I have always liked Goya. During my printmaking period, Goya’s prints were constantly before my mind. The highlight of my visit to New York’s Metropolitan last year was a Goya painting. This fall I hoped to attend London’s National Gallery’s exhibit, Goya: The Portraits. Unfortunately, I was not able to join my daughter in England where she was studying, and, so, missed the exhibition (which recently closed).
Disappointed though I am about missing the show, this thoughtful review of it in the London Review of Books, It stamps its pretty feet, by T.J. Clark, provides some consolation. Clark, like almost everyone else writing about Goya, speculates about the ‘weirdness’ of Goya’s work. Goya, like his countryman Velasquez, is famous for his psychologically revealing portraits of royals and other worthies. The subjects of these devastating portraits are, we assume, too feeble or indifferent to realize how nakedly their shortcomings are captured and preserved for posterity.
Who knows what Goya’s intentions actually were? He was certainly avid to secure commissions to paint well-connected and well-heeled patrons. I suspect he tried to give his patrons what they wanted–fashionable badges gratifying to their self-esteem–but he had too much temperament. Goya’s paintings never quite fit in that comfortable and fashionable space in the way, say, that Lawrence’s paintings do (although Lawrence certainly had his miscues).
The Duchess of Alba, although not an especially penetrating portrait, is typical in many important respects. Simple as the design is, the landscape is ambiguous. Goya’s spaces are always ambiguous and shallow. Although the Duchess is standing on a beach that curves away into the middle-distance, the feeling of depth is absent. Obviously, the space in the painting was cobbled together in the studio and (probably) relied on borrowings from other paintings. Nothing wrong with that. As in all his paintings, things look natural enough until one starts looking closely. Goya’s paintings exist in that artistic space (for want of a better word) where great art lives. Most writers refer to this as ‘weird,’ or ‘surreal’ or ‘unreal’ (Clark). The Duchess of Alba has that shallow space that is in the ‘key of Goya’ (to borrow from music). Manet was much influenced by this key.
There is still some controversy about the Duchess of Alba. The duchess, a renowned beauty in her day, is pointing toward the ground where Goya wrote ‘only Goya,’ which fueled rumors about an affair between her and the artist. His nude parting of the duchess no doubt fueled rumors as well.
Anyway, I regret missing the exhibition which included this painting and many, many others.