I, Goya

Born to an impoverished gilder and his noblewoman wife, 18th-century painter Goya (1746-1828) was driven by a fear of poverty throughout his lifetime and spent the majority of his artistic career struggling to balance his courtly ambitions with his desire for artistic independence-a hanging specter Feghelm, a freelance art historian, carefully delineates in this glossy catalogue of the Spaniard's life and works. A multifaceted artist who once claimed Rembrandt, Velazquez and nature were his only masters, Goya began his career as a tapestry cartoonist before honing his skills as a masterful producer of vibrant rococo-style folk scenes and subtly subversive court portraits of the fiercely conservative Spanish monarchs King Carlos III and Carlos IV. Offering solid, if not especially inspired, close readings of Goya's works, Feghelm is at his best when analyzing Goya's output following his nearly fatal illness in 1794. Left deaf by the experience, the liberal artist refused to design any more pocket book-pleasing cartoons and transitioned into the caustic Capricho aquatints and the phantasmagoric ""black"" paintings of his autumnal years, a shift that Feghelm skillfully describes with acute attention to historical detail. Working through the French Revolution and the Spanish War of Independence, Goya's outlook on life soured in the aftermath of such bloodshed and confusion. And Feghelm is quick to point out the expressionistic Spaniard's influence on later 19th-century painters like Manet (the latter's Execution of Maximilian (1867/8) is a direct citation of the former's The Third of May 1808 (1814)). Also illuminating are the deep captions that accompany the book's many glorious reproductions and the side-by-side biography and political timeline that conclude the book. 170 color illustrations.