Goya(1746-1828) was a Spanish court painter, known at the time for his portraiture of the upper classes but remembered for his work outside of his official duties. Goya used paintings and etchings to reflect upon social upheaval and war.
Thematically a lot of his work is influenced by religion, the brutalities of war, and insanity.
The Disasters of War plate 39
This image is an etching mass produced by Goya, depicting the horrors and brutalities of the French invasion of Spain. The image shows 3 bodies, bound and hung from a tree. The features and limbs are mutilated and separated from the bodies, arms waving in the wind.
As it was a mass produced etching, it is a monochromatic image, changing only the tone to display the details.
The Mad House
The Mad House depicts the early attempts to treat mental illness. Sufferers were left in huge prisons, to fend for themselves in large groups. Tours of the mad house could be bought for entertainment by outsiders, who would come in to satisfy their curiosities and stare into the cells and watch.
This image is a far larger scope than a lot of the portraiture I've been focussed on lately, showing many figures all crammed into a room, some intwined, overlapping, showing a sense of chaos. The image is divided very cleary into sections of light and shadow, lit by a single window at the top of the scene, with confusing shadows building the architecture of the room.
(Right image is Saturn by Peter Paul Ruben, an earlier interpretation of the same story)
Saturn Devouring His Sons
This image is one of what are called the "Black Paintings" a series of works hung in Goya's home, never made to be displayed, but they mirrored his darkening mood and knowledge of his own mortality as his age passed 70 and he survived two life threatening illnesses. The images all dealt with dark themes, in this case the greek myth of the Titan Cronus who ate his own children at birth so they could never over throw him.
The image uses a very strong light, casting opaque shadows and leaving a lot of the form up to mystery. Rather than the painting by Peter Paul Ruben which shows the child as a baby, the Goya piece shows the child as what looks like a fully grown human, with Saturn represented as a huge disproportioned beast, clutching a human up to its mouth and tearing off chunks.
The Bewitched Man
This image deals more with themes of the occult. On the left is a demon, hitting modern stereotypes with goat anatomy. Behind the bewitched man are dancing donkeys, lit in bizarre ways to make the faces appear intimidating and scary.
The image below also deals with witch craft, showing a group of witches, with a skeleton baby, a goat demon and in the background a stick with babies corpses hanging from it. It seems almost too obvious by modern standards, but there is a heavy reliance on the religious symbolism.
The colour palette is far wider than the other images though, with greens, blues and the warm skin tones all meeting in the centre, with the dark night sky above, complimentary tones of orange and pale blue/purple in the centre of the image, with the green being used in a triangle, from two dresses to the wreath in the horns, drawing the eyes inwards.
Witches Sabbath
I think there is a lot i could learn from Goya, his composition is far more traditionally grand, often with multiple forms, with strong dramatic lighting. But also his use of backgrounds, that they are often vague but still have shapes of rooms built through lights and shadows. His use of colour supports what i have learnt so far, often sticking to quite muted tones, using bold colours for highlights or to draw attention to detail. I could also experiment with use of symbolism, seeing if adding subtle religious symbolism would add or detract from the images or the messages they portray.
