Francisco de Goya and the Art of Critique

An unprecedented study of Goya's comprehensive elaboration of the critical function of the work of art

Francisco de Goya and the Art of Critique explores the relationship between the enormous, extraordinary, and sometimes baffling body of Goya's work on the one hand, and the interconnected issues of modernity, Enlightenment, and critique on the other. Taking exception to the standard view that relies mainly on Goya's darkest images to establish his relevance for modernity, Anthony Cascardi argues that his work invites us to consider the critical role of art with respect to the modern social and historical worlds, of which it is nonetheless a part. The book reckons with the gulf that seems to divide the Disasters of War and the so-called "Black Paintings" from Goya's scenes of bourgeois life or from the well-mannered portraits of aristocrats, military men, and intellectuals, and it shows how these apparent contradictions offer us a gateway into a vision of the critical function of art within a European modernity associated with the dominant Enlightenment values of France, England, and Germany. The book yields a vision of aesthetics as critique, one that both identifies itself with and distances itself from what is understood all too broadly and uniformly as "the Enlightenment." In demonstrating Goya's commitment to a project of critique undertaken in the field of visual art, Cascardi provides an alternative to standard readings of Goya's work, which generally acknowledge the explicit social criticism evident in certain parts of it (for example, the Caprichos), but which have little to say about those parts of his work that do not overtly engage social or political themes. In Francisco de Goya and the Art of Critique, Cascardi shows how Goya, throughout his career, fashioned a critical response to the many contextual factors that are often invoked to explain his work—history, politics, popular culture, religion, and the history of art itself.