GOYA

BY FR. CRASTRE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY FREDERIC TABER COOPER

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

IN SEMPITERNUM.

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
NEW YORK—PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

March, 1914

THE · PLIMPTON · PRESS
NORWOOD · MASS · U · S · A

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

On a certain clear morning in the year 1760, a monk from the convent of Santa Fé, near Saragossa, was proceeding leisurely along the road which leads to that city, and reciting his breviary as he went. Raising his eyes from between two psalms, he perceived a young lad of some fifteen years of age deeply absorbed in drawing pictures with a bit of charcoal on one of the walls which bounded the way. The monk was a lover of the arts and had himself some little skill in drawing. Becoming interested, he drew nearer, and was amazed at the aptitude shown by the boy. Upon questioning him, he was much pleased with his replies and was completely won by his engaging manners. Without further reflection, he inquired the way to the home of the lad’s parents, poor peasants of the immediate neighbourhood, and had no difficulty in persuading them to entrust their son to him, promising to make him a painter of whom they would some day be proud.

History has not preserved the name of the worthy monk so kindly disposed to art, but the boy was destined to make his own name illustrious: Francisco José Goya y Lucientes, the poor son of farming folk of Saragossa, fulfilled the promises of his patron. He had talent; better yet, he had genius; he fraternized with princes and with kings, and the renown of his glory restored its lost dignity to the art of Spain and did honour to painting throughout the world.

PLATE II.—LA MAJA (CLOTHED)
(Museum of the Prado, Madrid)

This reclining woman represents a very characteristic type of Spanish beauty. Goya has painted this picture under two different aspects, although in an absolutely identical pose. In one, the woman is represented completely nude, while here the artist has clothed her in corselet and trousers. It is asserted that the Duchess of Alba served him as model for both of these pictures.

The advent of Goya in the middle of the eighteenth century marks a sort of providential date in the art of the peninsula. The Spanish school had fallen into profound decadence. Of the great traditions of Velazquez, Ribera, Zurbaran, and El Greco, nothing survived save the regret of knowing that they were forever lost. All the prodigious strength and powerful realism of that glorious period had become degenerate, enfeebled, anaemic to the point of utter decrepitude. In the horde of artists of that time, not a single hand was capable of taking up the brush let fall by the great predecessors. One only in all their number, a certain Claudio Coello, mustered sufficient energy to attempt to carry on the broken tradition. With praiseworthy insistence and undoubted talent he endeavoured to restore its bygone dignity to the painting of his time. Among many other noteworthy works, a magnificent canvas from his hand may still be seen in the sacristy of the Escurial. But this unlucky artist, like all the others, had[Pg 15]
[Pg 16] come too late into a world which had grown too old. He could no longer be understood. The same decadence had overspread the whole of Europe, but to a