GOYA CENTENARY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 401, 9 July 1928, Page 14

GOYA CENTENARY

ARTIST WHO RAIDED A NUNNERY “THE MAJA NUDE” Francisco Goya, tlie famous Spanish. artist, the centenary of whose death, at the age of 82 was celebrated recently, was of a prodigious and tireless energy, which is represented by nearly 1,000 works. In many respects his romantic youth offers comparison with the erratic and adventurous careers of Benvenuto Cellini and Fra Lippo Lippi. Like the first, he was never lagging in a brawl; like the last, he was never loath for an amour. He was an expert swordsman, and in Saragossa took active part in the sanguinary sectional conflicts which were of continual recurrence between the partisans of the two cathedrals, La Seo and El Pilar. Later, in Madrid, he was picked up one night with a dagger in his back. He gained the wonderful knowledge of the bull-ring, evidenced in the superb plates of the Tauromaquia, not only in the auditorium but in the arena.. Tradition has it that, as a toreador, he earned the money which ultimately carried him to Rome. Here one day he crawled round the crumbling cornice of the tomb of Cecilia Metella in the Campagna. Here on another occasion he climbed up the lantern of the dome of St. Peter’s to cut his name upon a stone. Foolhardiness of the sort was fashionable among the young fnen of the time—as of all times. Almost in the same year Goethe was scaling the steeple at Strasbourg. One black night Goya climbed the walls of a convent in order to abduct a young and charming nun. He was caught and imprisoned, and for his errant heart might readily have paid forfeit with his head. The Spanish Ambassador, however, made intei'cession to the Pope on behalf of the rising young painter, and he was liberated on condition that he left the Papal States. Madrid offered as many distractions as Rome, and Goya loved to mix with the bull-fighters, the professional swordsmen, the gipsies, the dancing girls, the musicians, and even the thieves and murderers. On his sister’s death he wrote: “We who lead a vagabond existence must try to improve our lives in the short time that remains to us.” Goya was as familiar, however, with the intimate circles of the court and the aristocracy as he was with the dim and curious reaches of the underworld. He received the appointment of Court painter in 1788, almost immediately after Charles IV. ascended the throne. In his day the artist had the reputation of being the most dangerous Don Juan in Spain. Well known is the story of his intimate friendship with the Duchess of Alba and of the two pictures of which she is the subject—the “Maja Nude” and the “Maja Clothed”—the latter to allay the suspicions of the duke. It is also told of Goya that he painted on another noble lady’s naked foot an appalling bruise in order that she need not accompany her husband on a journey!.