Goya

Francisco Goya (1746-1828) is the first truly modern artist, whose penetrating vision of humanity is as relevant today as it was revolutionary in his own time. His most innovative works were created after a near-fatal illness that left him stone-deaf at the age of 47. Alongside a prodigious output in paintings and prints, he expressed his most private thoughts and feelings in eight albums of drawings. Made over a period of 30 years, the albums were split up after his death; their pages are now scattered in public and private collections throughout the world. The album drawings reveal Goya's astonishing powers of invention and observation. They include amazing flights of fantasy, nightmare and biting satire, and show the artist's imagination at work on a vast range of subjects - the pageant of carnival and Holy Week, the upheavals of war, images of childhood and old age, witches and charlatans - in a reflection, both violent and tender, of the world around him. In this book, Juliet Wilson-Bareau brings together 117 of the finest album drawings. They are shown as full-page colour reproductions, and all save the largest album as actual-size facsimiles. The drawings are accompanied by extensive commentaries, together with an introductory essay and texts on each of the albums.