Janis Tomlinson

Goya An account of the life and work of the landmark painter.Janis Tomlinson A celebrated account of the life and work of Francisco Goya (1746-1828) Goya is considered to be the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Moderns; his diverse body of work includes both formal royal portraits of the Spanish court and some of the most compelling images of social unrest and personal anguish ever painted Places Goya in the social and political context of his time, addresses the contradictions of his art and discusses his drive to experiment with new media Francisco Goya (1746-1828) has been called the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Moderns. For most of his career he was court painter to the Spanish kings, yet he also produced some of the most compelling images of social unrest and personal anguish ever painted. Among his works are formal royal portraits and the so-called 'black paintings' - intensely private images of loneliness and despair. In this beautifully illustrated and up-to-date account of all aspects of Goya's career, Janis Tomlinson addresses the contradictions of his art and places the artist and his work in the social and political context of Spain and Europe during the period of the French Revolution and its reactionary aftermath. This absorbing, thoughtful, prize-winning study, while remaining the essential monograph on this landmark painter, is now made available to a wider audience in an attractively priced paperback edition

Yet painting in Spain is far richer than this view supposes. During the Renaissance the splendid court of Philip II led a society made wealthy by a monopoly on New World trade. His Spain became a mecca for the finest artists of Europe, especially those from Italy and the Netherlands. During the next 250 years, a glorious art of painting flourished at the Habsburg and Bourbon courts in Madrid, and in the cities of Seville, Valencia, and Toledo: majestic, fiercely emotional, elegant, and urbane. From the insightful portraits of El Greco and Velazquez to the stark poetry of Zurbaran's religious works, from images of monarchic authority to courtly entertainments, painters working in Spain created an art of extraordinary stature, woven into the international world of Mannerism, the Baroque, and the Rococo. Janis Tomlinson traces these myriad influences as they developed from generation to generation of artists, culminating in the unique accomplishment of Francisco Goya, last of the old masters and first of the moderns.

La vida de Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) coincidió con una época de transformaciones en la historia de España que desató turbulencias en la política del país y en la corte de la que formó parte el artista, asi como cambios sociales, la devastacion de la peninsula iberica en la guerra contra Napoleon y un posterior periodo de inestabilidad. En esta reveladora biografia, Janis Tomlinson se sirve de un amplio rango de documentos (incluyendo cartas, escritos de la corte y un cuaderno de bocetos usado por Goya en los primeros años de su carrera) para ofrecer un matizado retrato del complejo y multifacetico artista, cuyo arte es sinonimo de las cautivadoras imagenes de las gentes, los acontecimientos y la revolucion social que definieron su vida y su era. Tomlinson cuestiona la imagen popular del artista como una figura obsesionada con la oscuridad y la muerte, al mostrar como la simpatia y la ambicion de Goya contribuyeron a su exito dentro de la corte, y al ofrecer tambien nuevas perspectivas sobre su juventud, rica vida familiar, amplios viajes y duraderas amistades. Tomlinson explora todo el potencial de la imagineria goyesca, desde escenas inspiradas por la vida en Madrid hasta visiones de mundos irracionales, pasando por retratos reales y atrocidades de guerra. La autora arroja luz sobre los problemas personales del artista, incluyendo la muerte de seis de sus hijos y su perdida de audicion en la mediana edad, pero tambien reexamina la interpretacion convencional de que los ultimos años de vida de Goya fueron un periodo de desilusion y los muestra, en cambio, como una epoca de liberacion artistica, que se plasma especialmente en las famosas pinturas murales de su quinta, conocidas popularmente como las pinturas negras.