convinced of their truth. To-day they remain as real to us as the
sympathetic, Velazquezesque likenesses of the painter Bayeu in the
Prado, or of Dr. Peral in the National Gallery. It is almost impossible
for any one to be in a position to award the palm for supreme excellence
among Goya’s portraits, for besides being so numerous, they are widely
distributed among the aristocratic families of Spain, and many are
practically inaccessible to the student. There are fewer than two dozen
of his portraits in the Prado, only two in the National Gallery, and one
in the Louvre. Few people are familiar with more than a certain number
of his portraits. For this reason there are many different opinions as
to the comparative merit of his pictures, but the individual opinions
all constitute a remarkable tribute to the painter’s genius in catching
the likeness and reflecting the character of his subjects.
Of the portrait of Villanueva, Señor Caveda writes that ‘it not only
faithfully represents the features of the famous architect and the
expression of him as a whole, but reveals in him the goodness of soul
that animates him, and the noble simplicity of character which is so
skilfully transmitted in all Goya’s impressions.’ Señor Mariano Nonqués,
referring to the portrait of Moratin, now in the possession of Don F.
Silvela, declares that ‘it may rightly be said without any appearance of
exaggeration that this effigy is painted with the mind and with a
spontaneity which is clearly seen, since there is nothing in it that
reveals difficulty in the work, or any preconceived idea of imitating
any other painter in its execution,’ and he adds that, by reason of the
individuality it discloses, it should be considered one of the best
likenesses painted by Goya. According to the painter Carlos Luis de
Ribera, the genius of ‘La Tirana’ may be seen in the head of the
portrait of the distinguished actress, Rosario Fernandez. ‘In it, as in
all his (Goya’s) works,’ says this authority, ‘there is that air of
truth which so few painters have attained; there is brilliancy and
freshness without pretension or exaggeration, the model is simple and
convenient, and while it makes no show of strength it is not weak. Its
execution springs as much from sentiment as that of all his canvases,
because it was never sought after by Goya, but was the consequence and
result of his spontaneity and intuition.’ Again, of his portrait of José
Luis Munarriz, the eminent critic, Don Francisco Maria Tubina, writes:
‘There is something on the canvas in addition to perfection in the
technique, the beautiful development of the subject and the exact
likeness; the immaterial part must be recognised and appreciated--the
inner vigour Goya gives the character, which illumines the features with
the glow of the soul. Munarriz is represented to us in the picture as
the fancy imagines him, as we see him in his biography, ingenious and
lively in thought, distinguished in form, kind and firm in temperament,
prudent in judgment, and with a mind always directed upon things which
elevate and ennoble. Munarriz the literary man,’ he says in conclusion,
‘is the Munarriz of the picture, the one being explained by the other.’
And read, also, what the _Boletin de la Sociedad Española de
Excursiones_ contains concerning the two portraits of Doña Antonia de
Zárate, now in the possession of Señora Vinda de Albacete: ‘But where
Goya shows the most exquisite sensibility and profound psychology is in
these two portraits of one person, in which he incorporates the whole
story of a dreamer swayed in life and death by the highest ideals, a
woman of a race of poets and artists, Antonia de Zárate. Though in the
first portrait he represented her smiling and in perfect health, in the
second he knew her existence was undermined by a treacherous disease
which was to cause her death. Never have we felt more deeply the
impression of pathos than before this presentment of a soul rather than
a person, before this face enveloped in transparent veils, with life
showing in the eyes, and in that life a melancholy realisation of
approaching death.’
Goya’s portraits, as we have said, are so numerous that it is only
possible to deal here with a brief selection of them. In his large and
varied gallery he displays so much versatility that it appears
impossible that they could all have been conceived by the same mind and
painted by the same hand. His treatment is alternately rough to the
verge of violence and as smooth as the work of a miniaturist; his tones
are crude and heavy or luminous and glowing, as the sitter appeals to
his mind; he makes his queen a confessed harlot and his little grandson
the incarnation of dainty boyhood. The portrait of his wife, now in the
Prado, is a work of the highest excellence, so are the beautiful
representations of the Duchess of Alba, the vivid impression of Asensi,
the delicious portrait of the Marquesa de Pontejos, the
Gainsboroughesque study of the Conde de Florida Blanca, the equestrian
painting of General Palafox, the dashing, almost contemptuously vivid
likeness of Godoy, the striking portrait of Guillemardet so
enthusiastically eulogised by M. León Legrange (_Gazette des
Beaux-Arts_), and those of the Duke of Osuna, of Felix Colón,
Jove-Llanos and Ventura Rodriguez, of Martincho and Romero, the
bull-fighters, of Pignatelly, General Urrutia, of the royal children,
and of himself, painted when still young--each portrait bears the stamp
of Goya’s genius, each expresses an individuality in his individual
style, each is finished because its effect is true.
Goya’s portrait of the Duke of San Carlos, the most loyal friend of the
son of Maria Luisa, has won the admiration of many painters and critics.
The head is beautifully painted, the posing is natural and graceful, the
figure lives and breathes. For this ‘miracle of art,’ as Viñaza styles
it, Goya used only a few colours, which he spread over the canvas with
an energetic and grandiose brush, each stroke being the expression of an
æsthetic thought and the perfection of the technique of painting. The
portrait, ‘which legitimises Goya’s descent from Velazquez,’ is said to
be like the work of Rembrandt in its clare-obscure, of Watteau in its
correctness, and of Titian in its delicacy and freshness. But there is
no end to the expressions of admiration which Goya has inspired. Eduardo
Rosales went to Zaragoza annually to visit Goya’s portrait of the Duke
of San Carlos, and on one occasion, when he had been lifted by a friend
that he might study the face of the portrait, he is reported to have
exclaimed, ‘My friend, such painting will never be seen again.’
In 1798 Goya was intrusted with the decoration of the newly built church
of San Antonio de la Florida, which had sprung into existence in 1720
as a primitive hermitage, had been destroyed when the El Pardo road was
made in 1768, was re-erected two years later, and in 1792 was replaced
by the present elegant edifice, which was built at the expense of the
royal patrimony, after the plans of the celebrated architect, Ventura
Rodriguez. The outside of the building is of good architectural style,
the interior is small and elegant, and well suited to the rank and
fashion which frequented it. The Church was opened for worship on July
1, 1799, and we read that ‘Madrid went wild with excitement at the glory
of Goya’s achievement.’
Don Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado, who supplied the text for the
volume of aquafortis engravings of these frescoes which D. José Moria
Galvan y Candela executed in 1897, tells us that they were wholly in
accord with the conditions of the time. But the sentiment of Mr.
Rothenstein is nearer to the truth when, in speaking of these frescoes,
he says that he can remember nothing which gave him so clear an idea of
Goya’s cynicism. ‘Imagine,’ he writes, ‘a coquettish little church with
a white and gold interior, more like a boudoir than a shrine, but
furnished with altar, and seats, and confessionals. One’s nostrils
expect an odour of _frangipane_ rather than incense, and it must be
admitted that Goya’s frescoes do not strike a discordant note in this
indecorously holy place.’
The subject of the main composition covers the cupola, and contains
upwards of a hundred figures considerably over life-size. The picture
illustrates the miracle ascribed to St. Anthony of Padua, who restored
to life the corpse of a murdered man in order that he might reveal the
name of his assassin and rescue an innocent man who was about to be
executed as the perpetrator of the crime. The scene is enclosed by a
painted railing which surrounds the entire composition. We see the saint
standing on an eminence against a luminous background. His life-giving
words have just restored the corpse to consciousness. The man leans
forward, supported in the arms of a companion, with his hands clasped in
an attitude of profound veneration, his expressive face looking fixedly
upon the saint with a gaze of surprise and gratitude. The central
figures are surrounded by a motley crowd of men, women, and children,
some of whom express their astonishment by eloquent gestures, while
others appear indifferent to the miracle that is being performed, and
one or two frolicsome boys are seen astride the figured railing. On the
spandrils, the intrados, the curvilineal triangles of the arches, and
behind the high altar, are groups of angels and cherubs. The angels are
beautifully clothed and almost wanton in their human loveliness, the
babes are entirely without the illusion of divine origin. It has been
said that in this composition Goya perfectly interpreted the spirit of
the Church de la Florida; certain it is that these angels with ‘the skin
of a camellia, eyes of fire, and the beauty of a harlot,’ which move
with audacious freedom of attitude, ‘not in pure spheres of blessedness,
but in an atmosphere of atoms of gold illuminated by an Asiatic sun, are
the strangest and most beautiful creatures that ever adorned a
consecrated house.’
‘The frescoes of la Florida,’ comments C. Gasquoine Hartley, ‘are yet
another witness of the truthful humour of Goya’s insight, but not one of
his countrymen realised the irreverent irony of his work.’ ‘The figures
are as full of piquant intention,’ declared Richard Muther, ‘as can be
found in the most erotic paintings of Fragonard.... It is an artistic
_can-can_; it is Casanova transferred to colour. All that the Church
painting of the past had created is despised, forsaken; and this satire
upon the Church and all its works was written in the land of Zurbarán,
of Murillo.’ The Conde de la Viñaza alludes to Goya as an artist who
painted pictures with religious subjects, but not religious pictures. ‘I
do not know,’ he says, ‘a more profane master than this Velazquez,
Rembrandt, Vicelli and Veronese rolled into one.’ And he instances his
monumental painting at la Florida to illustrate his contention: ‘An
admirable energy, the most splendid scale of tones. What relief! What a
magic of colour! What a beautiful lesson the light of nature receives
there! On the other hand, what lack of religious feeling and
spirituality in those frescoes!’ And having denounced in the angels the
silkiness of their skins, the brilliance of their eyes, and the
wantonness of their beauty, he adds, ‘the miracles of the exemplary man
of Padua are familiarly treated as a spectacle of wandering rope-dancers
might be!’
It has been said that the King was incensed against the artist for
introducing renowned ladies of his court in the faces of the winged
archangels, and it is generally believed that the most aristocratic
persons of the capital are represented in the frescoes, but if Charles
IV. resented his choice of models, he had a most amiable way of
expressing his displeasure. Goya himself, writing to Zapater, admitted
that ‘the King and Queen are mad on your friend Goya,’ but the madness
took the form of a royal order, dated October 31, 1799, which reads:
‘H.M. wishing to reward your distinguished merit and to give in person a
testimony that may serve as a stimulus to all professors, of how much he
appreciates your talent and knowledge of the noble art of painting, has
been pleased to appoint you his chief painter of the Chamber, at a
yearly salary of 50,000 reals, which you will receive from this date
free of rights, and also 500 ducats a year for a carriage: and it is
also his pleasure that you occupy the house now inhabited by Don Mariano
Maëlla should he die first,’ etc.
Certainly the frescoes in his own day were extolled as the most
important work ever done by Goya’s marvellous brush; he closed the
eighteenth century with creations that won for him his greatest
contemporary fame and raised him to the summit of his art. If nothing
could be further removed from religious inspiration, nothing human could
reveal more enchanting beauty, more exquisite grace. These frescoes were
praised as ‘an inimitable symphony of light and colour.’ It is not in
our province either to accept or to refute the claim that ‘they raise
the most common things of Goya’s time to the high spheres of Spanish
mystic realism.’ Goya’s contemporaries did not realise that the
paintings outraged the canons of propriety and probability, and in later
times Señor Rada finds that the painter, in this work, rises always to
the regions of mystery, where only genius can penetrate, and responds to
the peculiar influence of a temple which seems rather to inspire loving
human aspirations, than mystic thoughts of infinite abstraction. ‘Apart
from the fact that Goya was a believer and respectful to all that
pertained to religion,’ urges Señor Rada, ‘in the principal subject of
this painting (the “Cupola”) he is as manifestly mystic and delicate as
any painter of the spiritual school. In the central group the risen man
partakes of both realism and religious unction. The expression could not
be better, nor could the attitude of the saint be more dignified. Apart
from this in the other groups, he copied what he was wont to observe in
popular gatherings, as he saw it, as it was, as it always will be.’
Goya’s Spanish apologists may well be justified in their contention that
his originality forced him to disregard the classic rules and mannerism
of traditional Spanish religious art. They see no impropriety or
extravagance in surrounding the figure of a revered saint with a crowd
of roysterers, prostitutes, cut-purses and Manzanares rascals. And,
after all, the point is scarcely worth arguing. Again, when it is
protested that Goya’s archangels and seraphim were rather beautiful
women than angelic spirits--well! what better conception could there be
of angels than the perfections of a charming woman? That is Señor Rada’s
retort: ‘The naturalist Goya, surrounded by the seductive beauty of his
time, could not conceive or even presume that the chosen beings who sing
eternal praises in the ethereal regions of celestial glory were any
different. More in accord doubtless, with our pious traditions and with
Christian spiritual belief are the glories of Juan de Juanes and
Murillo; but each artist has his peculiar temperament as well as his
special gamut of colour, and to ask Goya to paint angels like those
great Christian artists would be the same as asking the painters of a
previous epoch to paint pictures of popular scenes like Goya’s.’
The logic of the foregoing is presumably sound, although the conclusion
seems to us to support those who contend that Goya’s temperament
rendered him an unsuitable person to translate religious episodes into
colour. We remember, as Señors Rada and Pedro de Madrazo assert, that
Goya was ‘a believer’ and ‘respectful in everything pertaining to
religion,’ and we recall also that in their joint will the painter and
his wife describe themselves as ‘firmly believing and confessing the
mystery of the Holy Trinity ... and all other mysteries and sacraments,
believed and confessed by our Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Mother
Church, in whose true faith and belief we have lived.’ But we cannot, at
the same time, forget that Goya’s detestation of the priesthood was
violent and unresting. If he caught the spirit of ecstasy in his picture
of San José de Calasanz receiving the Host at the hands of a priest, he
also painted a representation of Santas Justa and Rufina. This picture
has been described as the most profane and inappropriate work of the
Aragonese genius. It is stated that he selected as his models a pair of
well-known _cocottes_ of Madrid, giving, it is said, the caustic,
uncanonical explanation, ‘I will cause the faithful to worship vice!’
Goya may have called himself an orthodox conformer to the national
church, but his contempt for his ecclesiastical patrons and those who
practised the devotions which he mechanically professed, is avowed.
But apart from their religious significance, or their lack of it, these
frescoes of the Church of San Antonio de la Florida reveal Goya at his
best as a daring draughtsman and fine colourist. The energy, the
spontaneity, the light and the relief, the magic of his paint--all are
revealed in this work, which occupied him only three months. And what
better proof could one desire of the truth of his own contention: ‘In
nature colour exists no more than line--there is only light and shade.’
Goya knew how to produce abundant life with simply white lead, the black
of smoke, green and vermillion. Richness of colour does not consist in
an infinite variety of tints, but in the harmonious variety of tones and
in the skilful selection of the key in which the picture is painted.
Here Goya surpassed himself in the effect he produced with a palette
that was severe in its simplicity, but the processes employed by the
master to obtain his wonderfully vivid and charming tones were so varied
that they cannot be exactly determined. Of the result, Paul Lafond
writes, it is ‘as true as Velazquez, as energetic and as light as
Rembrandt, as delicate as Titian, as spiritual as Tiepolo, with
infinite perspectives like those of Tiepolo and Veronese, and as refined
as Watteau.’
The painting of the frescoes of San Antonio de la Florida won for Goya,
as we have seen, the coveted office of first painter to the Court. It
was at this same time he began to paint less and to take up the needle
as a new force of expression. His first work was the series of designs
known as ‘Los Caprichos’ in which the spectator is transported into some
‘unheard of, impossible, but still real world’--a world peopled with
dapper _majas_, handsome hidalgos, hideous old men and hags more
horrible than the witch of Endor, gluttonous priests, spectres and
sorceresses, devils and desperadoes and corpses, all the myriad
diabolical and terrifying shapes and phantasies in which Goya set down
his vision of humanity. The origin, the inspiration and the object of
these etchings are still matters of speculation. It is generally agreed
that the painter executed the first drafts for these plates after his
return from San Lucar. His deafness aggravated by a serious illness,
from which he made a slow and painful recovery, obliged him to give up
the fatiguing work with palette and brush, and it may well be that he,
whose spirit never rested and whose hand was never idle, fell into a
habit of preserving his impressions on paper in order to distract his
tormented imagination from brooding over his sufferings. It was at a
later date that he transferred these drawings on to the copper plates.
It may be reasonable to assume, as some have done, that the part of
philosopher which he had developed leisurely during his days at Court,
as well as the vein of moralist and castigator of vice, was quickened in
him by satiety and physical pain. The Conde de la Viñaza appears to
believe that Goya suddenly awakened to his power as a caricaturist, and
that, irritated at the moral ugliness of his contemporaries, and at the
vile coterie which surrounded the King and Queen, he began to inveigh
unflinchingly against lasciviousness, covetousness, rapacity, hypocrisy,
and ignorance, against the court parasite and the court harlot, the
miser and the monk, the women who sold their daughters and the monsters
who bought them, against insolent pomp, ecclesiastical rottenness and
venal stupidity. Yet probably the view of Gautier is nearer the truth.
He assumes that the now popular painter was ‘merely producing so many
capricious sketches, when he was in truth drawing the portrait and
writing the history of Spain of former days, under the belief that he
was serving the ideas and creed of modern times. His caricatures will
soon be looked upon in the light of historical monuments.’
Extraordinary as these pictures are by reason of their fancy, their
beauty, their saturnine wit, their ‘Gargantuan spirit,’ as well as by
the technical skill and originality they display, they are even more
extraordinary by reason of the favour with which they were at first
received by the people against whom they were directed. At first the
plates were issued separately and were passed from hand to hand among
the etcher’s friends. But in 1799, probably the year in which the series
was completed, a prospectus was issued, advertising the publication of
an edition of seventy-two plates. Goya, for unknown reasons, objected to
this edition, and the issue was never made. In the meantime the satire
of these tumultuous cartoons was discovered by the objects of his
ridicule. Godoy, the old Duchess of Benavente, the Queen’s favourites,
were the first to be identified, then effigies of the Queen herself and
her illustrious lord were recognised upon the plates. The scandal of
these allusions aroused an outburst of indignation, instigated, in great
measure, by the caricatured and crucified clergy. The office of the
Inquisition was moved to take action, and Goya’s popularity and
influence were powerless to avert the inevitable catastrophe. Rescue
came from the most unexpected quarter. In 1803 the King caused an
edition of 240 copies of 80 plates, which had already been printed, as
well as the plates themselves, to be acquired by the state, with an
order that he had commanded their publication.
It is difficult to account for this splendid action from such a King as
Charles IV. Was he so impressed by the merits of these etchings that he
was prompted to rescue them from the Inquisition in the interests of
art--a magnanimity of spirit ‘of which his character gives no promise’?
Probably he was merely insensible to the satire of the pictures. The
‘Caprichos’ were dedicated to the monarch by the artist--a subtle jest
on the stupidity of the King, who, Muther concludes, ‘was not even in a
position to grasp the meaning of the plates.’ We learn that Charles
remunerated Goya by granting his son a pension of 12,000 reals. A
reproduction of the letter from the painter referring to this
arrangement is as follows:--
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
TRANSLATION
YOUR EXCELLENCY,--I am in receipt of H.M. Royal Order which your
excellency communicated to me on the 6th inst., accepting the
offer of my work, the caprices on eighty copper plates engraved
with aquafortis by my hand, which I will hand to the Royal
Calcografia with the lot of prints which I had printed by way of
precaution amounting to 240 copies of 80 prints each copy, in order
not to defraud H.M. in the least and for my own satisfaction as to
my mode of procedure.
I am very grateful for the pension of twelve thousand reals which
H.M. has been pleased to concede to my son, for which I give my
best thanks to H.M. and to your excellency.
Your excellency has not replied to a letter of mine, in which I
said that the portraits were finished, and also the copy of your
excellency’s by Esteve which only lacked the inscription for which
he has asked me several times. I also suggested that if your
excellency approved I would get the frames made for the originals
and would myself go and put them where your excellency might order,
so that you might have the pleasure of finding them in their
places.
I only desire your excellency’s orders and that you keep well. May
God preserve your excellency’s valuable life for many
years.--Madrid, October 9, 1803.--Your excellency’s obedient and
grateful servant,
FRANCISCO DE GOYA.
To his Excellency Señor Don Miguel Cayetano Soler.