Transcript

LINDA WALSH
Manuel Godoy, became first minister in 1792, and remained the royal favourite until the French invasion. This portrait by Goya, celebrates his success in a military campaign against Portugal. Godoy was a flagrant opportunist and patron of the arts. He was protector of The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and he commissioned many paintings… from Goya.
Godoy was an important conduit at court for Enlightened reform, although his reputation suffered through his rumoured liaison with the Queen. He said that what he wanted for the people was ‘ bread and Enlightenment, that produces bread’. Like other members of the court however, Godoy befriended Napoleon, allegedly as an enlightened ally. Napoleon tried to gain his favour, by promising him his own kingdom in the Algarve.
COMMENTARY
Napoleon’s intervention introduced into Sapin not only a turbulent and romantic 19th century Revolutionary but also an Enlightenment inspired French systematiser, convinced that superior French standards and institutions could be readily applied in Spain.
JANIS TOMLINSON
Goya’s personal imagery is similarly on the cusp of these two worlds.
There is a side of Goya's creativity that we can equate with, the sort of creative freedom of Romanticism, particularly the works that he did without a commission. I think it's important to make that distinction in Goya's career. After an illness in 1793, he worked on a small series of cabinet paintings - a variety of subjects - he delivered these to the Royal Academy, so that they could be seen by his colleagues. And in the letter that accompanies them, he talks about how these uncommissioned works have sort of him more breadth of creativity, then any of his works before.
Goya’s graphic series los Caprichos, was published in 1799, he explained his satirical and enlightment intentions in a newspaper advertisement saying that his subjects were chosen from among the multitude of extravagancies and follies which are common among civilised society.
JULIET WILSON BAREAU
I mean in a way, all his prints, and particularly in this set, are about light and darkness, the struggle between the light and the dark. And this print for example is called Nanny's Little Boy. It's number 4 in the series, and it shows a sort of horribly overgrown child, still in leading strings, a spoilt noble, who has learnt nothing, who is useless, who will be in leading strings for the rest of his life.
LINDA WALSH
There's this quite biting social criticism then isn't it?
BAREAU
The Caprichos are very very biting social criticisms. There's some wonderful ones in the donkey series. I mean for example this is one of the most famous...
…the ass who is, all he can think about is his genealogy, his noble ascent, and of course what he shows you is his genealogical tree, which is one ass, after another, after another, after another. This set of prints was actually rather a hot potato. He’d been making it over a couple, two or three years from 1796 and it was a period when his friends were all in power in government and there was a great sort of feeling that this was going to be take-off, a new age for Spain, of liberalism, a proper government. As luck would have it, it came to a very abrupt end and his friends were sent packing from the ministries and set into exile.
PROF SERRAYER
It is to do with Goya realising that the period of classical art has already disappeared, how the potency of imagination cannot be controlled and how dreams are bother the fount of creativity and the fount of monstrosity and this is found not only in art but in contemporary life. The idea that really man can’t control himself although he may try to subdue nature.
LINDA WALSH
Print making gave Goya an outlet for challenging and subversive ideas. He also rebelled against the convention of art imposed by the Royal Academy.
READING
I will give a proof to demonstrate with facts that there are not rules in painting and that the oppression or servile obligation of making all study or follow the same path is a great impediment for the young, who profess this very difficult art. I do not see any other means of advancing the arts nor do I believe there is one, than to reward and protect he who excels in them. To hold in esteem the true artist, to allow free reign to the genius of students, who wish to learn them without oppression nor imposition of methods that twist the inclination they show to this or that style of painting.
LINDA WALSH
In his role as court artist, however, Goya fulfilled official expectations. In important public commissions, such as this portrait of the family of Carlos the fourth, Goya reflected the glory and the splendour of the spanish monarchy.
Here we can see King Carlos IV, and Queen Maria Luisa, surrounded by members of their family, including here, a future Ferdinand VII. Some have seen this group portrait with it’s worn faces an ungainly poses as unflattering.
The general composition was based loosely on Velasquez’ Las Meninas a famous image by a Spanish master, guaranteed to arouse national pride. Velasquez had the status, and the confidence, to put himself into the picture, all be it respectfully in the middle distance…
…in his royal group, Goya also avails himself of this privilege.
PROF FRANCISCO CALVO SERALLER
I think that as patrons, the king and queen had very good taste, they cou ld immediately see Goya's talent. And Goya was very grateful that the king and queen appreciated him. I don't think that the painting of The Family of Carlos IV contains a hidden satirical meaning. I think that Goya painted the royal family many times, and that they were very knowledgeable about art. And they liked to be painted in the style that was fashionable at that time, and that style was a naturalistic one.
JANIS TOMLINSON
He painted that wonderful portrait of the family of Carlos IV, right after he was promoted to the long awaited position of First Court Painter. The portrait was painted in 1800, he had received that title of First Court Painter in 1799. And the last thing he was about to do was to satirise his patrons.
LINDA WALSH
Goya’s attitudes towards contemporary events were expressed most frankly, perhaps, in his engravings. This is the original title page to his graphic series “The Disasters of War”. It refers to the fatal consequences of the bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte.
JULIET WILSON BAREAU
He got involved immediately, and he went off to Zaragossa which was his, almost his home town, with the idea that he would paint and draw after a seige, to see what had happened to this city.
And it opens with this kind of vision of the scenes that are going to come, and as you go through, you see these extraordinary scenes of this common people taking up pitchforks knives, anything they could get hold of, and fighting the heavily armed troops. Here are the women coming in to attack, with their babies. This is a kind of, ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ scene isn't it ? He uses of course, he uses all the traditional Raphaelesque kind of motifs, but he turns them into these extraordinary modern images.
This is a hero of the seige of Saragossa, who when all the men had been shot and fell at the feet of the guns, as she climbed over their dead bodies and fired the cannon against the French, it was a well known, and very real story.