This week as part of the reading series, we will study a chapter on the Spanish painter, Francisco Goya (1746-1828.) We will read about Goya’s arc from a court painter to printmaker, his sordid depictions of Napoleonic conquest, and the deterioration of his well-being in parallel with Spain’s political instability. His artwork burgeons the period of Romanticism as he steps away from the dogmatic style of history painting, and toward etchings that draw from the artist’s “psychic wellsprings.”
“Goya is reflecting upon the distressing antipodes of his own mind and upon the Janus-face of Enlightenment itself. For in fact, the very creation of art in an age of Reason entailed a dangerous flirtation with madness.”
- Stephen F. Eisenman. "The Tensions of Enlightenment: Goya.” Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History. 4th ed, 2011.