Madrid. Francisco de Goya was nourished by the ideas of the Enlightenment so that a critical sense
, far from the dreamlike reality that was breathed in the court palaces and the houses of the great landowners who could afford to commission a portrait. At that time, when he was already close to 40 years old and began to have hearing problems that would lead to his deafness years later, he discovered in the engravings a space of freedom to laugh at power or to lament the unreasonable nature of violence and war. .
For the first time, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid exhibits the 213 copper intaglio plates, from which the impressions of the engravings were made.
The sample Goya: The awakening of consciousness brings together the restored intaglio plates, in which the relief on the copper support can be clearly seen, since a few years ago the Royal Academy of Fine Arts decided that no more series of engravings were going to be printed. Goya. From there, a thorough restoration began, which included the cleaning of the plates, which are now on display and contain all the series by the Spanish artist: Whims, Disasters, Disparates y Bullfighting.
Spaces for expression in freedom
Goya, who was born in 1746 and died in 1828, began his career as an artist in the traditional way: he trained as a painter at the Academy and, as was common at the time, he dedicated himself mainly to making court portraits or specific paintings, almost all of them. them on request. But the ideas of the Enlightenment burst into Europe and he, intellectually curious and restless, learned about them first hand and they made him change his perception of reality, especially the profound injustice that the system and society in which he lived represented. , hence he sought spaces for free expression, such as engravings, many of them financed from his own pocket.
The curator of the exhibition and member of the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Víctor Nieto, explained during the presentation that this It is not just another Goya exhibition; It is different because of its content, what it means and because you see a Goya anguished by the world around him. In Goya’s painting the reflection of feeling appears for the first time. And that is modernity
.
The exhibition shows the series The dream of the reason produces monstersin which Goya portrays himself asleep while various nocturnal animals stalk him, numerous engravings with donkeys, which represent ignorance, or the crude images of the Spanish war of independence against the French (1808-1814).
The exhibition brings together 28 paintings, six drawings, more than 300 prints and all the copper sheets. The intaglio matrices, when freed from the steel and chrome bath that covered them, can be seen as they were created by the artist himself, revealing nuances that were previously hidden.
The works he painted when he came to court reveal a style in tune with the artistic orientations prevailing at his time, and in his period of maturity is when Francisco de Goya reflects a critical attitude towards the reality that surrounds him and the dominant artistic norms. in the paint
explains Nieto.
The exhibition is divided into four thematic axes in which the political, sociological and even ideological changes and transformations of society and of Goya himself are recorded. For Nieto, it is proven that in his work, especially the freest one, his critical rationalism
in the face of events that revolt him, such as social differences, the abuse of power of the rich and noble, war and the social norms imposed by the prevailing morality.
The exhibition, including all the intaglio plates, can be seen until June 23.