Goya. Light and Shade
CaixaForum Barcelona. Barcelona 3/16/2012 - 6/24/2012
The exhibition numbers 96 works, comprising 27 oil paintings, 44 drawings, 23 prints and 2 preparatory cartoons. They include works such as The clothed Maja, The Parasol, Witches’ Flight and I am still learning, meaning that for the first time in thirty years a large and outstanding selection of Goya’s work from the Museo del Prado will be presented in Catalonia.The richness of the Prado’s holdings of Goya, which can almost be described as a separate museum within the Museum, allows for major exhibitions that fully reflect his oeuvre. A chronological presentation will reveal all the facets of Goya’s art and the principal phases of his career. The exhibition ranges from his early years, in which his realist style contrasted with the elaborate Rococo of his contemporaries, up to the highly personal works produced in Bordeaux at the end of his life and encompasses the drama of the Peninsular War that marked a turning point in his career.The exhibition is structured into fifteen self-sufficient sections that constitute short visual accounts which analyse many of the principal themes that recur throughout the artist’s oeuvre and reflect the social reality of the times in which Goya lived, defined by the monarchy and aristocracy and by intellectuals and friends of the artist.
- Curators:
- Manuela Mena, Museo Nacional del Prado Senior Curator Eighteenth-century Painting and José Manuel Matilla, Museo Nacional del Prado Head of Department Drawings and Prints
