Francisco Goya: A Life
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Francisco Goya: A Life Details
From Publishers Weekly This rousing history of Goya's life and times opens with a devastating anecdote about his most notorious model. Evidently the 13th duchess of Alba, "by every account a mankiller," once picked up a poor seminarian while cruising incognito and forced him to dine her so lavishly that he had to forfeit his trousers when the bill came. Connell (Mrs. Bridge, etc.) takes the painter's career as a vantage point from which to portray Spain at the end of the 18th century. As the ambitious young artist from Saragossa was attempting to climb the ladder of imperial favor, the House of Bourbon was in decline, its empire dominated by a despotic Inquisition and a terrible heedlessness of what was happening on the other side of the Pyrenees. By the time the French invaded, Goya's hard-won status was unassailable, even by his own brutal honesty, and remained so through the ensuing upheavals, his work growing more satirical and embittered with each change of regime. One of the chief puzzles about Goya is how he managed to retain the favor of his patrons while making them look awful and, conversely, how he correlated his political conscience with his persistent ambition. Instead of answering these questions, Connell explores the rich perversities of the whole epoch, thus rendering the painter's peculiarities more authoritative than mysterious. The loosely structured narrative includes canny, sometimes hilarious character sketches, wry reportage of contemporary horrors and opinionated engagements with his many sources, including such entertaining figures as Casanova and Lady Elizabeth Holland. On the paintings, he makes only occasional, though pointed, commentary. This is, in short, an old-fashioned, belle-lettristic biography, full of erudition, unobtrusive scholarship and personality, whether its subject's or its author's being really beside the point; readers of Robert Hughes's recent Goya will want Connell's cultural reportage as counterpoint. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more From Booklist A Goya revival much like the recent resurgence of attention paid to Vermeer and Caravaggio is under way, claiming the canny attention of Susan Sontag, Julia Blackburn, Robert Hughes, and now one more commentator with a distinct point of view. Connell, a noteworthy author whose many books include a novel of the Crusades, Deus Lo Volt! (2000), is the most detached and wryest of Goya's new wave of interpreters. He lives up to his reputation as a meticulous researcher, cogent prose stylist, and critical thinker in his prickly assessment of Goya, but he is far more attuned to politics, lust, and eccentricity than he is to art. Consequently, Connell, who seems endlessly bemused by humanity's failings, concentrates on the power structure of Goya's volatile world, scrutinizing the secrets of church, state, and bedchamber. He tracks Goya's fascination with caricature, seeks the elusive truth about Goya's relationships with those he painted, especially the famously irresistible duchess of Alba, and theorizes that lead poisoning might have caused the illness that cost Goya his hearing. Of the stunning power and mystery of Goya's work, however, he has little new to say. Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Read more Review "One of our most interesting and intelligent American writers." Read more About the Author Evan S. Connell--long recognized as one of the most important literary voices of our time--is author of eighteen books, including Deus Lo Volt!, Mrs. Bridge, Mr. Bridge, and Son of the Morning Star. He has received numerous awards including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an award in literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Read more
Reviews
My God, how hard it was to finish this book. If I weren't a Goya fanatic, I would have probably tossed it within the first twenty pages. The thing is that if you are looking for a romantic novel speculating on Goya's feelings throughout his 60 prolific years, this is not the book for you. There are no speculations here, just an excruciating amount of facts. At some point I felt that every person alive during Goya's era had been mentioned on this book. Quite overwhelming!"Goya, A life", is not only about Goya's work, it's a book that discusses in detail Spanish history from the mid-eighteenth century to the early politically volatile nineteenth century. Evan Connell has paid great attention to the Napoleonic era, and heavily discussed the subsequent implications upon the fate of Spain.The language is concise, rich, and full of colorful adjectives clinging to the arduous subjects intimately discussed through the book. At some point Evan Connell takes some jabs at our current political situation, or international relations stereotyping this or that country. It is all done in good taste; therefore it brought a pleasant surprise, amidst the ocean of detailed information on every aspect of Goya's life, and age.Lastly, know your Goya for God's sake. Know every painting, etching, mural, portrait, or caricature that Goya ever painted. Do your research, as without it you will be lost. There are no illustrations in this book, so for every painting discussed you either have to draw from your memory or keep google.com within reach.I will only recommend this book to Goya fanatics. If you think as highly of Goya as I do, you should put yourself through the pain