(a) "Francisco Goya (1746-1828) served as an official artist [or court painter] to the Spanish crown and painted the Bourbon royals within the conventions of the day. His mature career, though, coincided with the bloodiest years in the country's history: the Peninsular War (1807-14), pitting Napoleon's occupying forces against three countries' armies [Spain, Portugal and Britain; in Peninsular War] and bands of guerrillas. Spain would regain its independence [from Napoleon's France], but under a capricious tyrant [Ferdinand VII] who presided over a campaign of censorship and arrests. Goya would leave the court, cover the walls of his country house with the tormented Black Paintings (now at the Prado in Madrid) and die in exile. The 'Disasters [of War]' — his 82-print horror show of the Napoleonic occupation, the greatest anti-war art ever made — remained unpublished for another three decades.
"Although it arrives with a sizable [exhibition] catalog [printed by The Met], 'Goya's Graphic Imagination' is an exhibition geared to beginners. Me, I'd take a larger show, with the full run of the 'Caprichos' and the 'Disasters.' (The Met owns complete sets of each print series. [Because these are prints, like ukiyo-e (mass noun), many art collections have these]) As introductions go, however, this one is Gibraltar-solid. Met curator Mark McDonald has cross-sectioned Goya's drawings and prints [these two words are used here to contrast with (color) 'paintings'] into a judicious display of 100-odd sheets, hung with ample air. More important, he has not brought over from the painting wing Goya's portraits of the Spanish aristocracy. The paintings are daytime Goya. Here we come to the province of the night [on the side].
(b) "Goya was born in the provinces, and for years after his arrival in Madrid, he barely scraped by. At 29, he secured a day job drawing cartoons for the king's tapestry factory — but simultaneously, for the growing Madrid print market, he made etchings after Diego Velázquez's vigorous paintings of a century before. Goya copied the older artist's horseback riders and drunken revelers, but already his eye was tending to the strange, the ornery, the perplexing. His print of a court dwarf, a jester for King Philip IV, retains the humanity and sympathy of Velázquez's original painting. * * *
(c) " * * * At the turn of the century, Goya published 'Los Caprichos' (or 'The Caprices' [WSJ book review in (1) translated it as 'whimsies'; some others 'whims']), a suite of satirical and fantastical prints * * * The most famous of the 'Caprichos' pictures a man slumped at his desk. He's spent, to the point of unconsciousness, and he's being hounded by a black cat, a lynx, and wrinkled bats and owls. Written on the desk is a prime-time Enlightenment slogan: When reason goes, superstition thrives. This show, however, also has Goya's first drawing for this key work, lent by the Prado — and here you can see, floating above the sleeping man, the artist’s own unmistakable face. (By this point, he had gone deaf, the result of some undiagnosed illness that nearly killed him.) Even the great liberal has unreason inside him. Your knowledge and your prejudices can’t be cleaved apart so easily. And to create an enduring work of art, you will have to brave the monsters. Around 1800, with the 'Caprichos' behind him, Goya started to draw the cruelties of the Inquisition * * *
(d) "Goya was no revolutionary. He remained a court painter when Napoleon planted his [older] brother [Joseph] on the Spanish throne in 1808. But his heart was with the resistance, and in the 'Disasters,' etched in private, he gave view to an unending tide of butchery. The Met's show includes a dozen of these utterly grueling sheets, including this one: A Spanish rebel, slumped and blindfolded, faces an undistinguished death like his comrade on the ground. (Observe the three rifle barrels on the right edge, picked out from the harshly etched sky.) Unlike his heroic 'The Third of May,' his mural of an execution in Madrid, the 'Disasters' are devoid of martyrs. The dead are ragged, dishonored, mutilated, starved."
"Now 'The Disasters of War' are held up as images of universal suffering, still dreadfully relevant. But Goya was etching a particular war [Peninsular War], waged against his country by the most powerful army in Europe [Napoleon's France]. He was still working on the series when the reactionary Ferdinand VII returned to the throne and reestablished absolute monarchy and the supremacy of the church. * * *
(e) "The year 1814 comes, and Napoleon abdicates. * * * He grew more and more outraged at the repression and censorship of the Bourbon Restoration, even as he collected his paycheck to paint a king he hated. In those dark years, Goya began — though never finished — an enigmatic series now known as 'Los Disparates,' or 'The Follies.' Larger than the 'Caprichos' and 'Disasters' — gloomier, creepier — these prints of disorder and confusion have the look of half-coherent nightmares. * * * At last he can take no more. In 1824, on the pretext of health treatments, Goya secures permission to leave Spain. [self-]Exiled in Bordeaux, he draws * * * his last album [H] * * *
(b) "The most famous of the 'Caprichos' pictures a man slumped at his desk. He's spent, to the point of unconsciousness, and he's being hounded by a black cat, a lynx, and wrinkled bats and owls. Written on the desk is a prime-time Enlightenment slogan: When reason goes, superstition thrives. This show, however, also has Goya's first drawing for this key work, lent by the Prado — and here you can see, floating above the sleeping man, the artist's own unmistakable face."
(i) Los Caprichos. World Digital Library, undated https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10629/
("Los Caprichos (The caprices or whims) is the first of four large series of engravings done by Francisco de Goya (1746−1828), together with Los desastres de la guerra (The disasters of war), La tauromaquia (Bullfighting), and Los disparates (The follies). The scenes come in part from the drawings that the artist produced in Andalusia and Madrid in 1796–97, which are included in the Sanlúcar Album (Album A) and Madrid Album (Album B), as well as from his drawing series known as Sueños (Dreams)" )
(A) Tell the difference between prints (work product of etching) and drawings.
(B) World Digital Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Digital_Library
(ii) The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th ... n_Produces_Monsters
("is the 43rd of the 80 aquatints making up the satirical Los Caprichos"/ section 5 Preparatory drawings)
There is no need to read the text of section 5, because it is not informative. But looked at the two thumbnails/ icons this section, the first (left) of which had his face. That first one is a drawing, part of "his drawing series known as Sueños (Dreams)," described in (b)(i). The second (right) is a print. These two are placed side by side, to compare the difference.
(c) There are many prints in The Met exhibition that the NYT critiqued make no sense -- and the critique said little. Such as
(i) Goya, He Wakes Up Kicking. The Met (Album D No 13; Accession Number: 35.103.26) https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/334026
• Los Caprichos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_caprichos
(caption: "Capricho No 42: Tú que no puedes (Thou who cannot)" )
In this Wiki page, it is the second column from the right and fifth row from the top, showing two men carrying two donkeys.
(d) "His print of a courtroom dwarf, a jester for King Philip IV, retains the humanity and sympathy of Velázquez's original painting."
(i) Portrait of a court dwarf known as 'El Primo' after Velázquez. 1778. The Met (Accession Number: 31.31.14). https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/333955
(ii) Diego Velázquez, The Buffoon El Primo 1644. Prado Museum. https://www.museodelprado.es/en/ ... 3-a0d0-91d7dc210d5a
(A) Diego Velázquez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Velázquez
(baptized 1599 – 1660; full name: Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez; "Velázquez was born in Seville, Spain, the first child of Juan Rodriguez de Silva, a notary, and Jerónima Velázquez. * * * His paternal grandparents, Diogo da Silva and Maria Rodrigues, were Portuguese and had moved to Seville decades earlier. * * * his grandparents were tradespeople, and possibly Jewish conversos")
(B) Why did he have mother's surname?
• H Ellis, The Tercentenary of Velasquez. The Fortnightly Review, 71: 907, 911 https://books.google.com/books?i ... 1&dq=velasquez+"mother%27s+surname"&source=bl&ots=pU8wTKk8-1&sig=ACfU3U2D3Z8vHz2wIp6cJH2RnN7q9Bl5xg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwirs8DXy_TuAhWDm-AKHdU_B0UQ6AEwCXoECAwQAw#v=onepage&q=velasquez%20"mother's%20surname"&f=false
("To understand Velasquez there is another point we must never forget, and that is his race. It is true that on the mother's side he was a Spaniard, an Andaliciam hidalgo of Seville, a Velasquez, for he adopted his mother's surname, probably as carrying greater weight in Seville than that of his foreign paternal Silvas")
• Biography of Velasquez. undated https://www.diegovelazquez.org/biography.html
("Diego Velazquez born in Seville, Andalusia, Spain early on June 6, 1599, and baptized on June 6, Velazquez was the son of Juan Rodriguez de Silva (born Joao Rodrigues da Silva), a lawyer whose parents, Diogo da Silva and wife Maria Rodrigues, were Portuguese Jews, and Jeronima Velazquez, a member of the hidalgo class, an order of minor aristocracy (it was a Spanish custom, in order to maintain a legacy of maternal inheritance, for the eldest male to adopt the name of his mother). Recent archival investigations carried out by Mendez, ingram and others not only reject his aristocratic origins, but have brought to light that he belonged to the Jewish converso lineage")
(iii)
(A) The Jester Don Diego de Acedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jester_Don_Diego_de_Acedo
("Its subject is the dwarf Don Diego de Acedo, known as 'el Primo' (the Cousin)" )
(B) Don (honorific) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_(honorific)
(C)
• Spanish-English dictionary:
* primo (noun masculine; from Latin adjective masculine prīmus first): "cousin"
The en.wiktionary.com indicates el primo came from Latin noun + adjective: (cōnsōbrīnus) prīmus -- said to mean first cousin. I can not confirm it (either the term or meaning), nor can I find the Latin word(s) for second cousin.
• English dictionary:
* cousin (n; ultimately from from Latin consobrinus mother's sister's child, from con- with + sobrinus second cousin (from noun feminine (plural sorōrēs) soror sister) ) https://www.lexico.com/definition/cousin
(e) "in the 'Disasters,' etched in private, he gave view to an unending tide of butchery. The Met's show includes a dozen of these utterly grueling sheets, including this one: A Spanish rebel, slumped and blindfolded, faces an undistinguished death like his comrade on the ground. (Observe the three rifle barrels on the right edge, picked out from the harshly etched sky.) Unlike his heroic 'The Third of May,' his mural of an execution in Madrid, the 'Disasters' are devoid of martyrs. The dead are ragged, dishonored, mutilated, starved."
(i)
(A) The Disasters of War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War
(The name by which the series is known today is not Goya's own; section 2 Plates, section 2.1 War: caption: "Plate 15: Y no hay remedio (And it cannot be helped). Prisoners executed by firing squads, reminiscent of The Third of May 1808")
(B) Go back to (b)(i): The Disasters of War is prints, that do not belong to Albums A to H.
(ii) Spanish-English dictionary:
* remedio (noun masculine): "remedy, solution" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/remedio
(iii) The Third of May 1808 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808
(a painting completed in 1814, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid; section 1 Background: Dos de Mayo Uprising starting on May 2, 1808 by Spaniards against French occupation force, during Peninsular War; table: Medium: Oil on canvas)
So the NYT critic was wrong to say this was a "mural."
(iv) Ferdinand VII of Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_VII_of_Spain
(1784-1833; King of Spain: first reign Mar 19, 1808 – May 6, 1808 (predecessor Charles IV (Ferdinand VII's father), successor Joseph I (Napoleon's brother), second reign 1813-1833 (predecessor Joseph I) )
(v) Bourbon Restoration in France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_Restoration_in_France
("The brothers of the executed Louis XVI [1754-1793; King of France 1774-1793], namely Louis XVIII (1755-1824; King of France 1814-1824] and Charles X [1757-1836; King of France 1824-1830], successively mounted the throne")
(vi) Peninsular War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsular_War