone is added and
10:39
then another is added
10:41
to make these tonal areas the
10:43
same plate is dusted with an acid resistant material
10:46
called powdered rosin which
10:48
is attached by Heating
10:50
the plate is then immersed in an acid bath just
10:54
like when etching and the acid eats into the metal around
10:57
the dust particles to
10:59
produce a grainy sandpaper-like
11:01
surface which holds enough ink to give the effect of
11:05
an area of wash when
11:07
Inked or printed on
11:12
the 6th of February 1799
11:14
the popular newspaper Diario
11:16
de Madrid carried an ad from Francisco Goya
11:19
announcing the publication and sale of a series of new etchings he
11:24
stressed in the public announcement
11:25
that in none of the compositions
11:27
that formed this collection as
11:29
the author proposed to ridicule
11:31
the particular faults of one or another individual
11:34
in other words the
11:36
work came with a disclaimer
11:38
Goya published a series of 80
11:41
etchings and aquatins called
11:42
Los capricos or the Caprices in which he took the opportunity
11:46
to show their hypocrisies
11:48
and Follies of an unenlightened
11:50
population while critiquing the vanity and ignorance of contemporary
11:54
Society the technique of aquitint
11:57
allowed artists to create a watercolor
12:00
look and Goya became a master at using a broad range of contrasting
12:04
aquatants to reveal the shadowy world of ignorance
12:08
Goya may have started them as early as 1795
12:11
when even pre-napolian the political situation
12:14
in Spain had changed
12:17
the reign of Charles IV was dominated by crisis
12:20
after crisis Wars with revolutionary
12:24
France and then England weakened
12:26
Spain's economy the government attacked
12:29
the press and censored political views
12:31
but interestingly social satire
12:34
like Los Caprices flourished
12:37
Goya had not long been struck deaf and in recovery he developed a personal
12:41
interest in the enlightenment
12:43
these ideas were almost certainly
12:46
an inspiration for his most famous plate from Los capricos
12:49
number 43 the sleep of Reason produces
12:53
monsters Rousseau was the man whose words inspired
12:58
the French revolutionaries and
13:01
was now inspiring a Spanish court painter
13:03
Words which were censored by both the Spanish church and the crown
13:08
the frontish piece of Russo's
13:10
1793 edition of philosophy
13:12
Bears a striking resemblance to goya's
13:15
etching and it is quite possible that
13:17
it was this book The
13:18
sowed the Seas for goya's
13:20
own personal the distraught man slumped
13:24
over the desk is
13:25
Goya himself we know this from an earlier Preparatory
13:29
sketch Goya shows the struggle between reason and Imagination
13:33
his audience would have recognized the menacing bats and owls as symbols of ignorance
13:38
and Evil at the lower right a lynx watches vigilantly
13:42
alerting us to the rise of monstrous forces that appear when sleep descends
13:47
by the man's hands are the tools of his trade paper
13:51
and brushes an owl is handing over a brush as if to encourage him
13:55
to continue his work
13:57
we know that Goya originally intended this as the title page to the series
14:01
rather than the self-portrait
14:03
he went despite its relegation to Plate 43
14:08
it has come to symbolize the overall meaning of the series that
14:12
is what happens when reason or rationality
14:15
is and superstitious beliefs take over from science and reason
14:21
and we produce monsters
14:22
or monstrous in Los capricos
14:27
no member of Spanish Society
14:28
was spared his acid pen
14:30
superstitious peasants and prostitutes
14:34
belief in witches the
14:36
ignorance of the ruling classes
14:38
and most shockingly of all the
14:40
Catholic Church were all Targets
14:43
Goya satire of religion was particularly dangerous
14:46
here we see a drunken priest pulling up his trousers after consummating
14:51
an unspecified sexual act
14:54
this plate has a group of clergymen
14:56
getting drunk besides an enormous barrel of beer and Goya has them saying
15:01
no one has seen us
15:04
we need to remind ourselves of the religious oppression
15:06
in Spain where the Inquisition remained
15:09
a force until 1834.
15:12
the church had complete control and
15:14
decided what could be read and what couldn't what
15:17
could be taught and what couldn't and
15:20
what art was and
15:21
wasn't and if you went against these teachings you could be persecuted
15:26
by the inevitably Goya
15:30
was reported to the authorities and
15:32
only two days after publication
15:34
he withdrew the Caprices
15:35
from public sale luckily
15:37
for us in 1803
15:39
Goya gifted the original copper
15:41
plates to the king who
15:43
gave them to the San Fernando
15:45
Academy of Fine Arts where
15:46
they remained today in
15:51
France the political revolution inspired
15:53
by the enlightenment devolved
15:55
into violence leading to Napoleon becoming emperor
15:58
of France which would have direct consequences
16:01
for Spain after the Napoleonic
16:07
Invasion spontaneous rioting broke out and
16:10
on May the 2nd 1808
16:12
Spanish citizens rose up against the French occupiers
16:16
the next day the
16:17
French struck back at dawn and
16:19
hundreds of Spanish citizens
16:21
were rounded up and shot
16:23
goya's painting of one of those executions
16:25
will stand in for all the brutalities of War
16:29
we can debate the ethics or otherwise of Goya
16:32
working for the occupying
16:34
Napoleonic court but we must remember he
16:37
was the court painter
16:38
and needed to being
16:41
in Madrid meant he could bear witness to the horrors of the war perpetrated
16:45
by Napoleon's armies and
16:47
so he started working in secret and
16:49
a great personal risk
16:51
on new etchings which would be called the disasters of War
16:55
some of the ideas from
16:56
the etchings would inform his third of May canvas
17:00
when Napoleon was driven out and Ferdinand
17:03
VII was on his way back in Goya
17:06
approached the provisional government with
17:07
a request to paint two enormous history paintings
17:10
one depicting the Spanish Rebellion
17:13
against the French and
17:14
another set the following day showing
17:16
the execution of those Spanish Heroes
17:19
by Napoleonic troops this
17:21
was six years after the actual event took place and
17:25
at a time when goya's
17:27
loyalty to the Spanish Crown was being questioned
17:30
the paintings were done extremely
17:31
quickly within a couple of months
17:34
Goya had a lot to prove
17:38
3rd of May 1808
17:40
is set in the early morning after the uprising
17:43
the painting features two groups of men in
17:46
the shadows is the anonymous firing
17:48
squad of the French army
17:49
melded together as a single unit an
17:52
instrument of War we
17:54
cannot see their faces
17:56
emphasizing the anonymity of oppressors
17:59
the contrast between the passion of the pleading victims and
18:03
the cold mechanical firing squad is
18:05
what makes this work so
18:08
the central christ-like figure is an anti-hero
18:11
who is about to be executed
18:13
on the side of the road like a dog as
18:15
bodies of slaughtered citizens pile
18:17
up beneath him Goya
18:19
uses him as a symbol of martyrdom
18:21
of man's inhumanity to man and
18:24
the whiteness of his shirt is there to represent the innocence of all victims
18:29
the scene is lit by a lantern on the ground which
18:32
if you look carefully is actually only throwing
18:34
light on the main
18:36
as well as the crucifixion
18:37
pose his hands show the wounds of the Stigmata
18:40
which Picasso will reference for Guernica
18:43
his anti-war painting along
18:46
with the pose of the central figure
18:49
lights candles and lanterns
18:51
are often tied into images of martyrdom
18:54
in Christian art as
18:56
a metaphor for the presence of God
18:58
but in goya's painting the light is there to make an easy shot for
19:02
the firing squad and
19:04
to force us to witness the atrocity
19:06
goyas a verse the whole concept of light and
19:10
takes God out of the equation
19:15
the artist broke the rules of art by
19:17
creating a war painting that has no Heroes
19:20
one that shows a powerful State exacting
19:23
revenge against ordinary going
19:27
back in history War
19:28
paintings have always been about opposing
19:30
armies about Victory but
19:33
this is a complete break from the heroic symbols of war the
19:37
figures including a friar are
19:39
not heroic but cower in fear as a mass of blood seeps
19:43
into the sand once
19:46
more Goya shows us the truth but
19:49
as I said not
19:50
everyone wants to hear the
19:52
in 1813 Fernando was on his way back in
19:56
unbeknownst to Spain it was just about to go from the frying pan Into
20:01
the Fire and when Ferdinand
20:03
VII returned to Madrid in 1814
20:06
six years after he left he
20:09
did not approve of the two paintings created in his absence and
20:13
so they were put in
20:15
and there they would remain hidden
20:17
from view for over 40 years
20:20
the last thing the newly restored King wanted was
20:23
to remind ordinary citizens
20:24
that they also have the power to overthrow their oppressors
20:28
this painting is the one against which all future paintings
20:32
of violent conflict will be measured a
20:35
powerful statement on tragedy
20:36
and abuse of power in the name of Liberation
20:39
a statement that is as important today as
20:42
it was 200 years ago
20:46
thank you between 1810
20:49
when Goya was part of the French occupied
20:51
Spanish Court in 1819
20:53
before he went into Exile
20:55
Goya was working on the disasters of War a
20:58
series of 82 aquatin
21:00
etchings which take up after May the 3rd 1808
21:03
except with that painting it was perfectly clear who were the bad guys and
21:09
who were the good
21:10
but these etchings were
21:12
much more ambiguous and
21:14
much more confrontational they
21:16
are as hard if not harder to look at than his black paintings
21:20
he rejects the bombastic heroics
21:23
of previous war art and shows the effects on individuals
21:26
on top of this he
21:28
once again dispenses with color and
21:30
uses Shadow and shade to show its
21:32
universal truth these are not propaganda
21:35
they are the artist takes the concepts of patriotism
21:40
heroism and Triumph and turns them on their head
21:44
he had personally lived through this seen
21:47
many of these atrocities with his own eyes and
21:49
he tells us so here
21:51
it says YOLO VI I
21:54
have seen this he
21:56
saw people starving to death on the streets he
21:59
saw executions and he saw a sorts
22:02
controversially he is saying that the Spanish can be just as cruel and sadistic
22:06
as the French Goya
22:08
boldly refuses to take sides and that was something we'd never seen before
22:13
we can divide the etchings into three groups the
22:16
early ones are Works about the Napoleonic
22:19
invasion the second group concerned
22:22
the famine that followed when Goya
22:24
witnessed the mistreatment of the poor by the wealthy
22:27
in this etching the
22:29
upper class man cruelly
22:30
mimics the beggar and then the final group documents
22:34
Spain's move towards absolutism
22:36
and satirize the church
22:39
here a priest walks on a frayed and tattered rope as
22:43
a woman cries the
22:44
Rope is breaking in
22:46
goya's original sketch for the print the precarious
22:49
Crossing was made by the pope but in a rare Act of self-censorship
22:53
Goya downgrades him for the most part the
22:57
ettings transcend specifics goya's
23:00
work is universal because it has deep compassion
23:02
for all victims of war
23:04
and an understanding of suffering which affects all of us and is at the
23:09
heart of our Humanity
23:11
here A Lone Survivor is faced with a world of Devastation
23:15
destruction and suffering and he cries out in
23:21
there is no one to help them
23:24
Goya was 62 when he began work on the etchings in secret and
23:28
he would finish them under the rule of Ferdinand
23:30
VII but they wouldn't get published until 35
23:33
years after goya's death
23:35
they were just two in Century as
23:38
he denounces both violence
23:40
and abuse of it would have been impossible
23:43
to publish them while Ferdinand
23:45
was still alive ferdinand's
23:47
decision to censor goya's
23:48
two paintings made it a most difficult time for the artist he
23:52
was still under investigation
23:53
for his role during the French occupation
23:55
and thanks to ferdinand's
23:57
dislike of him goya's
23:59
commissions dried up so in 1819
24:02
at the age of 73
24:03
he moved to a farmhouse in the countryside where
24:06
isolated from the Spanish Court in
24:09
complete secrecy he created some of the most extraordinary
24:12
images in the history of Art
24:15
what is rarely mentioned is that yes The Farmhouse was isolated
24:19
but its position was such that Goya
24:21
could actually see the Royal Palace
24:23
up on the hill from his house
24:26
so some of the most politically charged works of his career were
24:30
created as he overlooked
24:31
his former life of privilege
24:35
left alone in the dark he
24:37
was free to create monsters
24:42
Los capricos and the disasters of War were horrific images that
24:46
he either didn't publish or withdrew immediately because of fear of reprisal
24:51
but with the black paintings he was isolated enough from Madrid that he could
24:55
express himself exactly how he wanted to safe
24:58
from prying eyes he set about producing
25:02
an extraordinary cycle of 14 Works
25:04
painted directly onto the wallpaper
25:07
of the two floors of his
25:09
Goya lived and worked like a Hermit and
25:12
we don't even know what he called them as he never mentioned them signed
25:16
them or titled them and
25:18
apart from his maid nobody
25:19
else saw them the
25:21
very fact that Goya created them as fresco paintings instead
25:25
of the more usual canvas
25:27
and oil is proof enough that
25:29
he never expected his paintings to be displayed in public
25:32
Goya intentionally created them in private because they were so provocative
25:41
D3 long after his death the house was bought by Baron Emil de longer
25:47
he had goya's paintings along with the wallpaper peeled
25:50
from the walls and then transferred
25:52
onto canvas if you've ever tried to strip wallpaper
25:55
you know how impossible that delicate task would have been many
25:59
of the details were lost and sections
26:01
had to be repaired by restorers
26:03
and some were purposely altered
26:05
for ascetic reasons as we shall see
26:08
luckily for posterity the paintings were photographed
26:11
in situ in 1874
26:13
before they were removed
26:16
and thanks to these images we
26:18
have a record of where they were and
26:20
what condition they were in
26:24
there's more than one way to look at these paintings I
26:27
think the deafness Madness
26:29
angle has been overstated
26:31
he had been deaf for over 30 years at this point and
26:34
there is no evidence of Madness in his letters or elsewhere
26:38
we have to see them in the context of political and religious turmoil
26:42
these are paintings by an old tired
26:45
man stripped of his status and wealth
26:48
disappointed and angry with the world and
26:51
desperate to express it in the only way he knows how in
26:55
paint there are 14 of them in total and although they are not necessarily
27:00
linked thematically they are linked technically
27:03
for most of them Goya
27:05
used as his base a thick layer of black paint
27:08
directly onto the plaster walls
27:10
on top of which he created the characters with
27:13
lighter shades of whites
27:14
Grays ochres and Earth
27:17
the oil palette is very limited and his brush work is
27:21
Broad energetic and loose echoing
27:24
a morally chaotic world
27:27
these brush Strokes are impressionistic
27:29
long before the Impressionists
27:31
existed let's look at the theories behind
27:34
the black paintings one
27:36
by one see the passage of goya's
27:42
disillusionment in this one image
27:44
this painting is the exact same subject matter painted
27:47
by Goya 30 years previously
27:49
they show the feast of Saint Isadora
27:52
which takes place every 15th
27:53
of May when Goya
27:55
painted it in 1788
27:57
it is full of light and joy but
28:00
30 years later that
28:01
world had become a nightmare
28:03
30 years which saw the French Revolution the
28:06
rise and fall of Napoleon
28:08
the occupation of Spain and
28:10
the horrendous Guerrilla war that followed
28:13
the extension of the Inquisition and
28:16
the restoration of a dictator King
28:19
the earlier painting commissioned
28:21
for a princess is
28:22
a celebration full of young people dancing
28:24
and drinking and having
28:27
the later version is the exact same scene but the sky has turned from
28:31
glorious sunshine to dark and stormy
28:33
where once the revelers sang along to Brass bands the source of the music
28:38
is now a lone madman
28:40
the once orderly crowd are now a seething mass of Madness
28:44
no longer laughing but howling in agony and
28:48
the reason for their pain is right in the middle of the massive bodies
28:51
staring out at us
28:53
Napoleon Bonaparte 20 other political figures have been identified in goya's
29:01
Black paintings this to me seems
29:03
to contradict the belief that the paintings had no real meaning or
29:07
were purely the product of goya's
29:09
psychiatric decline this painting is said to be another procession
29:16
to the sanctuary of San Isidro
29:19
which is not far from The Farmhouse Goya
29:21
was living in but
29:22
the painting is also known as the Inquisition
29:25
Goya portrayed many processions
29:27
and celebrations over the years from
29:29
the lighter toned burial of the Sardine to
29:32
the dark and cruel procession of the flagellants
29:35
as far as Spanish liberals
29:36
were concerned of which Goya
29:38
Was Won these ceremonies represented
29:40
ignorance and Superstition something
29:42
from the past Goya
29:45
emphasizes it in this painting by dressing them in 17th
29:48
century fashions one of the figures stands out more than others a
29:53
man dressed in 17th
29:54
century clothes with a mustache
29:56
and a goatee holding
29:57
a sword in one hand and a roll of paper in the other
30:00
he has been identified as an Inquisitor
30:03
dressed in the uniquely Spanish style of stiff color gordogolia
30:06
and wearing a the figure next to him he is colluding with is a
30:12
friar and the surrounding characters are
30:14
celestinas or procuracies Goya
30:18
has portrayed them before old
30:19
women who exploit young girls for their own
30:23
Goya has emphasized these superstitious
30:25
beliefs aesthetically by having the main character shrouded
30:29
in complete darkness while the opposite corner in the distance is
30:32
full of light this
30:37
is a good example of how some of the works were altered by the
30:40
restorer if we look at the photo of the witch's Sabbath before the painting
30:45
was removed we see that the original was much wider
30:48
the restorer has seen fit to remove the sides of the canvas ignoring
30:51
that Goya often used empty
30:53
space for dramatic effect this
30:55
changes the work center of balance and positions the woman in white nearer
30:59
the middle of the composition and
31:01
so Shifting the focus of the painting The
31:04
he goat or Saturn preaches from a small Mound his
31:07
mouth is wide open giving
31:09
instructions to the old crones around him he
31:12
is dressed as a priest which makes an obvious anti-clerical
31:15
statement he is surrounded by obsequious
31:17
women with Bastille Twisted faces
31:20
thought to be witches
31:21
Spain was simultaneously marked by the enlightenment fervent
31:25
Catholicism and a widespread belief in the Supernatural
31:29
most people believed in witches
31:32
as we saw Goya
31:34
has used witchcraft images before in
31:36
Los capriccios and in a similarly themed painting 30
31:40
years earlier he also features a he-goat
31:43
surrounded by a ring of terrified women
31:46
goya's use of tenebrism
31:47
throughout the black paintings was popularized
31:50
by the 17th century Spanish artist Jose
31:52
De Rivera whom Goya admired as
31:55
well as his hero Rembrandt
31:57
who used tenebrism to
31:59
heighten dramatic effect the
32:01
woman in white looks
32:02
suspiciously like a nun the
32:04
way she is separate from the others suggests
32:06
she is a new initiate
32:08
into the coven this
32:09
is a dangerous painting
32:11
remember the Inquisition is
32:13
still in operation as Goya
32:15
painted these images the he goat and his followers are the very antithesis
32:20
of reason and enlightened
32:22
thinking and this is a bitter critique of a church that would often condemn
32:26
ideas of science as subversive
32:28
and accuse enlightened thinkers of being agents
32:31
of the devil here
32:36
we see two old men enveloped
32:38
in an intense Blackness
32:39
which really emphasizes the characters one
32:42
man is holding a cane and another beast-like
32:44
figure appears to be talking into his ear it
32:48
was a common theme of goya's
32:49
insanity or irrationality represented
32:52
by demons hovering over men
32:55
art Scholars have pointed out that the round-shaped
32:57
mouth in goya's art often
32:59
indicates a demon figure's communication
33:02
figure here is actually shouting
33:04
so this could be an allusion to goya's
33:07
deafness as with all the other black paintings we can't be totally sure who's
33:11
who but I think this is a self-portrait
33:14
of Goya who was well into his 70s at this point particularly
33:18
if we compare it with this later self-portrait
33:20
he created as Goya
33:22
didn't name any of the black paintings over the years the works have been
33:25
given many titles and
33:27
an alternative to this one was the two monks due to the bearded man
33:31
possibly wearing a monk's habit but
33:34
I think there is another explanation
33:36
Goya once said that his teachers were nature
33:39
Rembrandt and Velazquez Goya
33:43
worshiped Velasquez and was often inspired by his works in the Royal
33:48
this portrait of Francisco Cabarrus
33:50
by Goya is said to have been based on the Velasquez portrait of Pablo
33:54
de valadolid if we flip the painting of the two old men we
33:58
can compare it to a painting created 200
34:01
years before the black paintings
34:02
we know that Goya admired this particular painting by Velasquez
34:06
in fact he admired the painting so much he reproduced
34:10
it as an etching which
34:11
as we saw earlier was created back to front
34:15
I don't think it's a coincidence that
34:17
the character in Velasquez work is manipus
34:20
a figure from ancient Greece who wrote satire
34:23
and is known as one of the great cynic philosophers
34:27
this would fit in exactly
34:28
with goya's thinking if
34:30
we compare two old men to the original photo by jean-laur
34:33
taken before the removal we can see that the painting was in a poor
34:37
state of repair with
34:39
a large crack in the plaster in the upper right hand corner
34:42
restoration was not the exact science it is today and
34:46
as many of the paintings were smudged badly
34:49
cracked and smeared with plaster the restorer
34:52
Salvador Martinez cuvels took the initiative of restoring them to their original state as
34:57
much as possible and
34:58
he was occasionally heavy-handed
35:01
however it is thanks to kuvel's
35:04
that we the public have
35:05
access to them today the
35:07
man who bought goya's
35:08
house after his death Baron
35:10
Emil de longer have
35:12
planned to sell them at the universal exhibition
35:14
of 1878 but kuvals
35:17
was a painfully slow worker
35:18
and by the end of 1875
35:20
only four of the 14 paintings
35:22
have been transferred from the walls of the house
35:25
luckily for us this
35:27
prompted de longer to
35:29
change his mind and donate them to the Spanish government
35:34
it might be worth looking at these two paintings together as
35:37
they were next to each other in The Farmhouse and
35:40
are sometimes seen as companion pieces
35:43
both of the works are smaller in scale than the others both
35:46
are vertical and both have a lighter theme despite
35:50
being chromatically darker they
35:53
also share an identical lighting
35:56
both works are difficult to interpret due to the poor state of conservation
36:01
which lost part of the original paint when transferred
36:04
from the war to Canvas women
36:06
laughing seems to be the key to this pair of paintings it
36:09
is unusual for Goya as it is overtly
36:12
sexual and shows a man pleasuring
36:14
himself as two hags or prostitutes
36:17
laugh at him Goya
36:18
was actually quite reserved
36:20
and prudish and rarely painted sexualized
36:23
images and so perhaps it
36:25
is one he would have only created in secret
36:28
the other men reading
36:30
shows a group of six men shrouded
36:33
in darkness three men huddle around a newspaper
36:36
or magazine that the central figure has on his lap
36:39
his shirt is illuminated
36:41
by a triangle of Light which
36:43
points our gaze in the direction of the newspaper
36:46
the men gather around the central character
36:49
in order to hear him better two
36:51
more men are in the background one
36:53
of them gazing upwards
36:54
was added by the restorer
36:57
this work has also been called the politicians
37:00
as it is thought they are discussing a newspaper article about
37:05
if so it would make sense that the historian Francisco Javier
37:09
de Salas compared the incessant
37:11
Talk of the politicians
37:12
in men reading to
37:14
the solitary pleasure of
37:15
the man mocked by two women
37:21
this is the moment in the Old Testament when Judith and her maidservant
37:25
cut off the head of the tyrant holopharnis
37:29
it is often seen in art as a story of triumph over tyranny
37:33
which I discuss in my film about Artemisia
37:35
gentileschi Goya moves away from the simple traditional
37:39
portrait of the Bible story takes
37:41
it out of any specific setting
37:43
removes all of the peripheral iconographies
37:45
and focuses only on the action the
37:48
Judith he portrays could easily be a woman from goya's
37:51
time and that is the point
37:54
it is the very immediacy
37:56
which reminds us of goya's
37:57
history with Ferdinand VII
38:00
it is quite possible that
38:02
the Tyrant Hollow furnace is
38:04
an allusion to the king and Judith to the Spanish Nation
38:08
even behind closed doors this was a brave and daring choice for an artist
38:12
with such ties to the crown as Goya
38:15
had in parts of Spain fights
38:21
where opponents can Club each other to death was still allowed in goya's
38:24
day the two men dressed
38:26
according to goya's times are
38:28
beating the life out of each other the
38:30
man on the left is covered in blood and
38:32
the man on the right is shielding his
38:35
as they smash each other to a pulp they slowly sink into quicksand
38:39
or do they we
38:41
know substantial changes were made after removal
38:44
and the original photo shows
38:46
that Goya painted The Fighter standing in High Grass rather
38:50
than knee deep in
38:52
either way I think we can see that the scene of brutal and pointless
38:56
violence is an allusion to the upheaval
38:59
in Spain a picture of tribalism
39:01
a country tearing itself apart
39:04
goyer is saying this
39:06
is this work is also known as The Witches but to me the figure
39:15
seem fairly genderless we
39:18
think it was above the doorway to the kitchen where food was delivered to
39:21
Goya by his maid
39:23
in my opinion it is possible that goyer is going back to a theme
39:26
he attacked that of the gap between the Habs and the
39:32
in this case via
39:34
an allegory of gluttony
39:35
as the figures Loom forward out of the darkness the one on the left
39:39
is attacking the food with gusto
39:41
a manic grin on its face and
39:43
purposely turning away from the other figure who
39:46
is practically a skeleton already
39:48
dead and this is one of the smallest of the series which means the
39:53
work was easy to remove and
39:55
needed little restoration x-rays
39:58
show us it was barely reworked
40:00
so the brushwork is exactly how Goya
40:02
intended and we see that the artist is at his most impressionistic
40:07
here paint is handled quickly but with the kind of firm hand you
40:12
only get with a lifetime of experience
40:18
interpretation of a mythological
40:20
subject the moirai or
40:22
the sisters of Fate from classical literature
40:25
on the left is clotho
40:26
the youngest sister she
40:28
is usually seen spinning the thread of life but Goya
40:31
has her holding a newborn baby
40:34
lakesis the second sister holds
40:37
a Looking Glass ready to inspect the thread of life
40:40
an outropos the eldest sister is carrying scissors which
40:44
she will use to
40:45
either cut the thread of life or
40:47
not Goya has added a fourth figure not
40:51
featured in The Myth a man with his hands tied behind his back is
40:55
this Goya helpless to his fate controlled
40:58
by outside forces and unable to stop what is going on around him I
41:03
think the peculiar replacement of clotho
41:05
spinning tool with a baby holds
41:07
a more personal meaning
41:09
Goya and his wife had at least eight children but
41:12
only one survived into adulthood
41:15
their married life was plagued by dozens of miscarriages
41:18
and infant deaths In
41:21
classical mythology the sisters of Fate are said to appear three nights after a
41:26
child's birth to determine the course of its life
41:30
clotho presides over the moment we are born and
41:33
the baby she is holding is still attached by the thread of life but
41:37
unfortunately by the time we get to altropos
41:40
the threat of life has
41:41
already been cut the
41:44
baby's cruel fate is decided and the fourth figure possibly
41:47
Goya can do nothing to help
41:52
La liocardia is different from the others in the series he
41:56
didn't use a black base color here and
41:58
aesthetically she is a lighter contrast from the more monstrous
42:01
images also known as the seductress
42:05
is based on his maid and probable lover
42:09
leocardia as with any of the paintings from the series the
42:14
current title was not guerra's
42:15
own most historians believe one
42:18
of his well-known portraits
42:19
is of Leo cardia the
42:21
black painting here Bears
42:23
a strong resemblance to the portrait
42:26
after his wife's death leocardia
42:28
moved in with Goya along with her daughter Rosario
42:31
to care for him
42:32
she stayed with him in the countryside until 1824.
42:36
when Goya once again under scrutiny
42:39
quickly abandoned Spain to live in
42:42
Leo cardia followed him with Rosario
42:45
and stayed there until his death in 1828.
42:48
he taught the young Rosario
42:49
how to paint and she later had a career as a painter in France
42:53
and Spain many people myself
42:56
included think Rosaria is goya's
42:59
illegitimate child Leo cardier was known to be a striking good-looking woman for the
43:04
time she had a strong fiery
43:06
character and based on goya's letters her
43:09
Manna often upset him he
43:11
left her out of his will which was quite common for Mistresses
43:14
penniless she moved into rented
43:16
accommodation and lived in poverty
43:18
selling the occasional Goya drawing to survive
43:22
Goya portrays her dressed in a dark almost funeral dress
43:25
worn by the lower class women of Madrid known
43:28
as Maha in reality Leo
43:31
cardia would not have worn these clothes as
43:34
they were beneath her but
43:35
Goya was fixated on the maha's
43:37
elaborate outfits and sense of style in dress as well as by their cheeky
43:42
Behavior this painting from over 20 years before the black paintings is of the
43:47
Duchess of Alba one of Spain's leading Nobles she
43:50
is dressed here in elegant and expensive French Fashions of the day Goya
43:55
was infatuated with her and
43:57
two years later he
43:58
painted her in a scandalously
44:00
low-cut Maha outfit an
44:03
erotic proletariat type that appealed to Goya
44:06
Leo cardia leans against what looks to be a burial mound and the speculation
44:10
is that it is goya's
44:12
grave and that she is there to mourn the end of Goya
44:15
some experts interpret the figure as the personification
44:18
of melancholy since she seems to be meditating on
44:22
life and death x-ray
44:24
investigations of the image shows
44:26
that originally she lent on a door or a fireplace and that she had
44:29
no Veil signifying mourning and
44:32
at some point possibly
44:34
a more despondent time he
44:35
added a darker theme
44:37
we think Leo cardia is one of the final Works he painted in the
44:42
series named by his friend Antonio brugada
44:49
and it is also known by its alternative title fantastic
44:52
vision in Jewish Legend asmodeus
44:56
was the prince of demons and Hell the
44:58
main focus here is on the two floating figures one male and one female
45:02
they both seem terrified she
45:05
covers her face and is looking in the opposite direction as
45:08
if they are being chased
45:09
he points to the town at the top of the mountain possibly
45:12
the Rock of Gibraltar
45:14
which was a refuge for Spanish liberals
45:16
during the aftermath of the peninsula
45:18
War the crowd with horses and wagons appeared
45:22
to be refugees running from danger in
45:24
the foreground facing the figures of
45:27
the French army from the 3rd of May 1808
45:29
taking aim at the defenseless crowd seeking refuge in
45:39
this is the most famous of the black paintings the
45:42
most horrific and the most discussed
45:44
I think the first thing to say is
45:46
that it is probably more shocking to us than it was to the 19th
45:50
century we have to see it in the context of the rise of Romanticism
45:55
and its obsession with the Gory and the supernatural
45:58
which led to the rise of the gothic novel and
46:01
the popularity of entertainment
46:02
such as phantasmagoria popular
46:05
at the time with audiences
46:06
in Madrid where images of monsters and ghoulish subject matter were
46:10
projected in theaters using
46:13
having said that the
46:15
cannibalism angle is particularly grotesque
46:17
and it's even more horrifying
46:20
that Goya painted it on the walls of his dining room
46:24
the story is from the mythological
46:26
tale of the Greek god Kronos
46:27
the Romans called him Saturn
46:30
in it Saturn overthrew
46:32
his father to become the ruler of all the gods
46:35
afraid that history would repeat itself he
46:38
ate or rather swallowed
46:39
whole five out of his six children
46:42
but here Saturn is not swallowing the body whole but gnawing down on it
46:47
in a frenzied and horrific attack it
46:49
has been tackled before by artists but goya's
46:52
version is different it
46:54
is not a baby's body as in the myth but a grown adults
46:58
which makes it even more disturbing
47:00
and we can back that up with
47:02
this incredible 1797 sketch
47:04
Goya did which clearly shows it was intended to be an adult
47:09
Saturn's expression is terrifying
47:11
this is not a God reveling
47:13
in Revenge as gods do it
47:16
is not a celebration
47:17
Saturn is shocked by his own monstrousness
47:20
he is fully aware just how terrible an act he commits against his own
47:24
flesh and blood but
47:26
he just can't stop himself
47:29
and that is horrifying
47:32
the raw flesh of the figure is
47:34
the flesh that Goya witnessed all over Madrid
47:36
as innocent citizens were cut down in the street by armed men poverty
47:41
and hunger left a mass of starving bodies in the city and
47:44
piles of corpses were
47:46
left to Goya had seen hell on Earth and he transcribed
47:51
what he saw for
47:52
future Generations but mostly I think this
47:55
is a painting about power
47:57
and just how far someone will go to retain power
48:01
how Saturn like Ferdinand
48:03
has used power not only to mistreat his own citizens hence
48:07
the adult corpse but
48:09
also to violently turn on those people
48:12
it shows us that
48:13
those in power will
48:14
use any means possible to hang on to that power
48:17
including eating their own
48:24
the most powerful image is not Saturn devouring
48:26
his son but the drowning dog the
48:29
most pessimistic and most wretched image of them all
48:32
it shows a dog's head gazing
48:34
upwards lost in the vastness of the rest of the image alone
48:38
and drowning slowly in quicksand the
48:42
dog is looking upwards
48:43
at someone or something outside
48:45
of the in the original photo
48:48
it was discovered that the dog is looking at two birds flying in the
48:52
sky which disappeared from the painting when it was transferred
48:56
from the walls to the
48:58
to me the fact he sees birds flying free makes
49:01
the image even more tragic
49:04
we have seen horrific images before in many paintings
49:07
but usually no matter how ghastly there
49:10
is salvation in the black paintings
49:13
there is no sense that the sacrifice of human life is going to lead
49:17
to Salvation in fact it
49:20
doesn't a Saturn is eventually overthrown
49:23
by one of his sons and
49:25
for the dog there
49:26
is no salvation no
49:28
hope and there is no
49:30
God this dog is goya's
49:33
stand-in for Humanity struggling
49:35
alone just like the dog we
49:37
are looking to the sky for a miracle that
49:40
will never come Goya
49:45
left Spain at the age of 78
49:47
to start over in France
49:49
and he died there a patriot in Exile four
49:52
years later in 1828
49:55
in a Macabre twist to the Goya story in
49:58
1901 his body was exhumed
50:00
for transfer back to Spain and
50:03
it was then discovered
50:04
that his skull was missing like
50:06
the black paintings themselves
50:07
there are many theories about what happened to his skull But
50:11
ultimately it remains a
50:14
the painter who was so skilled at getting into other people's heads
50:18
eventually lost his own
50:23
Goya has been called the most radical artist that ever lived the
50:27
last of the Old Masters
50:28
and the first of the moderns
50:31
but the word that comes up again and again with Goya
50:34
is truth he was a prescient artist who became the chronicler of a violent
50:40
age and gave us uncomfortable
50:42
truths that are as relevant today as
50:45
they ever were he
50:47
showed us that Ordinary
50:49
People are capable of evil and
50:52
can do extraordinary and
50:55
that sometimes when we are looking for Monsters
50:59
we should look within ourselves
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