Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, Goya, His Life and Work, With a Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings, Drawings and Engravings, ed. Francois Lachenal, trans. from the Office du Livre (Fribourg) French edition of 1970 (Thames & Hudson, London, 1971). A magnificent and monumental work of impeccable scholarship which, for the first time, establishes and documents Goya’s entire production. The editors’ text is a cogent and perceptive monograph in its own right. This splendid volume supersedes most biographies of Goya, though F. J. Sanchez Canton, Vida y obras de Goya (Madrid, 1951), revised in The Life and Works of Goya (Madrid, 1964), is still useful and Jose Gudiol, Goya, biography and catalogue raisonne in 4 volumes (Barcelona, 1970) makes a literally massive contribution.
Enrique Lafuente Ferrari, Goya: His Complete Etchings, Aquatints and Lithographs (New York, 1962) has good reproductions of the same size as the originals, and an interpretive essay.
Tomas Harris, Goya: Engravings and Lithographs, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1964) is a massive and scholarly collector’s catalogue. The illustrations, including details, are magnificent and the editor’s comments are penetrating, though not always those of a historian.
Jose Gudiol, Goya (New York, 1964) is a very fine and large-scale book, which should be read with his other work.
Gassier and Wilson provide a comprehensive bibliography. Important among specialized studies are F. J. Sanchez Canton, Goya and the Black Paintings (London), 1964) and ‘Como vivia Goya’, Archivo Espahol de Arte, xix (1946); Valentin de Sambricio, Tapices de Goya (Madrid, 1946); E. Lafuente Ferrari,
El Dos de Mayo y los Fusilamientos (Barcelona, 1946) and Los desastres de la guerra de Goya y sus dibujos preparatories (Barcelona, 1952); Xavier de Salas, ‘Precisiones sobre pinturas de Goya, El entierro de la sardina, la serie de obras de gabinete de 1793-4, y otras notas’, Archivo Espahol de Arte, xli (1968).
Of the many popular presentations of Goya, Enriqueta Harris, Goya (Phaidon, London, 1969) offers remarkable value for money.
Interpretations of Goya are legion. Pride of place goes to the studies of Edith Helman, Trasmundo de Goya (Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1963) and her collected essays Jovellanos y Goya (Taurus, Madrid, 1970), a scholarly and often brilliant, always cogent exploration of Goya and the ilustrados.
F. D. Klingender, Goya in the Democratic Tradition (London, reprint 1968) was in 1948 a vigorous, pioneering essay in the Marxist mode. Its handling of the problem is too simplist, but it remains a powerful, rich and generous book by a remarkable and attractive man.
D. B. Wyndham Lewis, The World of Goya (London, 1968) is notable chiefly
for its lush wealth of fine illustration. The text is baroque, but full of interest and some entertainment.
Hugh Thomas, Goya: The Third of May 1808, Art in Context series (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London, 1972), places the painting in the historical situation.
Andre Malraux, Saturn: An Essay on Goya (London, 1957) is a breathtaking work which tends to induce a truly Gaullist stupefaction, but is quite revealing, at least on Malraux.
The history of Spain in this period is not very well served yet. The best entry is Raymond Carr, Spain 1808-1939 (O.U.P., 1965) a magnificent achievement. Jaime Vicens Vives should be read, in his monumental An Economic History of Spain (Princeton, 1969) and in his challenging short survey Approaches to the History of Spain, trans. J. C. Ullman (Berkeley, 1970). Richard Herr, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton, 1958) is a good craftsmanlike job, which may be supplemented by Nigel Glendinning’s admirable The Eighteenth Century, a literary history of Spain (London, Benn, 1972). Wider in scope is J. Sarrailh, L’Espagne eclairee de la seconde moitie du xviiie siecle (Paris, 1954). M. Menendez Pelayo, Historia de los heterodoxes espaholes (Santander, 1947-8) has become a classic to many; a recent treatment is Gonzalo Anes, Economia e ilustracion en la Espaha del siglo xviii (Barcelona,
2nd edn, 1972). M. Defourneaux, Pablo de Olavide ou TAfrancesado (Paris,
1959) is informative. Carlos E. Corona Baratech, Revolucion y reaccion en el reinado de Carlos IV (Madrid, 1957) leads into the complexities of a baffling reign, while Miguel Artola, Los origenes de la Espaha contemporanea (Madrid, 1959) and La Espaha de Fernando VII (Madrid, 1968) explore its even more baffling successor. The field opened up by such seminal studies as those of Pierre Vilar in his monumental La Catalogue dans VEspagne moderne (Paris,
1962) and in his specialized studies since, of E. J. Hamilton in his War and Prices in Spain 1651-1800 (Cambridge, Mass., 1947), is now being explored by Spanish historians. See, for example, Gonzalo Anes, op. cit., and Las crisis agrarias en la Espaha moderna (Barcelona, 1972), Josep Fontana, Cambio econdmico y actitudes politicos en la Espaha del siglo xix (Barcelona, 1973) and La quiebra de la monarquia absoluta (Barcelona, 1974), Jordi Nadal, La poblacion espahola (Barcelona, 3rd edn, 1973) and his essay on Spain in Fontana Economic History of Europe , ed. C. M. Cipolla, vol. ii (1973).
A comprehensive and effective critical history of Spain in crisis across the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has still to be written. An unexpected pleasure are the articles Karl Marx wrote for the New York Tribune in 1854, collected in Revolution in Spain (New York, International Publishers, 1939). They are some of the most stimulating pieces he ever wrote.
Too late to serve as reference for this text, but now the essential point of departure for any study of Goya, is Pierre Gassier’s magnificent edition of the drawings which, together with his and Juliet Wilson’s great catalogue, puts us finally in possession of the most challenging European artist:
k *•
Pierre Gassier, The Drawings of Goya, The Complete Albums, trans. from the Office du Livre (Fribourg) French edition of 1973 (Thames & Hudson, 1973).