Misogyny, madness and old age – Glass reviews the Goya exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery opening today
In 1793, after a dangerous illness, the celebrated court painter, Francisco Goya, became profoundly deaf. He was 47 years old. He had known adversity in his apprentice days, and his toughness and resilience were called on once again. He began to draw small pictures in a small album to prove to himself and his admirers that his creative powers had not diminished. These pictures were never meant for publication. They were private expressions of his imaginative processes to be shared with friends or not at all. He kept up this practice until his death aged 82. There were eight albums in all, each one offering Goya a freedom to create from his interior landscape.
The Courtauld Institute has gathered together for the first time all of the known drawings from one of Goya’s private albums. The exhibition reconstructs the scattered pages of the album, known as Witches and Old Women, in their original sequence, replicating the feeling of intimacy for the viewer.
Goya had a strong attraction for the terrifying and grotesque. In These Witches Will Tell (c. 1808-14), a naked old witch devours snakes. The sketch is executed in brush and black carbon ink with layers of wash. Levels of light and shade establish the dynamics of the composition. The old woman sits in profile. Her mouth circles on a handful of wriggling serpents. Her bony limbs and arthritic hip are delicately delineated; her shorn hair is jagged and shocking. She is gaunt and ravenous; electrifyingly present on the page.
Underneath, Goya has scribbled in chalk the mocking jest as his title. She is just one of a succession of creatures who portray the obsessions of the Inquisition. These abject women appear as a rite of defilement and pollution in the paganism that accompanies the Catholic emphasis on holy maternity. Fear of women’s power. Goya cannot get away from these unholy, transgressive old ladies.
A sketch titled Madness (c.1819-23) gives the hint to another of Goya’s fixations. Once again it is the horror of abjection that gives this drawing immediacy. An old person wearing a fool’s cap and white robe leans towards the viewer, open mouth and arms outspread. The figure is so old and so mad that his/her gender is eradicated. This is the stuff of nightmares.
Goya uses the whiteness of the page with brilliant effect. The bars of the lunatic’s cage are so lightly washed they seem insubstantial, as though imagined. They also suggest the structure of a pulpit, which further suggests the figure is orating like a preacher.
Irony illuminates all these drawings. Just Can’t Go on at the Age of 98 (c.1819-23) is perhaps the most poignant expression of Goya’s potency here. Old age is the subject. A very old man inches forward bent double over two walking sticks. Again Goya uses the blankness of the page to highlight the vulnerability and isolation of this ancient figure. He struggles through the void, accompanied only by his shadow.
This is the last drawing from Goya’s private album. Their power is as palpable as his public masterpieces.
The Witches and Old Woman Album, Courtauld Gallery, February 26 – May 25, 2015
Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
Tel 020 7848 2526
Tickets: £8.50 – £4, free for Friends of The Courtauld