Francisco Goya y Lucientes 1746-1828

Modern interpretations of Goya as a political artist, proto-Romantic rebel, fantasist or realist capture partial truths about the protean Spanish painter, suggests Columbia University art history professor Tomlinson in this meticulous, sumptuously illustrated study featuring 210 color and 70 black-and-white plates. By viewing Goya's career as a lifelong experiment with image-making, she shows how his art became a self-perpetuating process as his works fed off one another. Tomlinson argues unpersuasively that Goya's royal portraits, usually seen as savage satires, actually evince sympathy for his often homely or awkward subjects. She is more successful in elucidating his kaleidoscopic view of evil in the Los Caprichos etchings, his innovative small-scale oils and his investigations of irrationality and destructiveness in scenes of madhouses, war, the Inquisition and popular spectacles. (June)