The series of paintings for the alameda of the Dukes of Osuna comprises seven pictures painted by Francisco de Goya between 1786 and 1787. The country estate of the dukes and duchesses, who were the painter's mecenas and friends, was known as El Capricho, and was located on the outskirts of Madrid.[1]
The whole group of works is closely related to the tapestry cartoons —especially in the colors used and in the lighting panorama—, whose fifth series Goya completed shortly before tackling this project. By then, the Aragonese artist was a reputed artist at court and had already forged a good image for himself in Madrid's wealthy circles.
The works passed into the possession of the Marquesa de Montellano Collection, which also houses other works by Goya, where they remain to this day.[2]
They should not be confused with other pictures painted by the artist, also for the Dukes of Osuna, in the nineties. Although they also adorned the country house of the dukes, critics have coincided in naming this series as "the dream of reason" due to the witchcraft themes it presents.
Upon contacting the painter, the dukes were impressed by the ease with which he made the cartoons and, after establishing a close friendship, their now patrons asked him to make a series of paintings to decorate their villa. The Aragonese accepted and began the execution of the works for the Alameda de Osuna after finishing his fifth series of cartoons.
On April 22, 1787, the paintings were transferred from the house of Goya, credited as "Juan Goya" on the invoice, to the Osuna villa.[3] The painter received 22,000 reales for the works and for a lost portrait of the dukes' children. A certain Joaquín Gómez was in charge of paying Goya for his work.[4]
The dukes commissioned Goya to paint canvases with themes similar to those that the Aragonese artist had treated in the cartoons he delivered to the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara. In spite of this, this series has serious aesthetic differences with the cartoons. The figures are smaller, accentuating the theatrical and rococo character of the landscape. Goya can prove here his knowledge of the Sublime Terrible, a trend defined years before by Mengs.[5]
But above all there is violence in these paintings, which differs drastically from the inoffensive atmosphere of the cartoons. The greatest example of this is The Fall, where a woman suffers injuries after falling from a tree. In Stagecoach Hijacking, a man is seen wounded by a gunshot while a group of robbers assaults the car's passengers.[6]
In the painting The Moving of a Stone, the workday of a group of humble workers is detailed. Concern for the lower classes is one of the main characteristics of pre-Romanticism, whose ideals Goya had assimilated through contact with enlightened artists such as Jovellanos. The first painting that refers to this facet of the painter is The Drunken Mason.
Throughout the series, rural themes prevail, calm and friendly, similar to those of the cartoons. The chromatic range is harmonious and pleasant, although Goya, according to Glendinning, believes that scenes of country leisure should be left for the residences located on the outskirts of large cities.[6]
The same scenery is presented that Goya depicted in his works for the Royal Factory: the banks of the Manzanares and its surroundings. But the fact that violence breaks out in some scenes of this series places both sets at extreme poles.
La cucaña is solidly linked to Goya's works such as The Kite and some of French neoclassicism. For its part, Stagecoach Hijacking evokes The Fight at the Venta Nueva, as both introduce a note of violence in the midst of a pleasant landscape. It was the second most expensive painting in the series (3000 reales), although it is smaller than The Moving of a Stone and Village Procession (2500 reales).[7]
By depicting workers of low social status in his paintings, Goya emphasizes their vices, perhaps implying that they are the cause of their inferior position in modern society.[8]
This elitism appears again in Village Procession, a painting that shows a popular Spanish custom rooted in the villages, but which had been disdained by the Enlightenment. Charles III banned them in 1777, but the measure had little effect in rural areas. Goya treats here with little respect the mayor and most of the provincial rich, who appear physically deformed.[9]
The English critic recognizes in The Snowstorm and The Injured Mason —as well as his sketch, the aforementioned The Drunk Mason— undertaken at that time, the most direct precedents of these canvases. For the first time the artist introduces in his cartoons —which until then were cheerful and festive compositions— a note alluding to "dangers", which suggests that the painter no longer believes in the current picturesque style and wishes to separate himself from the customs imposed in the cartoons.[10]
The Swing has its parallel in a tapestry cartoon made a decade earlier. But here, as in the whole series, the brushstroke is more vigorous and does not delve into the details, unlike the tapestries.
La cucaña and Village Procession represent scenes of rural Spain, both strongly rooted in 18th century iconography. In Village Procession, the blurred brushstrokes allow for a maximum appreciation of Spanish patron saint festivals, so common in the twilight of the century.
Stagecoach Hijacking is the most complex of Goya's compositions for El Capricho.[11] It mitigates the violent effect of the robbery through the arrangement of the figures, the composition and the chromaticism. The tonalities of the landscape contrast with the gravity of the robbery, which is pushed into the background by Goya's placement of the corpse in the lower left corner. Clearly, it is the assailants who are the main protagonists of the scene. Despite this, two thirds of the canvas are dedicated to portraying the landscape of limpid sky and lush vegetation, with the lower third dedicated to capturing the moment of the robbery.
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.
Doña María Josefa Alonso-Pimentel y Téllez-Giróniure uxorisDuchess of Osuna, suo jure12th Duchess of Benavente, was a Spanish Salonnière, famous as a patron of artists, writers and scientists and an important figure of the Spanish Age of Enlightenment. She was the first female (honorary) member of the royal Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Madrid as well as the first president of the royal Junta de Damas de Honor y Mérito.
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters or The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters is an aquatint by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya. Created between 1797 and 1799 for the Diario de Madrid, it is the 43rd of the 80 aquatints making up the satirical Los caprichos.
The Colossus, is known in Spanish as El Coloso and also El Gigante, El Pánico and La Tormenta. It is a painting traditionally attributed to Francisco de Goya that shows a giant in the centre of the canvas walking towards the left hand side of the picture. Mountains obscure his legs up to his thighs and clouds surround his body; the giant appears to be adopting an aggressive posture as he is holding one of his fists up at shoulder height. A dark valley containing a crowd of people and herds of cattle fleeing in all directions occupies the lower third of the painting.
Blind Man's Bluff is one of the Rococo oil-on-linen cartoons produced by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya for tapestries for the Royal Palace of El Pardo. The work shows boys and girls playing the popular pastime "blind man's bluff" with one figure in the middle blindfolded and holding a large spoon while trying to entice others dancing around him in a circle.
A Pilgrimage to San Isidro is one of the Black Paintings painted by Francisco de Goya between 1819–23 on the interior walls of the house known as Quinta del Sordo that he purchased in 1819. It probably occupied a wall on the first floor of the house, opposite The Great He-Goat.
Two Old Men, also known as Two Monks or An Old Man and a Monk, are names given to one of the 14 Black Paintings painted by Francisco Goya between 1819-23. At the time Goya was in his mid-seventies and was undergoing a great amount of physical and mental stress after two bouts of an unidentified illness. The works were rendered directly onto the interior walls of the house known as Quinta del Sordo, which Goya purchased in 1819.
The Inquisition Tribunal, also known as The Court of the Inquisition or The Inquisition Scene, is a 46-by-73-centimetre oil-on-panel painting produced by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya between 1812 and 1819. The painting belongs to a series which also includes Bullfight, The Madhouse and A Procession of Flagellants, all reflecting customs which liberals objected to and wished were abandoned, but their reform was opposed by the absolutist (autocratic) policy of Ferdinand VII of Spain.
Los disparates, also known as Proverbios (Proverbs) or Sueños (Dreams), is a series of prints in etching and aquatint, with retouching in drypoint and engraving, created by Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya between 1815 and 1823. Goya created the series while he lived in his house near Manzanares on the walls of which he painted the famous Black Paintings. When he left to France and moved in Bordeaux in 1824, he left these works in Madrid apparently incomplete. During Goya's lifetime, the series was not published because of the oppressive political climate and of the Inquisition.
The Black Paintings is the name given to a group of 14 paintings by Francisco Goya from the later years of his life, likely between 1819 and 1823. They portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and his bleak outlook on humanity. In 1819, at the age of 72, Goya moved into a two-story house outside Madrid that was called Quinta del Sordo. Although the house had been named after the previous owner, who was deaf, Goya too was nearly deaf at the time as a result of an unknown illness he had suffered when he was 46. The paintings originally were painted as murals on the walls of the house, later being "hacked off" the walls and attached to canvas by owner Baron Frédéric Émile d'Erlanger. They are now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Portrait of Manuel Godoy is a large 1801 oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, now in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. It was commissioned by the Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Godoy to commemorate his victory in the brief War of the Oranges against Portugal.
The Greasy Pole is an oil painting on canvas executed ca. 1786–87 by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya.
The Threshing Floor is an oil sketch by Francisco Goya. He painted it in the 1780s as a small-scale sketch for a tapestry cartoon entitled Summer, part of a set of designs for tapestries for the Royal Palace of El Pardo, specifically the rooms of the Prince of Asturias and his wife Maria Luisa.
Summer or The Threshing Floor is the largest cartoon painted by Francisco de Goya as a tapestry design for Spain's Royal Tapestry Factory. Painted from 1786 to 1787, it was part of his fifth series, dedicated to traditional themes and intended for the heir to the Spanish throne and his wife. The tapestries were to hang in the couple's dining room at the Pardo Palace.
Assault of Thieves is an oil painting made by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya between 1793 and 1794. It is part of a private collection owned by Juan Abelló.
Children in a Chariot is a 1779 painting by Francisco de Goya. It is part of the third series of cartoons he produced for tapestries at the Royal Palace of El Pardo; the tapestry in question was to be positioned over a door. The painting is in the Toledo Museum of Art.
The Drunk Mason is an oil on canvas painted by Francisco de Goya, then reputed painter of tapestries for the royal palaces. It belonged to the fifth series undertaken by Goya, and, like all the pieces that compose it, was painted between 1786 and 1787.
The tapestry cartoons of Francisco de Goya are a group of oil on canvas paintings by Francisco de Goya between 1775 and 1792 as designs for the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara near Madrid in Spain. Although they are not the only tapestry cartoons made at the Royal Factory, they are much the best known. Most of them represent bucolic, hunting, rural and popular themes. They strictly adhered to the tastes of King Charles III and the princes Charles of Bourbon and Maria Luisa of Parma, and were supervised by other artists of the factory such as Maella and the Bayeu family. Most are now in the Museo del Prado, having remained in the Spanish Royal collection, although there are some in art galleries in other countries.
The Swing is the title of a tapestry cartoon designed by Francisco de Goya for the bedroom of the Princes of Asturias in the Palace of El Pardo. It is kept in the Museo del Prado.
Bozal, Valeriano (2005). Francisco Goya, vida y obra (in Spanish). Vol.Two volumes. Aficiones, 5-6. madrid: Tf. ISBN978-84-96209-39-8.
d'Ors Führer, Carlos; Morales Marín, Carlos (1990). Los genios de la pintura: Francisco de Goya (in Spanish). Madrid: Sarpe. ISBN8477001006.
Glendinning, Nigel (2005). Francisco de Goya (in Spanish). «Grandes maestros» collection (Biblioteca «Descubrir el Arte»ed.). Madrid: Arlanza. ISBN84-95503-40-9.
Tomlinson, Janis A. (1993). Francisco de Goya: los cartones para tapices y los comienzos de su carrera en la Corte de Madrid (in Spanish). Madrid: Cátedra. ISBN84-376-1192-X.
Triadó Tur, Juan Ramón (2000). Goya (in Spanish). «Genios de la pintura» collection. Barcelona: Susaeta. ISBN84-305-9689-5.
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