This exhibition was a must see for me as soon as I saw it
advertised and the reviews did nothing to damped my enthusiasm.
Like most exhibitions at the Courtauld gallery it hones in
on one aspect and investigates it in depth. In this case, an album (Album D) of
drawings that Goya produced in the later years of his life.
The real feat of the curators is to have brought together
all the pages from this book known to be in existence. The sheets come from
museums far and wide who have graciously contributed their drawings to allow us
a unique insight into the artist’s psyche. As you go around I recommend you
take note of the names of the contributing galleries just to recognise the work
that has gone in to getting them there.
The first room sets the scene effectively including prints
and drawings which demonstrate Goya’s preoccupation with the occult with age
and its troubles and vanities. Then in the second room we get to the real
business of the exhibition, the album itself.
The masterfully executed ink drawings veer from the
hauntingly horrible to the poignantly beautiful. In the first pages images of
gnarled witches abound with their stooped postures, jutting chins, broken teeth
and sunken malevolent eyes. Some fly through the air either tumbling down to
hell with reckless abandon or swooping up by the power of their magic, others
gnaw on babies or collect them to take to the great witch master. There is madness
and a primal erotic and voyeuristic charge in many of the images. Figures look
up each others skirts or are clinched in twisted embraces.
Wicked Woman Goya
However in the last pages of the book, the subject matter
shifts. Goya shows us aged and stooped figures leaning on sticks with toothless
grins. My personal favourite drawing belongs to this category. It is an image of an old woman dancing to the
music of the castanets in her hands. She throws her left leg up in a joyful
gesture seemingly carefree and with little regard to her frailty. These later
drawings appear to show sympathy and care we see that the cruelty reflected in
them is not a fictitious mythical and fantastical one but rather the everyday
cruelties of age.
He can no longer at the age of 98 Goya
Goya appears to answer the inevitable question of where
these images came from within the series itself. After the particularly
repulsive image of a witch about to tuck in to a supper of raw baby which is
shown above we see an image entitled by Goya He wakes
up kicking. It shows an old man appearing to wake from a nightmare with
that horrible start which we all know well. The implication is that these are
images and visions drawn from Goya’s own dreams and imaginings reflecting his
darkest fears and preoccupations. This is also eloquently expressed in the print
below from his Capricios series in the first room entitled The sleep of reason
produces Monsters.
The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters Goya
The album is roughly dated to 1819-23 coinciding with the
artist’s famous Black Paintings which he painted directly on to the walls of
his house in Madrid. Like these paintings it is unlikely that these drawings
were intended for public consumption. Luckily for us both the paintings which
were stripped from the walls and the drawings have survived the test of time. Most
of the sheets even maintaining the fascinating titles that Goya gave them.
Allowing us a privileged look into the head of Goya as an old man.
One of Goya's Black Paintings Two old men eating soup
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