The Boston MFA show
Goya: Order and Disorder had long lines on its closing weekend, but was worth the wait, or in my case the treacherous roads to Boston the previous day. The Black Ice and accidents on the highway reminded me of the dangers in life, a small preparation for Goya’s own visions.
On one hand he is known for his portraits of aristocrats, such as the full length Duchess de Alba in a lace mantilla and wearing traditional Spanish clothes as she points down to the sand at her feet where “Sole Goya” is written. Shockingly similar to that painting is the seated portrait of an actress, Antonia Zarate y Aguirre, also wearing black, also covered in a lace mantilla (though not quite as delicate or ornate), and placed against a brown and gold background. Eavesdropping on two conversations in front of the piece, I heard different objections to it. One was dismayed that the silver ribbon at her rib cage clashed with the gold background, as did the black and brown. This on the principle that you do not wear silver and gold or black and brown together. The other objection found that a curl of hair on her forehead appeared to extend her already bushy eyebrow, made worse by the fact that some skin had been painted visible through the curl and looked like an unfortunate beauty mark. “I wouldn’t like it if it were me,” exclaimed the woman to her friend.
There are many ways to criticize art, and this personal approach is one. A friend who had seen the show objected to the lack of biographical material, as he was left wondering more about Goya. To my mind, this is the show’s success, building interest in an artist such that visitors would seek out information on their own. Biographies are both accessible and easy to find for the common museum audience, where the type of information the show relayed about technique required visual examples to explain. Goya’s work also required some historical contextualization since Goya’s presence as Court Painter made him a witness to the rise and fall of courtiers, while the Napoleonic invasion during the Peninsula War are significant to his posthumously published
Disasters of War print series.
The etching
They Do Not Want to (
No quieren, Plate 9 from
Disasters of War) depicts a soldier attempting to rape a young woman with an older woman coming from behind to stab him. The rape and pillaging of towns devastated Spain and Goya knew much about it from his own countryside visits, including to his home village. The lines marking the left side of the crone’s skirt emerge out of the wall behind the figures, while the right front side of her skirt sweep down to connect with the ground lines beneath the two struggling figures. Her strength comes not only from the presence of the knife but also the way Goya has her circling the environment of the two central figures. The contour lines around the soldier make him stand out, and provide a dark background against which the young woman has all the innocence of mostly untouched blank paper (with only the required lines to depict her form). The crone is all shading that, I will go so far as to suggest, gives her the ambiguity of wisdom, the gray tonality that accepts both black and white, murder as protection.
This woman made me realize the deep respect that Goya shows for aged women, whether as witches or protectresses. The show explained in a wall text that old age was associated with vanity, avarice, and lust, but that is far better seen in his depiction of old men. They are swinging, a metaphor for sexual license, gorging themselves on food in the dark, and generally foolish. I did not spot a work that presented old men as wise in the Goya show, and remain intrigued by the lack of imagery and tales in general presenting men as aging gracefully.
The show was divided thematically, with walls dedicated to youth, old age, power, allowing the curators to combine paintings and prints. One large room was dedicated to his portraits, including one with questionable attribution thereby allowing viewers to witness the challenge of certainty. The show culminates with a freestanding wall of prints from
Disasters of War, though the room behind it includes several more works. Goya’s prints of war, madness, and nightmares contrast to his polite portraits. As Enlightenment philosophy gained strength, ridiculing the superstitions of religion, it must have been all the more horrifying to see the savagery of the revolutions, the dismantling of governments, the massacres that followed. How could this mankind espouse reason on one hand, and yield such violence with the other? The question remains for us as we declare ourselves a global community and witness human violations on mass scales around the world.
Goya was brilliant not simply for his technique, but for his ability to draw what we still refuse to see.
Most intriguing to me, however, were the posters about rationing, and self-subsistence by planting “Victory” gardens. Somehow, support of the country has shifted away from the notion that we be careful about our consumption. Since Ford decided to recall troops from Vietnam in TK to suggest the end of the war there, even though United States presence continued for a while, as a nation we have been adverse to military engagement unless quick and easy. This is understandable, but it means we delude ourselves that we are not at war, as say our continued military engagement in Iraq for over a decade should be considered. Since we are not at war, we do not think of ourselves as having to minimize or economize as if we were at war. Our economy depends on excess spending, I understand that, but unfortunately, it makes us wasteful and inconsiderate of the real costs of sustained success. You an’t win a war you aren’t fighting. You can’t avoid waste if a surplus is assumed. 
