Witness: Reality and Imagination in the Prints of Francisco Goya
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
April 22 – September 6, 2017
Reviewed by Ed Voves
On the timeline of art history, Surrealism is usually placed between the end of the Dada movement around 1922 and Picasso's Guernica in 1937. This certainly was the heyday of Surrealism, when René Magritte, Max Ernst and André Masson probed the realm of the unconscious and the irrational with some of the greatest Surrealist works.
The problem with dating Surrealism to the 1920's and 30's is that Francisco José de Goya y Luciente (1746-1828) had created incomparable works of art over a century before that fully qualify as examples of Surrealism. If J.M.W.Turner can be lauded as a pioneer of Abstract art, Goya is certainly worthy of the title of the First Surrealist.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is currently mounting a major exhibition of selections from Goya's prints. The Philadelphia Museum is able to draw upon complete first edition prints from all four series of Goya's etchings: Los Caprichos, Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), La Tauromaquia and Los Disparates. Goya's bullfighting lithographs, created while he lived in exile in Bordeaux, France, during his last years, are also on view.
Goya's prints strike directly and deeply into the troubled soul of humanity. This is quite evident from the Philadelphia Museum exhibition. These are still-shocking works of art, two hundred years after their creation.
When you look at The Disasters of War, Plate 15, And There Is No Remedy (Y No Hai Remedio), the execution of this prisoner could have occurred during any war or revolution from the 1600's to the contemporary world. The blunt, deadly rifle barrels, the last, terrifying moments of a blind-folded captive roped to a wooden stake are the only subjects here. Political ideology, military necessity, flags, bugles, etc. are all banished from the picture plane. A human being is going to die ... and There Is No Remedy.
Francisco Goya, And There Is No Remedy, 1810-1820
Goya's Disasters of War might be disqualified from being Surrealist works of art, given that such scenes of carnage were a daily reality during Spain's war against the French army of Napoleon, 1808 to 1814. In the background of And There Is No Remedy, a second firing squad is at work, reprieving the pose and uniforms of the Napoleonic executioners in Goya's The Third of May.
Yet, what appears to be ultra-realism in both etching and oil painting is, in fact, entirely imaginative. Goya was in Spain during these terrible years. Based in Madrid, he was removed from the actual fighting which was largely conducted with "hit-and-run" tactics soon to be called "little war" or "guerrilla" warfare. These Disasters of War were events Goya "witnessed" through his mind's eye.
Goya's first series of etchings, Los Caprichos, are chiefly imaginative too. Goya maintained that these works were commentaries on the superstition and venality of Spanish society, especially of the Catholic Church which he detested. If so, few of the etchings were accurate depictions of scenes Goya actually witnessed.
The very title of the series, the Spanish translation of "caprice," can be taken to be mean "whim." This in turn can be interpreted as Goya's whim to render "the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society" as he saw them, rather than as they happened.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Detail of Francisco Goya's self-portrait, 1799
Goya's early work as a portrait, religious and genre painter gave little indication of this capricious or "dark" side of his artistic vision. In 1792, he fell seriously ill from what researches believe was a rare autoimmune condition called Susac’s syndrome. Beginning with severe headaches and buzzing in his ears, Goya then experienced hallucinations, paralysis and hearing loss. He went completely deaf, though he eventually recovered physical stamina sufficient to begin painting – and etching.
Goya's mastery of etching is astonishing. His handling of the tonal qualities of gray and black eq