The Goya exhibition at London’s National Gallery is well worth at least one visit. It shows his portraits in more or less chronological order. Various aspects appealed to me.
First, there are the subjects themselves. He became the official Court painter so there are imposing portraits of Charles III, Charles IV and Ferdinand VII; remarkable that his career spanned three reigns, especially since he only began painting portraits aged 37. He lived until he was 82.
He does not flatter his subjects. The Bourbon noses are outstanding. A picture of The Count of Altamira draws attention to his small stature. Another of his friend and fellow artist, Andrés del Peral, shows one side of his face drooping, probably after a stroke. The poet, Meléndez Valdés, is depicted with broken blood vessels on his cheeks, a drooping eye and unkempt powdered hair.
The clothes he depicts are wonderful. The Count of Fernán Núñez’s pantaloons make today’s skinny jeans seem rather loose. It is suggested in the catalogue that this type of swagger portrait may have been inspired by the work of Thomas Gainsborough and Thomas Lawrence. The former never left England and the latter went to Europe for the first time in 1818, so he can only have seen prints. The influence of Velázquez is, however, apparent. Goya’s picture of The Family of the Infante Don Luis de Borbón pays homage to Velázquez’s Las Meninas, painted 128 years earlier.
I have not reproduced any of the pictures as I think it would spoil your enjoyment if you decide to go. However, I will show you one portrait, hanging in the Prado, that is not in the show and in which the sitter’s costume has been dispensed with. It is La Maja Desnuda, known as The Naked Maja.
There are more than 70 pictures in the show. I hope I have whetted your appetite. It is as good as the Velázquez exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris earlier this year and is its natural successor.