The Family of Carlos IV hangs in a place of honor in Madrid’s Prado Museum.
At first glance Goya’s painting doesn’t seem exceptional, just a bunch of
self-satisfied people dressed in finery while having their group portrait
painted. But if we look harder we can see what prompted Ernest Hemingway to
call this painting a masterpiece of loathing.
Francisco Goya (1746-1828) held the
position of First Painter to the King of Spain, and was his personal friend. In
fact, the two liked to wrestle when prying eyes weren’t around. But Goya’s
integrity as an artist compelled him to depict the king warts and all. Goya was
an ill-mannered skirt chaser, a relentless social climber, and stone deaf. The
artist also went through periods where a recurring illness rendered him insane.
He couldn’t have been easy to get along with.
Spain’s most complicated artist has always
captured the public’s imagination; we reject the notion of him as a rich
courtier currying favors from nobility; instead we think of him as one of us,
poking and prodding the establishment with his wit and genius. This was the guy
who painted the famous Clothed Maja
(lower class woman of mystery) along with the more famous naked version—the
first female nude ever painted to show pubic hair. The nude version was hidden
from the Inquisition behind a wall that spun around when a cord was
pulled.
Goya was known to seduce married women and
engage in swordfights and duels from time to time, and there were those bouts with
insanity that would eventually set him on the path to artistic exploration
heralding the birth of modern art.
In 1800 Goya was commissioned to paint the
family of King Carlos IV. This was the last time Goya would paint for the
royal family and it’s tempting to think the reason had to do with this
remarkable painting, but not so. No one depicted in the painting ever
registered a complaint. The truth—the royal family was too dimwitted to see
what Goya had done. He’d peeled back the layers on this rotten onion to expose
the stinking center; it’s as if Goya had decided to bury forever the concept of
the divine right of kings. Goya seems to be saying: if this greedy grasping
family has been elevated by God, then surely God doesn’t know what he’s doing.
An art critic once commented that this
didn’t resemble nobility at all, claiming this looked more like the corner
baker and his family dressed up after winning the lottery. An apt description,
even though the man in the brown suit happens to be King of Spain. Showing off his mastery of
brushwork, Goya whips up glorious silks and medals on the monarch’s chest, but
the King’s face, bloated from a lifetime of excess and privilege, is piggish
and stupid.
In this painting as in life, Carlos has
been pushed aside by a legendary shrew, his overbearing wife Queen Maria Luisa
of Parma, so unsightly she often made fun of her own ugliness. But she was proud of her plump arms, which Goya paints as if
about to explode like overripe fruit. The little boy in the red suit is Maria
Luisa’s youngest child, Infante Francisco. Francisco’s face is a dead ringer
for that of Manuel de Godoy, Spain’s Prime Minister and Queen Maria Luisa’s
not-so-secret lover.
On the left side of the composition a
young man in pale blue struggles to conceal the Draco Malfoy sneer of someone
who delighted in torturing small animals. He is Crown Prince Ferdinand who
would one day reign as Ferdinand VII, arguably the worst king ever to sit on
the throne of Spain. He insisted that Goya include his beautiful bride. Notice
how the bride’s head is turned so you can’t make out her features. Why? Because
there was no bride. The crown prince
wasn’t even engaged at the time. He’s portrayed for all eternity standing
beside a faceless woman.
Other interesting details can be found in this masterpiece,
including Goya himself, lurking in the shadows while
creating this very painting. The flashing blue diamond in the Queen’s headpiece is probably
the diamond that disappeared from Versailles during the French Revolution—now in the
Smithsonian and known as the Hope Diamond.
It’s said that when The Family of
Carlos IV was finished, a friend of the
artist saw the canvas and was so horrified at this depiction of the royal
family that he feared Goya would be thrown in prison. Fortunately for us, the
painting was never altered.
Goya had originally supported Napoleon,
but disillusionment with the French emperor prompted him to turn his back on
public life as he grew older. Instead, he channeled his tormented subconscious
and created some of the most powerful art ever conceived. To this day, many of
us still see Spain, the horrors of war, superstition and witchcraft through his
eyes.
At the end of Goya’s life his country was controlled by the tyrant Ferdinand VII, depicted by Goya as a foul-faced boy
years earlier. Goya had not supported Ferdinand’s rise to power, and was
surprised when the new king confronted him with, “The only reason we don’t hang
you is because we admire you so much.”
As it turned out, admiring Goya was the
only thing Ferdinand VII ever did right.
