An art master who died over 200 years ago came to life through the voice of art historian Robert Hughes last night at Irvine Auditorium. Hughes captivated a packed house in his discussion of Spanish master Francisco de Goya. Penn's Locks Foundation Distinguished Artists Series sponsored the event, and Hughes, promoting his new book Goya, delivered a multifaceted presentation on the artist that delved into both his work and his life.
Hughes prefaced his lecture by saying, "No artist is universal ... but we can all still claim Goya as our own."
Hughes presented Goya's work as not just touching basic facets of regular life, but also as being a beginning path to modern art.
One of the first paintings that Hughes showed the audience was Goya's masterpiece Executions of Third of May, 1808. Hughes described the piece, which depicts a Spaniard before a firing squad, as the "first truly modern image of war." Hughes then explained that another Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, was obsessed with Goya and that Goya's work in the nature of violence and war, especially that particular piece, influenced Picasso's masterpiece Guernica.
Hughes engaged the audience not just by delivering the history, but also by incorporating humor and modern references.
"Goya's birthplace was deep in the boonies," Hughes said to a chorus of laughter when he first started to give Goya's history. He then traced Goya's lifeline from a young talent who traveled to Italy to a Spanish court artist who was an "exquisite painter of children."
Goya mixed in the court and produced standard work depicting the royals, but his far more interesting work was that which he did in the asylums. Hughes asserted that he was "one of the great recorders of what happened to human abnormalities."
Hughes lauded not only Goya's style, but also his attention to detail -- including one painting in which he depicts patients of the asylum copulating in a remote corner, completely removed from the action in the forefront of the painting.
Hughes, however, said that Goya only reached the plateau of great art after a physical breakdown in 1793 that left him completely deaf. Only then did the "essential Goya start emerging."
Hughes then led the audience on to some of Goya's greatest works in his Caprichos -- sketches that delivered social satire -- as well as his work on the Duchess of Elba, who Hughes jokingly described as a "dead ringer for Cher." It is the duchess who has been carried into modern times as one of the great sexualized women of art, and Hughes not only explained her role in the paintings, but also speculated on gossip that she and Goya had been lovers.
After the event, College junior Thomas Allen expressed appreciation for the newfound knowledge he gained from attending the lecture.
"Listening to this lecture has made me want to learn so much more about Goya," he said. "I always knew he was a great artist, but I never realized the profound impact he has had on the art world."
