Lecture Series: Goya- Crazy like a Genius
Last week we had a lecture about Fransisco Goya and below are comments about his life and my beliefs.
Goya also known as Fransisco de Goya was born in 1746 and was a Spanish painter. People called him the father of modern art for a reason including him painting portraits of royals but also many revolutionary works. Fransisco entered his pathway with art from his early years (14) and advanced his skills by spending some years in Rome. He gained fame as he commenced work in the Spanish Royal Court and also by him expressing pressing social and political issues through his art. His art journey began by imitation and then personalisation in order to learn "the art".
Goya even failed to win top prize which in my opinion the judges would have later on felt great loss. His work included eye for detail as he aimed to perfect tiny elements of features with them being facial etc. Fransisco was married and had a son but sadly in 1792 he went completely deaf and began working on paintings even more where he portrayed women from all stages and this proved that his style had changed a lot since his malady. He was keen in exploring, showcasing and exposing the problems of the country and did so in 80 prints and each represented an issue. He also aimed to sometimes paint caricatures of people instead of actual portraits which in my opinion was ahead of his time as he expressed his honest opinion without fear. His horrific and dark paintings rose when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain and Goya showcased war and pain.
The painting above proves my point that Goya wanted to show the lengths that greed can go to such as an example of Saturn devouring his son.
His works also I believe tried to make one feel empathy and question ones critique and life about wants and needs and in his way make people revolutionise within and rise but also end war or understand it better. He wanted to showcase how absurd Ferdinand's rule was by creating a series of etchings called "Los Disparates" which included ageing, suffering, lust, greed and death showcasing them in a grotesque manner. He went in exile in France where he created exceptional artwork and died in 1828 in Bordeaux where he lived a long life for his era.
In my opinion Goya was a painter ahead of his time which used very forward techniques but also used art as a form of expressionism about ideas, thoughts and problems which is something very little people did in the past as they just went with the flow. Fransisco was not like that though and he shows it through his work as he was tired and wanted change by all means possible. When he could not get change for his country he moved willingly as the enemies did not kill him as I believe they just found a possession they needed which was a great painter to portray them as excellent. My honest viewpoint is that he was a man of people with ethics and believes and due to his powers he could showcase the pain the people were suffering from due to the dictatorship of the french forces. He is an exceptional artist which earned the name of the father of modern art that will never be forgotten as he revolutionised art into different forms and changed art into a form of story telling and expressionism without silencing from the leaders. I believe he was given the name crazy like a genius due to the way he portrayed problems in a sleek manner for his time or beliefs through art and no one would understand it and kill him.
On the other hand, basing my judgement on the free the nipple movement I found the fact that he depicted women in this manner of being submissive and ignorant extremely sexist and disturbing. In addition the presenters judgement was outdated and could not see what was depicted in front of him clearly. I believe women were presented in a wrong and demeaning manner which disgusts me. What disturbed me most were mostly the nude portraits of women which are posed and depicted in a sexual manner to please men and also compared to his portraits of women they are portrayed as just beautiful dolls and nothing else.
What did you think about his depiction of women? What did you think of the way Robert Hughes (the presenter) talked about Goya's painting of women? To me it seemed outdated and struck entirely the wrong chord. I like Hughes' art criticism, but thought some of his commentary was really ill judged! There is also something I don't trust about male painters lascivious depictions of women, from Goya up to the work of Renoir (and beyond). In terms of your previous post on the Free the Nipple movement, I'd be interested to see how you write about this subject.
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