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Arts & Communication Spanish art and its enemies

Chapman: Like a Dog Returns to its Vomit was displayed The influence of Goya as a painter of horror has created
in the White Cube Gallery, from October to November a separate trajectory from the quite different work the artist
2005. The Chapman Brothers had become obsessed with also practiced. This has given material to films and crime
Spanish art and Goya’s prints. In several exhibitions, they novels. Two specific examples come to mind. Forensic
drew, painted, sculpted, or printed copies, derivations, and scientist-turned-thriller writer, Kathy Reichs, brought out
additions to specific works, emphasizing the grotesque and her novel Fatal Voyage in 2001. An airline crash in the
horrific elements. Sword swallowers, magicians, knights, woods, strange, isolated buildings revealing a basement
pantomimes, and a host of grotesque objects and figures full of murdered victims, and traces of black rituals portray
drawn from mime shows, circuses, carnivals, and religious an interior with paintings hung on the walls that are more
rituals create a teeming esthetic world ranging from Don than mere decoration. Several Chambers of Horrors crop
Quixote to Goya prints, displays of corpses and crucifixions, up in modern references:
all added to or overlaid on numerous etchings, watercolors, George moved his light to the next wall, and another
and pieces of sculpture. monster stared down. Lion’s mane, bulging eyes, mouth
In what seems like a deliberate parody of Hamerton, wide to devour a headless infant gripped between its hands.
the critical responses of the Chapman brothers, in an “That’s a bad copy of one of Goya’s Black Paintings,”
interview with Nick Hackworth, responded to the question Crowe said. “I’ve seen it in the Prado in Madrid.” 34(p.284)
of why they wanted to “improve” Goya’s Caprichos in
The Black Paintings were removed from the Museo
some of their work. They asserted that the prints are del Prado long after Goya’s death before being shown in
“nasty,” “unpleasant,” but “they needed our help.” 31(p.15) The Paris in 1878. They might well have remained unnoticed
Caprichos and Disasters of War, Goya’s most famous sets were it not for the articles by Hamerton. Now, they have
of prints, so violently condemned by Hamerton, dominate become globally famous and, rightly or wrongly, are used
their artistic agenda.
as summations of Goya’s entire career and as pointers to
As a forerunner of a new vision, Goya has found his the realism of Spanish art in general. The art-historical
place in the contemporary cultural world, where he insertion within a work of modern crime fiction suggests
is regarded as showing himself to be part of the art of that Spanish painting can be used to reflect the tastes
transgression. A wealth of new works, exhibitions, and of murderers, thieves, and torturers in their interior
articles have reaffirmed the artist’s influence in Britain decoration. The method of filling the rooms of perpetrators
and America, and what has been defined as “the rich of atrocities with Goya’s works goes back to Ira Levin’s
tradition of art-historical commentary” has spurred on 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby. In one of the last scenes, when
what must be seen as new art movements as well as schools the heroine finally breaks into the witches’ apartment to
of criticism. 32(p.480) Goya is now placed at the vanguard of search for her newborn son, she finds paintings on the
what the Surrealist French philosopher and art historian, wall depicting witchcraft scenes that Goya had painted for
George Bataille (1897 – 1962), called “the cruel practice of one of his most faithful patrons, the Duchess of Osuna,
art.” 33(pp.3-8) which he delivered to her in 1798. In the same way, some
of the most violent films, such as The Good, the Bad and
How much did not just Goya, but certain aspects of the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1968) and The Godfather (Francis
Spanish art, in particular, represent this new image of Ford Coppola, 1972), include images of statues of saints
the art of the past becoming, in many ways, the art of a or martyrs, derived from the 17 -century Catholic
th
troubled future? iconography. In a similar yet unexpected development,
Referencing the exhibition held in London in 2009, there wood or wax figures of individuals transfixed in mortal
appears to be even greater evidence that the rebarbative agony have recently come to be identified with images
th
nature of some developments in the arts of Spain, reflecting from 19 -century medical research. 35
radical shifts in attitude toward the grotesque. Such critical
choices have overshadowed the wealth of different styles 7. Conclusion
and subjects the country has produced over a significant The history of the visual arts in Spain has posed a number of
period. The transformation of art criticism, used to analyze issues, all of them problematic, raising tension between the
Spanish art by Hamerton’s diatribe against the art of Goya, core role of Spain in the broader European sense and the
ironically appeared in a popular journal. The influence of exploitation of Spanish art in its politically limited critical
this kind of writing has continued into the 21 century, heritage. In Britain, this tension has been particularly acute,
st
where art journalism has become even more popular than fueled by the rise of monographs on individual artists
it was in the 20 century. rather than perceptive general surveys. The role of Spanish
th

Volume 3 Issue 2 (2025) 9 doi: 10.36922/ac.3604