Goya

by Tomlinson, Janis

• ISBN13: 9780714838441
• ISBN10: 0714838446
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-22
• Publisher: Phaidon Press

Summary

This paperback edition of the award-winning study of the life and work of Goya is filled with the same fine reproductions as the original 1994 hardcover. Goya was one of Spain's greatest and most controversial painters, famous for incisive portraits and the "black" paintings of his later years. Scholars have often attributed Goya's progression from producing light-hearted court paintings to creating somber images of the Napoleonic wars to the artist's serious illness of 1792, which left him deaf. Writer Janis Tomlinson's aim here is to show a continuity in his work before and after the illness. She sees in Goya's vast output--at least 1,800 works--a vital drive to explore and exploit his personal creativity, which was strengthened by the deafness that cut him off from all but visual communication with the world. With detail supported by formidable research, Tomlinson presents Goya's life chronologically, analyzing his work from icons like the Naked Maya to his Los Caprichos series of etchings with their biting social satire and supernatural imaginings of a world turned upside down. The demonic intensity of Saturn Devouring His Son and Witches Sabbath, painted on the walls of his "Country House of a Deaf Man" at the end of his life, suggest to some the work of an embittered madman. Rather, these disturbing paintings reflect Goya's profound empathy for the victims of a predatory and unjust society--empathy that a modern audience readily shares. --John Stevenson

Author Biography

Janis Tomlinson is a noted authority on Spanish painting, and has taught at Columbia University, New York, and Williams College, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	vii
The Beginnings in Saragossa	11	(14)
Goya in Madrid	25	(28)
New Patrons, New Projects	53	(30)
Between Commission and Caprice	83	(40)
Los Caprichos	123	(24)
Painting in the Spotlight	147	(32)
Imagery of Atrocity	179	(26)
The Artist in his Studio	205	(34)
The Quinta del sordo	239	(28)
The Bordeaux Years	267	(20)
Goya after Goya	287	(19)
Appendices	306	(2)
Notes	308	(5)
Selected Bibliography	313	(1)
Index	314	(6)
Photographic Acknowledgements	320