The aim of this mini-thesis was to investigate if the Spanish artist Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) was aware of the progress that enlightened thought brought to Spain during the late eighteenth-century, and to see whether this had any effect on his series Los Caprichos (1797-1799). According to some contemporary historians, such as Dowling (1985, p. 347), the " ... specific subject-matter of the Caprichos came directly from the ideology of the Spanish Enlightenment. " The contemporary historian Jeremy Black (1990, p. 208) described the Enlightenment as a " ... tendency towards critical enquiry and the application of reason." Enlightened thinkers were primarily critics who used reason as a goal and a method to create a better society. Reason was believed to be a characteristic trait of the human species, human development and social organisation. The Enlightenment is not a purely seventeenth and eighteenth century phenomenon, but originated in the ideas of the classical civilizations and also the humanism of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe. Many intellectuals were responsible for this new direction of thinking. The ideas of these scientists and philosophers are discussed in some detail, especially those beliefs which are clearly seen in the subject-matter of Los Caprichos. In addition, consideration is given to the possible effects of some of the historical events on the life and work of Goya, for example, the French Revolution (1789) and the Reign of Terror (1793-1794) which followed the Revolution. In order to understand the background of the environment into which Goya was born and in which he developed, research was done on Spanish life and the monarchs of the eighteenth century. Specific attention is given to two Spanish kings from the House of Bourbon: Charles 3, who began numerous enlightened reforms in Spain and reigned around the time of Goya's early artistic and social development, and Charles 4 who did not continue the reforming policies of his father and ruled Spain when the Caprichos were produced. The extent to which the Enlightenment spread to Spain is investigated, especially during the period in which Goya lived. Notable progressive thinkers of this European country are discussed, and special attention is given to those open-minded people whom Goya met. There appears to be proof that Goya may have been inspired by numerous of these learned Spaniards, and where this has motivated the Caprichos, special mention is made. The general census of the twentieth century, however, seems to be that Goya was not a towering intellectual thinker, but he was most certainly not an illiterate, unintelligent person either. The themes of Los Caprichos strongly suggest that he was influenced by enlightened individuals many of whom were his friends, such as the wealthy businessman and art-collector Sebastian Martinez (17 ?-1800) (with whom Goya stayed during a serious illness in 1792-1793). The letters written by Goya to his childhood friend Martin Zapater (1746-18 ?) and selected prints from the Caprichos provide sufficient proof to indicate that enlightened thought inspired the work of Goya. It must be recognised, however, that there were other events that could have been influential such as: his appointment as Painter to the King in 1786, which provided Goya with a regular salary and released him from the demands of patrons, giving his imagination free reign; the illness that he suffered from 1792 until 1793, which could have caused Goya to view his life in perspective and could have given him the courage to criticise society. On a smaller scale, the possible love affair that Goya had with the Duchess of Alba, which turned sour, was possibly a blow to his self esteem. This is a subject which is seen in a few of the prints from Los Caprichos. The research gathered for this mini-thesis is from the ex post facto source-material available through Rhodes University library, and any other attainable published data connected to Goya. This information consists of secondary sources which include copies of manuscripts dating from the time of Goya as well as first-hand observations of Goya's art.

Ce mémoire se penche sur la série des Taureaux de Bordeaux, réalisée en 1824 et 1825 par l'artiste espagnol Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) lors de son exil dans la ville de Bordeaux. Elle est composée de quatre lithographies : El famoso Americano Mariano Ceballos, [Bravo toro], Divertissement espagnol et [Arène divisée] qui représentent chacune un épisode tauromachique. Le regard de ces œuvres sur la corrida est indissociable d'une violence incarnée par des spectateurs qui, au centre de l'arène, prennent part aux combats. Cette représentation des spectateurs s'avère particulière par rapport aux changements qui s'opèrent dans la corrida au XVIIIe siècle. Par exemple, son déroulement se codifie et le public doit maintenant rester dans les estrades. L'objectif de ce mémoire vise à comprendre pourquoi les Taureaux de Bordeaux s'attachent à une dimension violente pour aborder le thème tauromachique. Pour y parvenir, les approches historique, iconographique et anthropologique seront utilisées : la première montrera que l'artiste, en vivant dans un contexte violent (guerre d'Indépendance, par exemple), a pu en observer les répercussions sur les hommes; la seconde servira à déceler comment les lithographies représentent la corrida et la violence; la troisième posera les assises théoriques pour déterminer le type de violence propre à cette série, notamment par le biais de la pensée de l'anthropologue René Girard développée dans La Violence et le Sacré (1972). L'hypothèse défendue est que les Taureaux de Bordeaux représentent une violence destructive, propre aux conflits armés, plutôt qu'à celle qui est intrinsèque au spectacle tauromachique. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), Taureaux de Bordeaux, lithographie, violence, René Girard, La Violence et le sacré, guerre d'Indépendance.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Arts Faculty (Fine Arts), 1999 / My basic premise in this study is, if abjection is a psychosocial phenomenon, even a kind of waste category and mechanism, it should be discernible and analysable as an underlying structure in the form, iconography and purpose of works of art. Certain modes of art will manifest or express it more lucidly and abundantly than others. Satire and the Grotesque, which Goya adopts in his graphic Work, are especially fruitful in this regard. In both, one can find processes and states of degradation and vitiation that accord with the two facets of abjection Hal Foster (1996) so pragmatically terms the operation to abject and the condition to be abject. Satire, with its inclination to criticise political, social and ecclesiastical figures, can chiefly be interpreted in terms of the operation to abject (to lower, cast down, depose, sideline), while the Grotesque, displaying the distorted, monstrous, 'freakish', hybrid, impossible, relates more to tire condition to be abject. This conjunction between satire/the Grotesque and abjection guides my interpretation of Los Caprichos and Los Disparates. Los Caprichos, in which Goya took it upon himself to "censure" and "ridicule" "human errors and vices", are marked by a quite strict use of satire to criticise, mock and marginalise certain social groups (prostitutes, nobles and corrupt clerics, in particular). Since society, or the Symbolic that undergirds it, cannot do without the abject, either in its role as midden or as oppositional determinant or defining other, the satirical project cannot banish or destroy the abject; it can, however, bid and lobby for some degree of social reclamation and rejuvenation. The satirist depicts the grotesque, sordid, obscene, deviant, abandoned and licentious to indicate to the viewer/reader what s/h e must laugh off to live a decent, obedient, constructive and law-fearing life. Goya takes this aapproach in Los Caprichos. After all, in at least one letter to his friend Martin Zapater he hinted that he feared the "witches, goblins, phantoms, arrogant giants, knaves" and "scoundrels" of his society, and evidently felt a need to part from them. How deep this need ran one cannot say; many of his images suggest a degree of equivocation (he vacillates between being on the side of the law and on the side of Ms own more incorruptible conscience, from which he upbraids the law) and ambivalence (on the one hand, he scolds his objects of attack and appears to be repelled by them; on the other, he seems to relish depicting them in grotesque and blighted shapes, as if the satirical purpose is secondary to the opportunity his art provides to invent forms and get close to the forbidden, the anti-social, the rotten, the abject). In Los Disparates equivocation and ambivalence come more to the fore. Goya often appears most aggressively satirical in the Disparates when he questions corruption in social institutions such as tire Church and the law. Some images, notably Folhj of the Mass, juxtapose a wrathful figure with a mass of social ills, foibles and depravities, and seem characteristically satirical, but the majority of the etchings are striking in their lack of closure, as if a "state of unresolved tension", to quote Michael Steig, adequately rewarded Goya for the labour of production. Man xoandering among Phantoms, for example, is ambiguous and seems to sum up Goya's relationsMp to the abject toward the end of his life: through the surrogate of an old man, Goya appears to have struck a deal with the abject; submerged in it, corrupted by it, impure, but nevertheless sufficiently single-minded to find an identity separate from it. Complicit, but differentiated: all subjects stand in this way to the abject. In Los Desastres, especially given that I do not deal with the Caprichos Enfdticos section of the series, my interpretation is determined less by satire than by the question of how an antagonistic nation uses war as a mechanism of conclusive abjection to extend military, political and, ultimately. Symbolic influence - by means of sanctioned murder, execution, even rape - over another nation, w ith the aim of making that nation succumb to the abjection of surrender and the imposition of a foreign Symbolic. War also produces heaps of corpses and, in the occupied cities, ill and starving destitutes: those reduced to conditions of permanent or near-permanent abjection by war's ballistic exacerbation of the operation to abject. Contact with abjection through art strengthens, weakens and expands the self. It carries the threat of immersion in the repressed and the promise of risque pleasure - both from the diminution of unpleasure through the making or viewing of art, and the more positive pleasure of jouissance. Contact with abjection allows, further, for the complicated experience of being liminal, grotesque and abject oneself while caught between the poles of the Symbolic and tire abject. Whether we, as makers an d /o r viewers, criticise or joy in it, abjection holds out the alluring prospect of catharsis and temporary relief both from its own hazards and the rigours and inhibitions of social life. Goya, it would appear, found this intervenient condition compelling enough to return to it - if he ever truly left it - over a period of almost three decades through the medium of the three graphic series I explore in this dissertation.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Historia

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2013-02-28Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:27:48Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 oliveira_srm_me_ia.pdf: 3367855 bytes, checksum: d8b28ad336f25c88adc37255b01c951a (MD5) / A presente dissertação aborda o conceito de Grotesco na Estética e na História da Arte, analisados sob dois aspectos principais: da forma como esse conceito foi transformado desde a época da Grécia Antiga até o século XIX (período de grandes mudanças formais da representação humana nas Artes) e do exemplo do artista Francisco de Goya, através de sua série de gravuras Los Desastres de la Guerra, composta por imagens violentas; grotescas, híbridas e trágicas, que refletem esteticamente o horror advindo da Guerra de Independência e do retorno de um Estado Monárquico e Absoluto. Nossa pesquisa tem por meta avaliar as mudanças políticas, sociais e culturais que influenciaram a transformação desses conceitos estéticos e a aceitação desses novos paradigmas que resultaram numa mudança de visão e fruição da própria Arte entre os séculos XVII e XIX (época de ascensão do Liberalismo e Iluminismo), mostrando como os acontecimentos históricos podem transformar os conceitos artísticos de acordo com as necessidades humanas de retratar seu próprio tempo. Os procedimentos metodológicos foram de revisão bibliográfica parcial sobre as questões do Grotesco na Arte e uma pesquisa sobre a vida e obra de Goya, utilizando as imagens acima citadas, que aqui são analisadas do ponto de vista iconológico / The current dissertation accosts the concept of “Grotesque” in Aesthetics and history of Arts analysed under two main aspects: the way this concept was transformed since the times of Ancient Greece until the nineteenth century ( a period of great formal changes of the human representation and other pictorial genres, and the example of the artist Francisco de Goya through his series of etchings The Disasters of War, composed by violent, hybrid and tragic images, which reflect aestheticly the horrors resulted from the War of Independence and the return of a Monarchic and Absolutist State. Our research objectives have the aim of appraising political, social and cultural factors that influenced the processing and acceptance of new paradigms such as the Grotesque in art making, that resulted in a change of vision and enjoyment of the Art itself between the seventeenth the nineteenth centuries (time of the rise of Liberalism and Iluminism), showing how this concept was transformed by artistic, cultural and historical events according to the Human needs of portraying their own time. The methodological procedures were of a partial bibliographical review about the issues of the Grotesque in art and a research of the life and work of Goya, using the prints cited before, which are here analysed from an iconological point of view