GOYA Francisco De Goya Order and Disorder October 12, 2014 – January 19, 2015
Museum of Fine Arts 465 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115
By Sarah Mordecki
M–T 10 am–5 pm W–F 10 am–10 pm S–S 10 am–5 pm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya
One of the titans of European art, Francisco Goya (1746 – 1828) witnessed a time of revolution and sweeping change in thought and behavior. As 18th-century culture gave way to the modern era, Goya’s penetrating gaze sought new means to capture human experience, both as he observed it, and as his imagination and artistic gifts transformed it.
A major exhibition of Spanish master Francisco Goya
“Goya: Order and Disorder” takes an innovative approach, organizing the extreme variety of the artist’s output thematically. The exhibition employs the poles of order and disorder to structure Goya’s creativity, moving from dignified portraits and daily rituals to the chaos of war and the pandemonium of the Bordeaux bull ring. Goya also attended to the fertile territory between the competing forces of order and disorder. In some works, either harmony or chaos prevails, but most exhibit a disquieting tension between these opposites.
To comprehend the artist’s boundless creativity, “Goya: Order and Disorder” is divided into eight major sections. These address such themes as the nurturing and abuse of children; hunting as sport and metaphor; religious devotion and superstition; equilibrium and loss of balance; justice gone awry; and the symbolism of the giant. This framework enables the visitor to perceive connections across media and time that the artist himself made.
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya
The largest Goya exhibition in North America in a quarter century, “Goya: Order and Disorder” is on view only at the MFA. The full range of Goya’s ingenuity is on display: from the elegant full-length portraits of aristocrats that established his reputation in Madrid, to the satirical prints that carried his fame beyond his country, and to the sympathetic or acerbic drawings from his private albums that reveal the very foundation of his ideas.
The Black Duchess, c. 1797
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Built on the MFA’s deep collection of works on paper by the artist, the exhibition comprises 170 of his most significant paintings, prints, and drawings, ranging from the 1770s through the end of his life. Some 71 works from the MFA, including rare drawings and working proofs that have not been displayed in Boston since 1989, form the core of the exhibition. They are joined by important loans of paintings and drawings from the Museo del Prado, the Musée du Louvre, the Galleria degli Uffizi, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art (Washington), as well as numerous private collections in Europe and the United States. “Goya: Order and Disorder” is the first occasion that several works have ever been shown in public exhibitions, or in this country.
Francisco de Goya
Retrospective Features 170 Paintings, Prints and Drawings from Around the World
Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off, c. 1806
BOSTON, MA (August 21, 2014)—This fall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), presents Goya: Order and Disorder, a landmark exhibition dedicated to Spanish master Francisco Goya (1746–1828). The largest retrospective of the artist to take place in America in 25 years features 170 paintings, prints and drawings—offering the rare opportunity to examine Goya’s powers of observation and invention across the full range of his work. The MFA welcomes many loans from Europe and the US, including 21 works from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, along with loans from the Musée du Louvre, the Galleria degli Uffizi.
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art (Washington) and private collections. Goya: Order and Disorder includes some 60 works from the MFA’s collection of Goya’s works on paper, one of the most important in the world. From the striking portrait Duchess of Alba (1797) from the Hispanic Society of America, to the tour de force of Goya’s Seated Giant (by 1818) in the MFA’s collection, to his drawings of lunacy, the works on view demonstrate the artist’s fluency across media.
The Garroted Man, c. 1778-80
Many of these prints and drawings have not been on view in Boston in 25 years. Employed as a court painter by four successive rulers of Spain, Goya managed to explore an extraordinarily wide range of subjects, genres and formats.
Will She Rise Again? The Disaters of War, c. 1814-1815
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya
From the striking portrait Duchess of Alba (1797) from the Hispanic Society of America, to the tour de force of Goya’s Seated Giant (by 1818) in the MFA’s collection, to his drawings of lunacy, the works on view demonstrate the artist’s fluency across media. On view in the Museum’s Ann and Graham Gund Gallery from October 12, 2014–January 19, 2015, the MFA is the only venue for the exhibition, which is accompanied by a publication revealing fresh insights on the artist As 18th-century culture gave way to the modern world, little escaped Goya’s penetrating gaze. W orking with equal prowess in painting, drawing and printmaking, he was the portraitist of choice for the royal family as well as aristocrats, statesmen and intellectuals—counting many as acquaintances or friends. Living in a time of revolution and radical social and political transformations, Goya witnessed drastic shifts between “order” and “disorder,” from relative prosperity to wartime chaos, famine, crime and retribution. Among the works he created— some 1,800 oil paintings, frescoes, miniatures, etchings, lithographs and drawings—many are not easy to look at, or even to understand. With a keen sensitivity to human nature, Goya could portray the childhood innocence of Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (about 1788, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)—his most famous portrait of a child—or the deviance of the Witches’ Sabbath (1797–98, Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid).
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
“This exhibition offers a once-in-a-generation look at one of the greatest, most imaginative artists of all time,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director at the MFA. “Goya: Order and Disorder reflects the Museum’s close collaboration with the Prado, and builds on our proud tradition of Goya scholarship.”
Francisco de Goya
“This Goya exhibition brings together two very important strands of Santander’s identity, our commitment to New England and our heritage in Spain,” said Roman Blanco, president and CEO of Santander US. “We are delighted to join with the Fundación Banco Santander to sponsor the exhibition. We commend the MFA for bringing together this extensive collection of Goya’s work that is sure to inspire all who attend.”
Figures Dancing in a circle from Los Disparates, c. 1816
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya
Through his art, Goya sought to describe, catalogue and satirize the breadth of human experience
Man Looking for Fleas in His Shirt, c. 1824-25
Embracing both its pleasures and discomforts. The artist tackled the nurturing of children, the pride and infirmity of old age, the risks of romantic love, and all types of women—from young beauties to old women. In the section dedicated to Goya’s depictions of the stages of life, Life Studies, the exhibition explores how the artist transformed observations of human frailty, creating allegories of vanity and the passage of time.
Mother Celestina, c. 1819-23
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya
A wizened woman, who is unsuccessfully attempting to adopt youthful styles in Until Death (Hasta la muerte), Caprichos 55 (1797–99, The Boston Athenaeum), is revived in one of Goya’s most haunting monumental paintings—Time (Old Women) (about 1810–12, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille).
Nude Woman Reclining Against a Rock, c. 1824-25
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The aged woman is now decayed and diseased, but still clings to her outdated fashions, and is soon to be swept away by the broom of Time. Goya’s tapestry designs frequently depict young people, with relationships between men and women marked by affection, disaffection and tension. The Parasol (1777, Museo Nacional del Prado) presents a young woman who poses under a parasol with her docile lapdog—she seems to ignore her male companion in favor of engaging viewers who would look up at this tapestry, which was meant to hang in a door.
Francisco de Goya
In the Play and Prey section, Goya’s creative process is revealed through representations of a popular game in which young women toss a well dressed mannequin in a blanket. In Straw Mannequin, this carnivalesque reversal of class and gender roles is seen in a tapestry (1792–93, Patrimonio Nacional, Spain), as well as two preparatory paintings (1791, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Museo Nacional del Prado). Ferdinand Guillemardet, c. 1765-1809
A late print, Feminine Absurdity (Disparate femenino) Disparates 1 (1815–17, Fundación Lázaro Galdiano), imparts new meaning to the previously simple image of young women at play, as the women now strain to lift several figures, including a peasant and donkey.
Pedro Romero Killing a Bull that He Has Subdued, c. 1816
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya
Frair Pedro Wrests the Gun from El Maragato, c. 1806
Self-portrait at 69 Years, c. 1815
This more sinister vein is reflected in many of the subjects the artist returned to later in life, following the devastation of the Peninsular War and its political reversals. “Pay & Prey” also explores Goya’s famous images of men engaging in hunting (his own favorite pastime) and the bullfight. In these works, including examples from the series of prints, the Tauromaquia and the Bulls of Bordeaux, Goya celebrates both activities while also subtly portraying their darker sides.
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Custody of a Criminal, c. 1810-14
Francisco de Goya
The precarious relationship between order and discord, balance and imbalance, is fundamental to Goya’s work, and the subject of the section In the Balance. The theme appears vividly in images of the punishing forces of nature, figures losing their balance and others fighting. This topic is particularly noteworthy given the tumultuous social and political change during Goya’s lifetime, as well as the artist’s own struggles with illness, dizzy spells and permanent deafness.
The Duke of Alba, c. 1795
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The MFA’s print, The Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apiñani in the Ring at Madrid (Ligereza y atmiento de Juanito Apiñani en la de Madrid (Tauromaquia 20) (1815–16) depicts a precarious matador, who is poised midair as he vaults over a charging bull, anchored only by his upright pole.
Francisco de Goya
Woman with Clothes Blowing in the Wind, c. 1824-1825
Boy Staring at an Appartition, c. 1824-1825
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya
Publication The exhibition is accompanied by the publication Goya: Order and Disorder (MFA Publications; 2014), which is the first consideration of Goya’s works in all media through a non-chronological, thematic approach. Written by MFA curators Frederick Ilchman and Stephanie Loeb Stepanek and world-renowned Goya expert Janis A. Tomlinson, with contributions by Clifford S. Ackley, Jane E. Braun, Manuela B. Mena MarquÊs, Gudrun Maurer, Elisabetta Polidori, Sue Welsh Reed, Benjamin Weiss and Juliet Wilson-Bareau, the 400-page book includes 260 color illustrations and is available in hardcover ($65). Special exhibition pricing ($50) is available in the MFA Bookstore and Shop or online at mfa.org/collections/publications/goya throughout the run of the show. Generous support for this publication was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Publications Fund, with additional support from Isabelle and Scott Black.
Thank You
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco de Goya