Lesson 3 - Hughes - Goya

I have never been a fan of the horror movie genre.  I don't care to voluntarily view scenes of grotesque imagery.  Nor do I desire to feel so frightened that I am sick to my stomach after seeing brutal, violent footage.  There is enough senseless violence in the real world today to fill someone's nightmare for a century.

Robert Hughes' "Crazy Like a Genius" film highlighting Franciso de Goya was like watching a horror movie.  And to put it bluntly, there are about a dozen other ways I would have preferred to spend my afternoon today.

For starters, Robert Hughes is, perhaps, the most un-animated host I have ever scene.  I was in awe of his lack of emotion, lack of vocal inflection, and lack of enthusiasm while discussing such an influential artist.  Although this presenter had a large vocabulary and, obviously, a great factual knowledge of Goya, I found him to be mostly monotone.  I literally found myself falling asleep while listening to his voice.

But, being the dedicated student I am, I continued to take my notes and record quotes.  Honestly, the voice was ridiculously snooze-worthy.

Then we come to the subject matter itself (sigh).  I respect Goya's attention to detail, as well as his ability to create a full spectrum of different styles.  However, his later works, the dark, macabre paintings and etchings turned my stomach.

Although Goya's dark side did reveal itself in some of his earlier works, such as the detail created in on the musician in the painting "El ciego de la guitarra",

it is said that the artist's work did not completely transform until a severe illness left him death in 1792.  Goya's deafness sent him into a deep depression which Hughes described, "it turned him away from being the court portraitist, the court painter that he otherwise might have remained, into this amazing topographer of the inner self.

I openly admit that Goya's tendency to paint scenes in prisons and madhouses left me feeling somewhat unhinged.  Kidnapping, rape and sexuality are not my first choices in art subject matter either.  Although the satirical sketched depiction of aristocrats as asses riding on the backs of the common people was somewhat entertaining.

And then there were the etching plates Goya created (when he was in his sixties) with the intention of circulating his series to the public through mass printing.  His "Disasters of War" works made me cringe, gasp and gag as I was forced to take the position of eyewitness in scenes of dismemberment, executions and other horrific imagery.

In reference to these images, Hughes expressed "Art is a lie in the service of truth, the illusion of being there when dreadful things, unimaginable things happen to ordinary people".  I do not claim that these images cannot be considered art, but they are not my preferred style, nor subject matter.

If I wish to see further images along the same plane as Goya's works, I suppose I could watch movies such as "Saw" or "The Gallows" or, I could just turn on the evening news to get my fill of disturbing events, dead bodies, fearful people and cruel activities being portrayed.

I will certainly politely decline to watch further films written and presented by Robert Hughes or on any further biographies about Francisco de Goya.