Francisco de Goya's most dramatic and famous picture - At least it was until January this year - when an expert at the Prado Museum declared it was not painted by him. They now believe it was painted by one of his assistants, whose initials may appear in a corner of the canvass. The final decision to remove Goya's plaque attributing the painting to him would be changed , followed by a lenghty study by the Prado expert Manuela Mena, which the museum published on the 26th of January.
Manuela Mena said X-rays of the picture had allowed her to spot the top half of the faded initials " AJ " scribbled in the bottom left-hand corner, which she said may point to it being the work of one of his assistants, Asencio Julia, who is known to have been Goya's main assistant in the later part of his life.
The news has reignited the controversy that first raged when the museum made it known last year that it had begun to doubt that the Colossus could have been painted by Goya. The Prado's expert also claimed the quality of The Colossus was far below that of Goya's other masterpieces. The brushstrokes were deemed: " slow and insecure " According to the report, it revealed an insecurity in the artist which did not match the bold, direct approach normally taken by Goya himself. The painting will continue to hang in its place but the plaque attributing it to Goya, would be changed.
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19 comments:
It looks like this assistant must be pretty good, if he can paint a picture that everyone takes for one of Goya's. I suppose they have checked the brushwork etc against the assistant's other work, and they are similar, but not similar to Goya's?
Its interesting you should say that since there are a few other experts who are arguing exactly that. It would require an actual comparison between the brush-strokes of the Colossus and the assistant's other work to determine it. Considering we are talking about one of Goya's more extraordinary works... which is now being described by this expert as " poor in quality and technique ". Its all rather puzzling but you are quite right, there also needs to be a good corroboration that the painting styles used in the Colossus matched those used by Julia before an attribution could be considered totally safe.
I remember seeing a painting that Leonardo was an assistant on. He was very young, but apparently he did the hands of one of the angels. They really were the best thing in the painting. Even I could see it.
Robert I think the painting you are referring to is ' The Baptism of Christ. ' when Leonardo was an apprentice at Verrocchio's workshop and he gave him responsibility for painting one of the angels. Leonardo's angel radiated his youthful genius. Vasari wrote that Verrocchio ' never touched colours again, he was so ashamed that the boy understood their use better than he did.'
It must be tough for someone when they're confronted by all that natural talent. Did Verrocchio get jealous?
Everything we know about the great talents of the Italian Renaissance are from the writings of Giorgio Vasari, who himself was a great artist. Vasari was a contemporary and it is through him that we now know what happened after Leonardo painted that angel where Vasari wrote that Andrea del Verrochio ' never touched colours again, he was so ashamed that the boy understood their use better than he did'. There Vasari tells us Verrochio felt ashamed, he does not say anything about him feeling jealous. After the painting of the angel, Leonardo had 'graduated' and became a master of the painters' Guild of St. Luke, which allowed him to set up as an independent painter. However, he remained based at Verrocchio's for a few more years. Leonardo had learned a good deal in the years that he spent at his master's studio, and not all of it from Verrocchio. Florence in the 15th century was one of the great cultural centres of the world and Leonardo would have come into contact with many of the scholars whose new ideas and learning were shaping the artistic and intellectual climate of Renaissance Italy.
I just now got out a book about Florentine sculpture and came upon a terracotta of fighting horsemen by Rustici, which I'd describe as remarkable.
Hola Maria and Robert,
Such a lot has gone on here while I have been gone.
Looks like Robert will have his 'masters degree' in art appreciation soon, and I am way behind.
Thanks Robert for the good wishes for the trip .. but no Italian ice cream to be found anywhere in Antarctica, I'm sure that you wouldn't have made the story up! I just didn't see all of that huge continent, it was probably only just around the next bend.
It was a very special place to visit, so majestic .. awesome really. Waking at 4am, opening the curtains onto the balcony and seeing a huge iceberg the size of a building right in front of you is quite something. We were told on the ship what a privilage it is to be visiting, they said less than 300,000 people have visited Antarctica so far out of the world population of about 6.5 billion, so very fortunate indeed. The Antarctic cruising part was mean't to be 4 days visiting Elephant Island, Graham Land and different channels and islands in that vicinity. We had to leave almost a day early as a massive storm was coming to Drake Passage and the Captain to wanted to avoid the worst of it. We had some very rough weather with waves onto our tenth floor balcony .. 30 foot waves. The dining room one night was a bit like 'Titanic' .. the jolt (it is at the rear) from side to side and a few trays of food and china went crashing. I was surprised that the service was not dicontinued, if we were flying in the air it most definately would have been. But then other passengers would relay stories that they had heard from other ships, where things had been much worse. We also were very lucky with the weather, sunshine wise some trips can see very little because of visibility. We were told all the time how the weather could change in a few minutes, I didn't believe until I saw it. At Elephant Island, admiring the most beautiful glacier, 4 miles long, 'Endurance Glacier' in full sunshine for almost an hour, then suddenly a huge sea fog descended and there was nothing. Saw lots of Minke whales and Humpbacks .. very hard to get a photogragh though, managed a humpback tail in the distance eventually. Penguins porpoising through the waters was a very common sight, and a few sitting on the icebergs. On the Falklands we saw one of the biggest penguin colonies, thousands of king penguins some with their chicks, swimming and walking on the white sandy beach. Also gentoo and magellenic penguins by the thousands. If you sat quietly on the beach or the grass,(making yourself small) king penguins would come so close to you .. It was one of the best tours that I have ever done, worth the two and a half hour, four wheel drive rough ride to get there.
On the ship there were three Captains, two senior Captains and a special ice Captain .. to navigate the waters. In the weekend papers here there was an article about the dangers of travel in Antarctica, saying that if one of the large ships that are now going there (we had 2,600 pax) ran aground there is not the facilities for such a rescue. Besides which these big ships are not built for ice conditions and the main channels used for the cruising are still only 45%charted.
Anyway home safe, and would happily go back again to experience it again, hope I haven't raved on for too long.
Maria your mother looks so very beautiful .. very Rita Hayworth style.
Wow, victoria, you've had the experience of a lifetime there. What a trip! Every word of your post was interesting.
It shows you how times have changed, because I was somehow expecting you to be away for several months. I'm still thinking in terms of Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen!
Thanks Robert,
I understand what you mean also in regard to the explorers. I have a very good friend who is interested in the old explorers, and told me to read up on Shackleton and the Endurance expedition during the trip, which I did. It added to the whole experience and gave a better understanding of it all. They were real men in those days, incredible what they went through.
On the ship also they have experts in these fields giving lectures on the wildlife, geographics of the area, the ice etc, and on Shackleton, which was great as that fitted in with what I was reading, and where we were going. We also picked up some Polish scientists from one of the Antarctic stations and they gave talks on the type of work that they do there, which was interesting. Especially when they talked along the lines of global warming and the ice melting etc as just part of Mother Natures cycle.
It made perfect sense to me.
Hi Victoria
It's pretty cosmopolitan down there, isn't it - scientists from lots of countries.
Did the scientists think the warming was due to natural causes? I know the Arctic ice is apparently shrinking and there are concerns for the polar bears.
There is some footage on youtube of the south pole itself. A few yards from it - walking distance - is a huge scientific base. I read that they have to move the site of the pole each year, to keep it in its proper position, because the continent is sliding sideways a few inches a year
Victoria what a wonderful account of your trip to Antarctica and your interesting exchange with Robert about your trip. It all sounds so full of adventure too. I have heard that if you fall on the freezing waters, hypothermia comes in a few minutes and then your heart stops, then you go blue, followed by death. Victoria, I suppose the reading of the explorers brought it home to you about all the vicissitudes the old explorers had to endure in their early travels, without the satellite navigation systems. It must not have been comforting to read in the newspaper that if the ship went aground, there wouldn't be the facilities necessary for rescuing everyone on board. That made it as dangerous as any trip in the past ! If memory serves me right, there was a small cruise liner which sank in Antarctica swallowed by a big wave but they did manage to rescue all the passangers, cold and wet and without their belongings but otherwise unharmed, although this was a much smaller vessel than the one you were travelling on. I suppose there most have been more than one drill to evacuate the ship than the usual one they give you on the first day of your arrival.
Hi Maria and Robert,
I don't think the scientists went into great detail on global warming, and also when the conversation gets too scientific, I tend to 'switch off' .. believing it's all beyond me.
But the basic comments were in respect to their study of the ice, I think they test the layers, a bit like dna testing. The ice is so ancient in age and holds a lot of information and the basic conclusion from this group of men was that the impact from human civilisation (which is only relatively recent in comparison to the great age of the ice).. was minimal. So in that respect Robert it would be yes to natural causes, they talked a little about natural cycles that recur.
Now the 'naturalist' expert on board seemed to be of the other viewpoint, often in his talks blaming mankind. I guess everyone sees it not from the 'great bigger picture' .. but from the perspective that they are looking from, which is not complete as it doesn't encompass the whole.
But saying that, the way they put it in terms of age relativity and the work of nature, I was sold!
Maria, no only the one usual emergency drill that you have. I don't usually feel unsafe on a large ship or aircraft, but certainly a smaller vessel with those waves I would be thinking my end has come. On the news here, while we were there, a small ship with about 200 passengers went aground .. 7 Australians aboard, everything was ok though.
I hope that pile of ice won't melt and fall off into the sea. That would sure raise the global water levels and produce flooding.
I hope also that the various countries with interests down there don't turn it into an oil-cow, or dig it up looking for other resources. Let's keep it the way it is.
Victoria & Robert,
Yes I find it all very interesting specially the secrets in ice that Antarctica holds in relation to the history of our planet. It makes sense to me as well Victoria, given that ice is the most pristine data keeping library which reveals what has been going on through the ages up until our modern times.
I tend to believe it is a cycle too like the seasons and it looks like the pole is moving and tilting to one side of the earth. Interestingly too, the Maya calendar ends on the year 2012, where according to legend it is the end of this era and another new age or era will begin...
Since I was a young girl I have always found this legend fascinanting and now here we are.. only 3 years away from 2012 !
Hi Maria and Victoria
I saw a programme where they found that a volcanic eruption and consequent tsunami, which badly damaged the Minoan civilisation, left traces in the ice on Greenland.
I don't know whether the current era will finish in 2012. I'm wondering if the era will be finished by then, and the Olympic village won't be.
Yes Robert that is very interesting and it happened just as you described it. There is also a small island in the mediterranean sea called Santorini which is situated around the crater of a volcano; the crater is filled with water as though it is a lake and there's where they now think lies the legendary Atlantis described by Plato and now submerged for ever under the sea. Maybe its part of this Minoan earthquake.
Recently, in Siberia, as the ice has been melting there, they have found a mamuth complete with its large ivory teeth and the grass he was chewing before the ice encased him for thousands of years; perfectly preserved to our present times.
He,he, The London Olympic stadium won't be ready before the era comes to an end Robert. At least we will be save us the embarrassment !
Yes Maria, I believe that was it - Santorini. It was a titanic explosion, loud enough to drown out Barbara Streisand's singing.
I see you've put up two lovely new pictures. It looks very nice where you live.
Thank you Robert, yes we are very lucky to have a very nice view to the fields from this house. In the front, the view is a stone church with two millenarian jew trees. Once, we had David Bellamy the botanist inspecting these trees plus some rare monkey trees too. they are called that way, because the branches look similar to a monkey's tale.
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