Goya: Awakened in a Dream-DVD
From Devine Entertainment
The story opens with young Rosarita (JACLYN BLUMAS) helping to find a new home where her mother, Leocadia (SHANNON LAWSON), can work as a housekeeper. A run-in with Francisco de Goya (CEDRIC SMITH) at the local church turns out to be a blessing. Enchanted by Rosarita’s artistic talent, Goya agrees to hire Leocadia. A visit to the royal palace to gather Goya’s belongings turns disastrous when he is questioned about his art by the king’s Inquisitor Garcini (JAN FILIPS).
Goya’s haughty son, Javier (ROBERT BOCKSTAEL) manages to cover for his father. Finally, Goya and his new companions set out for his humble new home in the country. When Goya turns gravely ill, it is Rosarita who has the most faith. Just when it seems that the great artist no longer has the strength to continue, she convinces him to keep fighting. Recovered and with newfound inspiration, Goya begins an ambitious work directly on the walls of his dining room, The Black Paintings.
The Life and Times of Goya
Francisco de Goya (1746 – 1828)
Francisco de Goya was the greatest painter of 18th century Spain. Born and raised in a poor, isolated village in Aragon, he avoided priesthood when his older brother followed the calling. Goya went to work for a local artist and at the age of 17 left for Madrid, the centre of Spanish culture and society. He soon began to work in the studio of Francisco Bayeu. Bayeu was wealthy and famous and it was a small triumph for Goya to become his apprentice. After failing to receive any recognition from a competition sponsored by the Academy of San Fernando, Goya went to Italy. After a year, he still did not feel at home in the milieu and was unsure of his decision to pursue art, so he returned home to Saragossa.
Upon his return he was offered a contract to paint the cathedral, and with the success of this work, other offers followed. By the end of his 20s, he was well known and successful by Aragon standards. Confident now in his artistic abilities, he set out for Madrid to seek out the challenges and the clientele he wanted to pursue. On a visit in 1773, he asked for the hand of Josefa Bayeu, the sister of his former master Francisco Bayeu who now held the post of Painter to the Court of Spain. Rumours implied that Goya married his wife simply to further his career. Josefa gave birth to 12 children, and sadly, only one survived.
Goya was slow to make his name, becoming a royal painter at the age of 43. He immediately added the “de” infront of his name to suggest aristocratic kinship. From then on, his future was assured, and he quickly rose to even higher eminence. He was an eclectic artist, using a wide range of media and styles. He was a painter, a cartoonist, a satirist, and portraitist. His Caprices were the first social, political, moral, and religious satires ever committed to paper, curiously at the same time as Goya was also creating the most conventional of portraits, including religious works for churches.
What Goya enjoyed the most was the study of people, showing them in their best and worst moments. He had a need to make sense of life as it unfolded and thus he always had a crayon and notebook within reach. Goya seemed to have an endless capacity for joy. Even during the bleakest periods of his life, he continued to capture the colour of life and never lost his sense of humour. In his productive stretches, he worked with incredible speed, capturing ideas and visions. Without Leocadia his housekeeper, he might have even forgotten to eat.
Goya became somewhat of a rebel in his old age as our film shows. Though the Catholic Church in the late 18th and early 19th century worked hard to ensure that liberalizing forces from the outside world (France, England and the United States) were stopped at Spain’s borders. Spain was a century behind the times politically and socially, slowly creeping toward Enlightenment. Spain’s people still lived as they had 200 years earlier, abased and neglected by the wealthy and always living in terror of the Inquisition.
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