Charles Saatchi
Genius Goya rewrote the rule book for female nudes
Previously, tradition dictated that a female nude would glance away coyly
Francisco Goya (1746-1828) was born when Spanish art was at a low ebb. The genius of the 17th-century master Velázquez had been followed by generations of anaemic mediocrity.
As a teenager, Goya liked to spend his time sketching in the fields near Saragossa. One day, a passing monk, reciting his breviary, stumbled across the young artist making charcoal drawings. Struck by Goya’s aptitude, he immediately asked the boy to take him to speak to his parents. It didn’t take long to persuade them that Goya should enter an apprenticeship with a prominent studio. In all possibility, that fortuitous meeting awakened the latent brilliance of the artist and ushered in a renaissance in Spanish painting.
Goya was an intensely keen observer of humanity, using his brush and pencil to tell the vivid stories of the people of Spain, and the restless life of the city. His representations of women were numerous and all-encompassing: covens of witches, beautiful maidens, mistresses of powerful men, milkmaids, gipsies. None of these was more notorious than Goya’s La Maja Desnuda, The Naked Maja.
In this painting, made between 1797-1800, Goya rejected the traditional, stoically frigid representations of the female nude. Instead, inspired by Titian’s audacious Venus of Urbino that had so horrified 16th-century Italy, Goya chose to abandon the suggestion that he was innocently portraying a goddess. He wanted anyone looking at his naked model to be fully aware that she was a woman of the lower classes, a maja, a person considered a commoner in Spanish society. This was no Divinity basking upon the canvas, rather a woman of the people with a highly sexualised, almost aggressive gaze, staring back at the viewer directly and provocatively.
Previously, tradition dictated that a female nude would glance away coyly, allowing for a detached admiration for the sight of her naked body, but not engaging. In Goya’s painting, the steady focus of her eyes denotes his model’s fiery participation. He has made every effort to emphasise her sexuality for the pleasure of his audience. The model’s face is fresh and glowing; her skin milky and sensuous. The artist left no detail to the imagination, even depicting the nude’s pubic hair. This alone would have caused a scandal, its inclusion being entirely unprecedented in depictions of the female nude.
Strategically, choosing a maja as the subject of a portrait meshed with Goya’s political alignments, although he was far from leading the life of a struggling artist. Goya’s career began to escalate at the age of 29, when he was commissioned to design church tapestries. When he relocated to Madrid, he continued to produce these large, crowd-pleasing religious works, which brought him to the attention of the Spanish monarchy.
The newly appointed King Carlos IV and his Queen, Maria Louisa, became ardent patrons. It seems that Goya knew how to play the political charades that accompanied the career of a successful artist within the Spanish court. Later, we sense from his works an inner discomfort and the strong affinity he felt for the ordinary citizens of Madrid and Spain. The distaste he felt for the aristocratic class he was so dependent upon for advancement cast an acidic shadow over much of his later work.
La Maja Desnuda was actually a representation of Pepita Tudo, who became the courtesan of Manuel de Godoy, the Spanish Prime Minister. The painting was initially completed for Godoy’s private collection, remaining hidden behind silk curtains in his palace for his own personal enjoyment. But, with the restoration of the Spanish Inquisition in 1814, the religious authorities were determined to bring down a meaningful target and Godoy was in their sights, vulnerable because of his sexual indiscretions.
Unfortunately for Goya, La Maja Nuda came under intense scrutiny and he had to justify in specific detail his exact motivations for the painting. He explained that his work had evolved from tradition, aligning his painting with Titian’s Danaë series and Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus. Goya claimed that the work merely acted as a tribute to the classics, which had been previously approved by the papal authorities. Thankfully, further interrogation was quashed by his supporters within the Royal court, saving him a daunting public inquisition.
In 1792, Goya had been struck by a severe illness that left him almost deaf. The effect on his work was profound. He began using his art as a jaundiced commentary on humanity – its follies, weaknesses, vanities and cruelties.
Soon afterwards, he started work on his most eviscerating, devastating series, “The Disasters of War”. Captured in stark realism, these prints are a heart-rending indictment of man’s inhumanity, condemned by many as so disturbing that they were not seen by the public for 40 years.
By 1819, Goya was living in isolation on the outskirts of Madrid. He began a group of 14 pictures that have become known as “The Black Paintings”, but which he never named or explained. Presenting the Roman god Saturn devouring his children in case they should grow up to usurp him; a dog drowning; two prostitutes laughing at a man who is masturbating: they were the darkest imagery ever produced by an artist.
The pictures represented the purest form of artistic selfexpression, coming solely from the artist’s mind, uncommissioned, not aimed at any buyer, painted entirely for himself. No body of work is more hauntingly bleak, more resonant of the frailties and failures of the human condition.
Although not intended to be seen by others, these paintings have electrified viewers ever since. For generations of artists to come, Goya would be a primary inspiration, always considered a century ahead of his time. Little wonder that he is regarded as the most radical artist that ever lived.