Francisco Goya
Francesco Goya, Spain's most iconic critical realist painter, was a successful court painter who lived in a time of great turmoil in Spanish history.
In Spain in the early 19th century, infectious diseases spread everywhere, causing panic among the people. When the disease was raging, war broke out again. In 1808, Napoleon launched a war of aggression against Spain under the pretext of quelling Spanish civil unrest. For its own benefit, the Spanish ruling class not only failed to organize effective resistance, but also surrendered power to it and even suppressed the progressive forces in Spain.
The French invaders were driven away, and people thought they could live a good life, who knew that the old Spanish aristocratic forces had returned and continued to carry out cruel rule and bloody suppression of the people.
In Spain at that time, the raging disease, the ruthless tyranny, the deranged madman, the silent philistine, the ignorance, the insensitivity, the ignorance, made the whole country pervasive with a frenzied mood, both chaotic and arrogant, both fearful and anxious. The ruling class strives to restore the old traditions and codes of conduct, and to cover up their anxieties and insecurities with all kinds of superstitious activities. This loss of reason has led to the spread of demons, and this crazy world is like his madhouse.
"Madhouse"
The work is backlit, the human form is clear, the dynamics are vivid, and we can even really feel the personality characteristics of the key characters in it, such as the victor who blows the scissors and the man with the bull horn on his head. Each person in the painting is immersed in their own world, they are not related to each other, they cannot grasp the changes in the future, and they are also unable to communicate.
The whole picture presents a discordant peace and tranquility, with arched doors, high fenced windows, and thick walls that isolate the world of "madmen" from the world of "normal people" outside. As everyone knows, it is also a crazy world outside at this moment, because war is about to break out.
《Giant》
The expressive black color in the picture renders the tension before the outbreak of war. On the eve of the outbreak of war, Goya seems to have foreseen the coming of disaster, and this painting of Giants reflects the grief, depression, tension and helplessness that people cannot escape when war is coming. Beneath the giant's broad back is a narrow and gentle hillside, under which a crowd of grasshoppers is fleeing in panic, while the ruler is indifferent. Because the rulers are faint and incompetent.
Family Portrait of Charles IV
The Family Portrait of Charles IV is the largest group portrait of Goya's portrait. A total of 14 figures, including the author, are painted in the whole painting. The figure is centered on Queen Louise and divides the characters into two groups and arranges them in a row. The deep impression of the whole painting is that the gold and jade are outside and the defeat is in it.
Standing in the center of the picture is the queen Louise in a luxurious costume, she is a very ugly image from the appearance to the heart, she is like a unreasonable housekeeper, her appearance is both stupid and arrogant. She and her lover, Charles IV's courtier Manuel Godoy, manipulated Spanish power, while her husband Charles IV was a puppet. Although the king in the painting appears to be serious and covered with glittering medallions, he is actually a mediocre person. He was a dictate hunter who did not care about the well-being of the people, like a rooster with a straight stomach.
Through this painting, Goya profoundly expresses the essence of the emptiness and mediocrity in the hearts of this group of royal personnel. In stark contrast to the incompetence of the royal personnel, the Spanish people helped each other and fought bravery, although most of them ended miserably.
The May 2, 1808 Uprising
Goya depicts the heroic courage of the Spanish people, who stabbed the horse's belly with a short or long sword in their hands and took off the man on the horse. The day after the uprising, the French army did not go through any legal formalities and executed all spaniards they believed were involved in or related to the incident.
Shooting the Insurgents on the Night of May 3, 1808
This painting is Goya's classic use of black to depict horrific war scenes. Depicts French troops shooting Spanish rebels. The faces of the prisoners revealed extreme pain and fear, they covered their faces with their hands, even hugged their heads and cried, and those who had been shot fell in pools of blood. The executioners were uniformly dressed French soldiers with their legs spread wide and rifles raised in a juxtaposition, suggesting the strength of war and punishment.
The whole scene of the massacre was very tragic and exciting, and the insurrectionists were not losers, but spiritual victors. The invaders were cruel, and they not only swung their butcher knives at the rebels, but even the unarmed civilians.
"Shooting in the Barracks"
Even in the face of innocent and unarmed women and children, they show no mercy. The frightened expression of the woman in her arms who has not yet been shot is enough to be indescribable. In this work, Goya uses wild brushstrokes to express the fear of war, the disaster it brings to people, and her own anger at war.
Due to the stubborn resistance of the Spanish people, the French invaders were eventually expelled. But the end of the war does not mean the arrival of the light, because the old forces have returned. They continued to impose a reign of terror against Spain, an authoritarian rule, with which power, tyranny, and old rules followed. They encouraged relatives and friends to report each other, so that the whole society became panicked, frightened, and silent.
The Judgment of the Inquisition
In this painting, in a closed curved space, the monks sit around a human wall, numbly watching the judgment, thus creating an atmosphere of confinement, gloom, and horror.
Although this work does not have the black color of the wartime works, the atmosphere of depression and horror in the whole work is even worse. The white pointed hat and the white prison uniform testified to each other, the red color symbolizing sin on the defendant's body was shocking, and all the people except the defendant had a blurry face, and the shaking head was like a ghost in a dream.
In peacetime, Goya is like a mirror that reflects the faintness, darkness, corruption, extravagance, and depravity of the Spanish ruling class. During the war years, Goya wrote for Goya, denouncing the cruelty of war. After the war, Goya transformed into the summoner of reason, trying to use his brush to awaken a people addicted to darkness.
Goya used his brush to confront that distorted era, the chaos of society, the poverty and ignorance of the people, the hypocrisy and greed of the upper classes. He was a whistleblower of ugly deeds, a passionate fighter for national independence and freedom, and a great Spanish artist. His work influenced later Expressionism, Impressionism and Surrealism.