Goya: The Darkness of Life in Paint

Francisco de Goya - Duel with Cudgels - 1820-23 - Oil on canvas, 123 x 266 cm - Museo del Prado, Madrid (click photo for larger image)Rococo Era painter Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) was a Spanish artist whose work reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Although he was a revolutionary artist, he had no immediate followers. However, his work heavily influenced movements that would follow—including Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism—as well as Expressionism and Surrealism.   

There are fourteen Black Paintings (now in the Museo del Prado), “so called because of the dark tones and predominance of black.” They originally decorated the Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man). They were painted, in oils, on the walls of two rooms on the ground floor and first floor, and were transferred to canvas in 1873. Goya acquired the house in September 1819, but probably did not begin the paintings before the following year, after his recovery from serious illness.

Although Goya survived, a condition of deafness that pre-dated his illness remained. This changed his character in a way that is reflected in his art. A constant fear of a relapse made him impatient, and this is also evident in his vigorous technique. “As his monstrous imagining found expression, he darkened the walls in two rooms with terrible scenes of witches and visions of evil spirits. A fantastic horde of cynically grimacing hags and ghosts fill these rooms.”

In the work featured here, two men are battling each other with cudgels. Both are standing up to their knees in sand, so that neither can run away. Whether even the victor will be able to extricate himself remains unclear. There are no spectators in sight—only a bleak landscape with foreboding images.

Gericault: Capturing Animal Movement

Théodore Gericault - Lions in a Mountainous Landscape - ca. 1818–20 - Oil on wood - 19 x 23 1/2 in. (48.3 x 59.7 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (click photo for larger image)French painter Théodore Gericault (1791–1824) exerted a seminal influence on the development of Romanticism in France. Géricault was a man unduly attentive to style neatness and fashion, with respect to this personal appearance—and he was also an avid horseman. His dramatic paintings reflect his flamboyant and passionate personality. 

As a student Géricault, learned the traditions of English sporting art and developed a remarkable facility for capturing animal movement. He also mastered classicist figure construction and composition.  Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), widely regarded as the greatest of the French Romantic painters, was profoundly influenced by Géricault, finding in his example a major point of departure for his own art.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes the painting featured here as follows: “This vigorous painting of six lions in a remote, spectrally illuminated lair—possibly intended to evoke the Atlas Mountains of Morocco—is an extraordinary example of Gericault’s spontaneous handling of paint. Rather than applying finishing touches to make a polished cabinet picture, the artist left the painting in a state known as an ébauche, a work prized for its strength of directly capturing a subject or effect. Until its acquisition by the Museum, the composition was known only by means of a replica (Musée du Louvre, Paris), which is thought to have been painted by an artist in Gericault’s circle.”

Arnold Böcklin: A Romantic Tale

Arnold Böcklin - Roger and Angelica - 1871-74 - Tempera on panel, 44 x 36 cm - Nationalgalerie, Berlin (click photo for larger image)Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) was one of the major Swiss painters of the 19th century. He exerted a great influence on the German-speaking countries through the expression of a heightened Romanticism and poeticism. Angelica is the daughter of a king of Cathay in Orlando Furioso, a romantic epic poem about the conflict between Christians and Saracens at the time of Charlemagne, written by the Italian poet Ariosto (1474-1533). Angelica was loved by several knights, Christian and pagan, among them the Christian hero Orlando (Roland). He was maddened (furioso) with grief and jealousy because she became the lover of, and eventually married, the Moor Modero. Roger (Ruggiero) freeing Angelica is a theme very like Perseus and Andromeda. Roger dazzles the monster with his magic shield, and places a magic ring on Angelica's finger to protect her. He undoes her bonds and they ride off together. Böcklin's painting is a romantic rendering of the Renaissance tale.

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky: Seascapes

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, Ship in the Stormy Sea - 1887 - Oil on canvas, 63 x 97 cm - The Hermitage, St. Petersburg (click photo for larger image)Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900) was Russian painter of Armenian descent, most famous for his seascapes, which constitute more than half of his paintings. He was born in the town of Feodosiya, Crimea, to a poor Armenian family. His parents family name was Aivazian. Some of artist's paintings bear a signature, in Armenian letters, "Hovhannes Aivazian”. Due to his long life in art, Aivazovsky became the most prolific Russian painter of his time. He is also said to be the most forged of all Russian painters. He left over 6,000 works at his death in 1900. With funds earned during his successful career as an artist he opened an art school and gallery in his home town of Feodosiya.

Romanticism: The Exaltation of Emotion over Reason

Caspar David Friedrich - The Sea of Ice - c. 1823-25 - Oil on canvas - 96.7 x 126.9 cm - Kunsthalle, Hamburg (click photo for larger image)Romanticism was an orientation that characterized literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western Civilization from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality were rejected in favor of the beauties of nature, the exaltation of emotion over reason, and of the senses over intellect. A new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures arose, with an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth. The German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was also inspired by medieval motifs, which were very “romantic” in nature, long before the label of “romanticism” was created.