exhaustive study with some rough edges
Though I think this book is very deserving of a five-star rating, there were more than a few times when I was irritated by the manner of the author. His tone gives you to understand from the first that he considers himself to be a foremost authority on Goya. Well and good, but at times he seems to extend this expertise into the realm of omniscience with many dogmatic statements both on and off the subject of Goya's artwork.
But there can be little doubt that a tremendous amount of research went into assembling this study. Not the least valuable aspect of this book is the detailed account of Spanish culture during Goya's lifetime, and the way it impacted his art. There is a detailed, as well as interesting and lively examination of this less-well-known chapter of world history.
Upon this detailed cultural framework, Hughes builds an extremely plausible interpretation of Goya's work at the progressive stages of his career. I was very impressed with the critical faculty which Hughes displays in his discussions of specific paintings or etchings. Each time I examined a work and then read Hughes observations of it, I was struck by how much I had missed on my first look, and how obviously correct his assessments were.
The rough edges I speak of in the title of my review refer only to the sometimes(to me at least)abrasive comments made by the author, and certainly do not mean to detract from his competency as a critic. This is an excellent book from both historical and critical perspectives, though somewhat of an arduous trip at 400 pages. That is 400 pages of mostly print with quite a number of small reproductions.
For those of you unfamiliar with Goya, this book corroborates and amplifies on the critical opinion that he was an artistic genius whose work was unprecedented and groudbreaking. Especially in his later work, he probed the deepest and darkest recesses of the psyche. Reading the book was for me a very enriching cultural experience.
But for an Even Greater Appreciation of the Art of Goya--
While I learned much from Hughes' opus, at book's end I was still left with the same nagging question I had at the beginning: But with the exception of his "Disasters of War," for which the answer is obvious, why is Goya's art still attracting so much attention today? I subsequently found the answer in a 288-page gem, one whose title suggests that it does indeed go beyond the focus in Hughes' book. To those who want to learn yet more about the art itself, I highly recommend Prof. Fred Licht's Goya: The Origins of the Modern Temper in Art (Icon editions).
Goya would have liked this
A great biography, full of informative details on Goya's life (his beginnings in particular), and, of course, a brilliant study of his works (especially the etchings, which do need explanation when you are not a specialist). Interesting insight on Spanish society of the 18th and 19th century. The style is lively and straightforward, as is always the case with Robert Hughes whom I consider the greatest art critic alive.
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