Analysis of Francisco Goya Painting

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as apprehension, horror, terror, and awe. Goya’s later work became infamous for its illustrations of horror, which set him apart from his contemporaries and other artists of the romantic period through his more specific style of romantic agony, which was undoubtedly affected by a disease he was not treated for that contributed to his weak mental and physical health[2]. However, Time, Truth, and History exemplifies the artist’s style of romanticism that had not yet developed into the dark and paranoiac illustrations that culminated in his black paintings, such as Saturn Devouring His Son. Although Goya lived somewhat earlier than most of the romantics, his work heralds the beginning of the movement. The romantic era is typically noted for it’s intense political and social upheaval, which Time, Truth, and History took part in by being a precursor to a painting that would later come to represent Spain’s struggle against the Napoleonic empire that rose to power after the French Revolutionary war. The three allegorical figures are painted with a thick, loose brushstroke, which was very much unlike the calm and serene classical style that Romanticism aimed to break away from. Time, Truth, and History embodies in its aesthetics the vibrant and dramatic ideals of the Romantics. The logic and reasoning of the enlightenment, as perceived by philosopher Isaiah Berlin[3], was ideologically so dependent on reason that it bolstered the confidence for a lot of totalitarian global powers in the twentieth century. This painting sketch does not rely on logic or reason to make it’s point, it represents the Romantic approach to painting by illustrating what is beyond formulaic understanding. Even in his sketches, Goya was laying the groundwork for paintings that were more interested in what vivid, imaginative scenes could evoke in an audience than the neoclassical traditions of austere linear lines and classical subject manner.

Notes

1. A collection of original works of art and copies by various spanish artists. Written by Juan Jose Martinez Espinosa and published by a society of artists in Madrid, 1875

2. Postmortem diagnostic assessments point toward Meniere’s disease, but it is even possible that Goya suffered from lead poisoning, he did use a considerable amount of lead white as a primer and color.

3.Sir Isaiah Berlin was a Latvian-British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas. He was an essayist, conversationalist, raconteur, and lecturer.

Bibliography

Ludmilla Kagané, ‘On the History of Allegorical paintings by Goya at Nationalmuseum,Stockholm’, Art Bulletin of the Nationalmuseum Stockholm, 1-2 (1994-1995): 82-87

Fletcher, Ian (2003). Peninsular War; Aspects of the Struggle for the Iberian Peninsula. Spellmount Publishers. ISBN 1-873376-82-0.

Juliet, Wilson-Bareau. "Goya And The X Numbers: The 1812 Inventory And Early Acquisitions Of "Goya" Pictures." (n.d.): 159-174. Web. 1 Apr. 2016.

"Western painting". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 06 Apr. 2016