Goya's Disparates and Las Pinturas Negras
Bean and I went to the Norton Simon Museum yesterday where they were having an exhibit of Goya's etchings. What a treat for both of us. They spoke to both Bean's delicate and complex approach to drawing and my intensity.
I have been lucky to see Goya's etchings on a number of occasions. Yesterday we had the privilege of seeing many of his etchings from his Disparates series. These brooding, dark, nightmarish visions come from Goya's mind, from a place where he saw little hope in the world and in his own life. He used art to materialize the darkness inside of himself. Art it was what kept him going. It gave him inspiration from within his interior when there was little inspiration to be found in his exterior world.
He was recovering from a serious illness and was too weak to paint when he drew this series. So they are like an extended fever dream/nightmare. Goya's lines are like no others. When you look at them closely, you will see small dashes and loose zig-zags, not the traditional cross-hatching of etching artists. His lines are exceptionally unique and his vision exceptionally dark. These etchings open portals to interior worlds both frightening and irresistible.
More from Disparates:
Reading about his Dispartes series, I discovered he made them at the same time that he painted the walls of his house the nightmarish murals Las Pinturas Negras (The Black Paintings). Certainly these murals are both terrifying and terrific, astounding masterpieces of a visionary obsessive mind. What is interesting to me is that Goya clearly painted them for HIMSELF because he was compelled to do so. He covered the walls of his house with these visions. He was driven to excavate the interior of his mind and heart and paint it on the interior of his literal house. And then live with them where he could see with his actual eyes what he saw inside himself. Astounding.
From Las Pinturas Negras:
