“And this advice is worthy of her who gives it. Worse yet is the damsel who follows it to the letter, and misfortune to the first one who accosts her!” From “The Caprices” (Lefort No. 15).
Goya. God Forgive Her—It’s Her Own Mother!
“The damsel while young left her native land, served her apprenticeship in Cadiz, and is now returned to Madrid. She has drawn a prize in the lottery, goes one day to the Prado, and is accosted by an old and decrepit beggar—she repulses her; the beggar woman insists. The beauty turns and recognizes her—this poor old woman is her mother.”
From “The Caprices” (Lefort No. 16).
And the beauty of these compositions is materially increased by the sense of color which they suggest. In consequence of Goya’s influence aquatint is coming largely into vogue with modern etchers; but he with this process, and his contemporary, Turner, with mezzotint, were the first to explore fully the resources of tint in combination with line. The English artist, however, used it mainly as a convenient method of representation. In Goya’s hand it became a medium of intellectual and emotional expression, comparable to tone in music. Goya, in fact, by his study of nature, advanced the circle of his art, so that, on the one hand, it embraced more of the universal geometry and, on the other, intersected more freely the circles of the other arts. Thus he anticipated the latest modern thought, in its consciousness of the essential unity of the arts and of the essential unity of art with life.
A NOTE ON GOYA
By WILLIAM M. IVINS, JR.
NO other artist in black and white has ever exhibited such tremendous vitality as Goya. Look back along the line, and there is no maker of prints who has put into them the same exuberant, full-blooded delight in life. For sheer physical strength Mantegna only may be compared with him. And, strangely, with this often almost delirious overflow of animal spirits there is the most remarkable sensitiveness to the significance of gesture. Who, except Hokusai, has ever expressed, in black and white, weight—the heaviness of tired bodies, the leaden fall of an unconscious woman’s arm, or the buoyancy of excitement—as this Spaniard? Who has ever made motion so moving—made young limbs so supple, elastic, and graceful? His every line is kinetic—he does not relate motion, he exhibits it—and in art as elsewhere deeds are worth more than words.
For sensitiveness to the beauty of the human body, for curious research in the esthetic inversion, the beauty of the hideous, Goya stands alone. No one, not even Leonardo, has plumbed so deep in the hidden shadowy parts. No one has so pictured fear—theatricalities a plenty—but only here real terror.
