In this work, as in all others by this artist, both the personal and the national note are found to be strongly imprinted; all the participants in this scene are authentic Spaniards, whose classic types may still be recognized to-day in every city throughout the peninsula.
Mention also should be made, among the works in which Goya ventured upon chiaroscuro, of the celebrated picture in the Escuelas Pias in Madrid, representing The Communion of St. Joseph Calasanz, and of the spacious and original canvases with which he decorated the walls of his own home.
We now arrive at that turbulent period, extending from 1800 to 1814, which marked an era of national calamities for Spain. The facts are familiar: as a result of court intrigues, the luckless and unhappy Charles IV. found himself in 1808 forced to abdicate in favour of his son; then came the invasion of Spain by the imperial armies, the odious treachery of Bayonne which made Ferdinand II. a prisoner and a dethroned king, while Napoleon, following his mad dream of universal conquest, placed his own brother, Joseph, on the throne of Charles V.; and finally there came the awakening of invaded Spain and its splendid national defence, resulting in the expulsion of the enemy and the fall of the Empire.
All these years of struggle and patriotic frenzy Goya passed in his quinta, where he had shut himself up in complete isolation, taking no part in the events which were shaking Spain to its foundations. This attitude of his gave rise to a great amount of comment. In the eyes of many, Goya was an afrancesado, a partisan of the French invasion; but there seem to be no grounds that would justify anyone in offering him such an insult. It may be that, pledged as he was to ideas of justice and liberty, he was not displeased to see the downfall of a corrupt regime, under which Spain had been slowly dying. But that he had looked on light-heartedly at the misfortunes of his native land, and that he had not suffered to the very depths of his Spanish soul, would indicate a depravity which no one has a right to impute to him.
And if proof of this were needed, we could find it in his masterly series of The Misfortunes of War, eloquent and melancholy commentaries upon that troubled period, giving a gruesome panorama of military executions, conflagrations, pillage, and famine; in a word, the habitual and tragic accompaniment of a foreign invasion. Could an artist who was indifferent have expressed himself in such pathetic accents? Could a renegade have been stirred to such a point by all these horrors? Furthermore, Goya made no overtures to the invaders. While other Spaniards, willingly or unwillingly, figured at the court of Murat and of Joseph, Goya remained in close retirement in his own house, notwithstanding his natural fondness for adventures and festivities. “But above and beyond his incontestable patriotism, a more generous sentiment, loftier and more profoundly humane, emanates from these sinister pages. What Goya hated beyond all else was war: it spelled iniquity, despotism, and above all, tyranny. Nothing more eloquent than this avenging protest has ever been formulated against the spirit of conquest and the barbarous struggle of nation against nation.” In about the year 1814, upon the return of Ferdinand II., Goya added to his Misfortunes of War seventeen new plates, the strangest and most daring of them all. This is the last and most strenuous battle that he ever waged on behalf of all he loved against all that he hated. What phials of wrath he poured out against intrigue, conservatism, and falsehood, which stifle liberty and repress human thought! What outbursts against the rogues who strive desperately to destroy liberty and justice! Here is a picture in which hypocrisy has conquered and has confiscated liberty: Contra el Bien General! Further on is another, in which truth is in its death agony: Murió la Verdad! But she will rise again: Si Resusitará! for it is impossible that she should disappear forever. Lastly, as a conclusion to this work, Goya prophesied in an eloquent page the return of a glorious era which should inaugurate the reign of liberty, love, happiness, and peace. And it bore this legend: This is the Truth!
But the reign of Ferdinand VII. did not fulfil the generous hopes of the great artist. With this king, the worst days of absolute monarchy were revived in Spain; the triumphant reaction manifested itself by persecutions, cruelties, and tyrannies of the most odious kind. Whoever was even suspected of liberalism was marked for exile or for prison. More than anyone else, Goya’s personal prominence exposed him to the attacks of the reactionists, but his very fame protected him. Ferdinand VII., when he received him one day, informed the aged artist that he “deserved exile, and more than exile; he deserved death!” but he consented to forget the past and he reappointed the artist to the office of First Painter. It would seem as though such protection should have sufficed to protect Goya from the machinations and hostilities of his adversaries. But it did nothing of the sort. The reactionary party would not consent that a liberal should escape its vengeance, even though protected by royal immunity; so it continued to hound him by means of secret intrigues and calumnies.
Goya, impatient and irascible by nature, could ill bear the malevolent insinuations, allusions, and contemptuous terms; he found himself stifling in such a poisoned atmosphere. Residence in Madrid had become impossible for him; the greater number of his friends, less fortunate than he, had already been forced into exile; and since the persecution showed no signs of abating, he saw his circle of friends dwindling day by day. At last he made up his mind to leave a native land that had grown so inhospitable and hostile. He asked the king for a leave of absence, and upon obtaining it crossed over into France.
THE CLOSING YEARS
Goya went first of all to Paris, but he made a stay there of short duration. Almost all his friends from Madrid, whom Ferdinand VII. had driven from Spain, had taken refuge in Bordeaux, where they formed a veritable colony. He proceeded to join it and decided to settle down among them.