Goya

A new and profusely illustrated appraisal of this leading Spanish painter and graphic artist. "As a draftsman and painter, Goya favors the human passions, whether uninhibited or suppressed, repressed or repressing." Thus does Werner Hofmann describe the essence of the vast oeuvre left behind by Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), pointing to the source of its vital energy, alarming immediacy, and striking modernity. Discussions of Goya in recent decades have centered on his influence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century painters. Hofmann redresses the balance, focusing instead on the Spanish artist's profoundly disturbing imagery, and demonstrating that Goya's modernity derives from his lifelong investigation of what lies behind the world of appearances and convention. Hofmann places Goya's paintings, drawings, and prints in a biographical context, revealing the specific character of each phase of the artist's life and work. He discusses "the glory and the pain of faith" evinced by Goya's early work, the artist's parabolic representation of the threat posed by the French Revolution, his dramatic documentation of the French occupation of Spain, his variations on cruelty in the Disasters of War etchings, and the religious faith apparent in his late work. Hofmann also relates the artist and his work to contemporary intellectual developments, drawing comparisons with writers, critics, and philosophers from Goethe to William Blake to the Marquis de Sade. 220 illustrations, 185 in color.