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Francisco Goya: 11 War
In 1808, everything changed for Goya, the court, and the whole of Spain. Until then, the country had been allied with France, to the point where it was their joint fleet which was defeated by Nelson...
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Don Quixote 24: Fame
In the first book of Don Quixote, Cervantes explains how this hidalgo became addicted to tales of chivalry, which brought a madness in which he believed that he too was a knight. In his first brief...
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Francisco Goya: Rebellion
At the start of 1814, Francisco Goya (1746–1828) had been a widower for nearly two years, was profoundly deaf, and hadn’t been paid any of his salary since early 1808. He was penniless, but still alive...
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Don Quixote 25: Preparing for the third sally
In the previous episode, Cervantes resumed the story with Don Quixote back at home after his second sally. The priest and the barber left him alone to recover for a month, but when they revisited him...
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Francisco Goya: Repaying debts
Despite Goya’s paintings of resistance against French troops in 1808, he was among the many who were purged from court for ‘purification’ in May 1814 following the restoration, and didn’t return to...
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Characters in Painted Stories: 1 Introduction
Story-telling is a central theme in literature, but an embarrassing secret in painting. For the last century, critics and commentators have insisted that it no longer existed, and was unworthy of a...
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Don Quixote 26: Off to El Toboso
In the previous episode, Sancho Panza told the young graduate a rather different story of how his donkey had been stolen from under him as he slept, and how he recovered it from the thief. He also...
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Francisco Goya: Black Paintings 1
For Francisco Goya (1746–1828) the year 1819 brought great change. At the end of February, he bought himself a villa with twenty-five acres of land on the right bank of the River Manzanares, just...
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Francisco Goya: Black Paintings 2
The first article on the Black Paintings of Francisco Goya (1746–1828) showed seven of the images which he painted in oils on the plaster walls of his villa Quinta del Sordo, just outside the city of...
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A life of Perseus in paintings 1
So many of the heroes of the classical world were deeply flawed: Theseus, founder of Athens, treated women appallingly, and Jason of the Argonauts no better. But the greatest slayer of monsters,...
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A life of Perseus in paintings 2
In the first of this pair of articles looking at paintings of the life of the classical hero Perseus, I traced his mythical life from conception to his arrival at the rock to which Andromeda was...
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Don Quixote 27: Sancho’s deception
In the previous episode, Don Quixote’s niece and housekeeper thought they could enlist the help of the young graduate to stop the knight from leaving on his third sally, but instead he egged him on....
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Francisco Goya: Ivory miniatures
In 1824, having put his affairs in order, Francisco Goya (1746–1828) left Spain to take the waters at Plombières-les-Bains in France. From there he travelled via a short stay in Bordeaux to Paris....
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Francisco Goya: 0 Contents
This article lists the contents of this series, including the title of each of Goya’s paintings covered in each article. Background Spanish painting in the late eighteenth century: before David Spanish...
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Characters in Painted Stories: 3 Rags to riches
In this series looking at how characters in stories are portrayed, in the context of Christopher Booker’s analysis of literary narratives into The Seven Basic Plots, I have reached the second of his...
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The Painted Story of the Aeneid: 1 From Troy to Carthage
The three greatest ‘Quest’ sagas in classical Greek and Roman myth and literature are Homer’s Odyssey, Jason and the Golden Fleece, and Virgil’s Aeneid. In the coming weekends, I’m going to look...
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The Painted Story of the Aeneid: 2 From Carthage to Apotheosis
In the first of these two articles, I showed paintings telling the story of Virgil’s Aeneid, as far as the hero’s departure from Dido in Carthage. As he sails away with his fleet towards his great...
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In memoriam Francisco Pradilla Ortiz 1
The most famous Spanish artist named Francisco was of course Goya, whose life and work I have just completed reviewing. He was born and brought up in and close to Zaragoza, where another great Spanish...
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Don Quixote 31: The wedding trick
In the previous episode, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza enjoyed several days rest in luxury at the villa of a hidalgo they had met on the road. Soon after leaving that village, they met two students and...
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Jason and the Golden Fleece 1
The story of Jason and the Golden Fleece is the second in my examples of classical ‘Quest’ sagas, after that of Virgil’s Aeneid last weekend. Unlike the Aeneid, which is an epic poem based on several...
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