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).

Robert Hughes' book reaches the goal of describing not only the wonderful paintings and drawings of Francisco de Goya, but his life, feelings, beliefs. This makes it possible for all those who are interested in studying Goya's life and work a deeper understanding of the man behind - and beyond - the works.

This book is the best to be written about Goya, placing him squarely in the modern arena, debunking most of the silly and trivial myths surrounding his life, and educating the public on one of the true masters. Hughes build-up is slow but thorough. The novice and art-historian alike are given a full historical context for Goya and his work. Hughes' payoff is a far better understanding of artist's life than any other writer as of yet has captured. With less obvious material than other biographers (letters, diaries, etc.), Hughes does a splendid job of re-piecing the cultural and political climate of Spain during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Even if you disagree with him at points and find his critique a bit stuffy, you can never argue with his passion for Goya's art or the research put into the book. His eye for detail and relentless pursuit of background material, make the author's style almost incomparable; because his points are made so plainly and lucidly, he conveys an appreciation of art that few critics can match. This book seeks to educate and entertain, succeeding on both levels. I highly recommend Goya to anyone interested in Modern or European art of the last 300 years.

As a contemporary art historian, I've always been deeply influenced by critics, but I've also always had a passion for 19th century art. While I've sometimes found Hughes' past writings to be a bit acerbic at times (though always passionate), this is without question a wonderful book which clearly contains not only Hughes' rich efforts at research as well as a passionate love for his subject. Striking in its lucidity, emotional in its descriptions not only of the paintings but the context within which Goya worked, and even generous in its praise to other art historian to whom it is indebted, it is a book I cannot recommend highly enough.

Throughout history we have examples of biographers so committed to the works of their artist subject that the reporting of the writer seems like the visual becoming oral. Such is the case of James Lord and Giacometti, David Sylvester and Francis Bacon, and now Robert Hughes and Jose de Goya y Lucientes. Hughes new publication entitled simply GOYA is the zenith work in the line of brilliant art history writing, books that include 'The Shock of the New' and 'American Visions' as well as definitive books on artists Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud. His knowledge is both technically sophisticated and psychologically sound and he is a gifted writer in about any métier. But there is something more to this book than biography. Goya has been important to Hughes throughout his life: his first art purchase as student in Australia was one of the etchings of Goya's `Capricho' series. It wasn't until 1999, when Hughes came close to meeting death from an accident, was in a coma, then gradually recovered through a long series of debilitating therapies, that Hughes was able to overcome his writer's block and actually set about to write the biography of the artist who had become his obsession for years. Hughes admits that it was probably this experience coupled with a vision of Goya himself that made him truly comprehend and incorporate Goya's life of reactionary to the Church, to the absurdity and viciousness of War, to the Inquisition, and to the social injustices he observed. And the interesting parallel of course is that Goya suffered physically not only due to complete deafness, but also to undiagnosed maladies that made his life a trial but did not stop his painting. Hughes writing style is urbane and conversational, informed and witty, impeccably researched and yet related as though the reader were sitting at the feet of an old longtime acquaintance of Goya. He obviously is in awe of Goya's works, allows him the court portraits and tapestries that Goya endured for money, and makes it a point to examine each painting with fine scrutiny - finding every self portrait of the artist in paintings most other scholars have missed. Rather that writing the life of Goya from his birth chronologically through to his death and epilogue, Hughes examines a life that is inevitably destined to paint the darkness of the Black Paintings and the Caprichos with frequent asides, a style that creates incredible energy in the telling of the life of this amazing artist. Example: In 1980 Goya applied to a "proper institution" - the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and his entrance exam was a painting entitled "Crucified Christ". Hughes: "It is without much doubt the worst painting he ever did. How could a man who would emerge, some thirty years later, as the most powerful reporter of human anguish in all of Western art have produced this soapy piece of bondieuserie? The ladylike body, unmarked by torment; the absence of any kind of empathy with what re