Here is the painting.

As part of Goya’s black period, he seems to have been exasperated with his own lot as well as what he’d observed of the human condition.   The same fluid brushstroke style is there, the same dark tones (though the sky still seems a transcendent, slightly mystic blue and white) but the theme is dark….

Is this a painted over scene…the confused images of bitter old age and loss of memory that can come with it?   

Is it a faithful recording of the ignorance, fear and brutality he saw in Spain during his lifetime?

Here’s a quote from this excellent Goya page:

“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.”

“La fantasia abandonada de la razon, produce monstruos imposibles: unida con ella, es madre de las artes y origen de sus marabillas.”

But what was reason for Goya? 

See also: A previous Goya’s Colossus post.

A dark vision.

Later in his life, Goya’s black paintings come from a man in a dark time, having lived through the peninsular wars, Spain’s continued decline, and illness and deafness.  He was still a man, though, who used his talent to the end.

There’s something transcendant about that figure, at first I thought it was just a man, standing honorably against our condition, ready to confront the unknown….. with fists clenched…

But then I saw the blank eyes, more like a man abstracted into a godlike force, into which human fear and ignorance can be projected.

Here is a link to a good Goya page.

Addition:  More here on the painting…and here on the dispute as to whether or not it’s his.

          I was lucky enough to see this sculpture a few times at the Fundacio Miro in Barcelona.  At the time, I remember thinking “oh, it’s a comment on women in Spain”:  All legs and sensuality and yet these malformed, pitiful, faces rising (or barely perched) on top.  

“I know women like that…I remember thinking.  It’s better to be an object of male lust than nothing, kind of like prostitutes.   Spanish machismo and insularity, the triumph of cultural values no matter how arbitrary or foolish, and the native ignorance and poverty of the human lot can clearly produce women like this. Despite my idealism, this is what shall remain long after I’m dead.”  And then,  rather self-satisfied, I strolled away.

Now, as I look again, I realize I have no idea what this sculpture means.   Are those two faces?  Strange little breasts?  Is that a spigot on top?  A man’s head and woman’s head?  Aren’t they kind of gender neutral?  What was I thinking, anyways?

Something about Miro makes me think he has thought long, judged deeply, and yet the colors are joyful, and there’s just this playfulness and achieved simplicity in his work that invites you right in and never really puts you out.

Addition:  Now that I”m a little older, and prostitution hovers between a comedy and a tragedy, I’m pretty sure the men who solicit prostitutes are just as responsible.  As for Miro, I still enjoy his work very much.