Tag Archive: Goya


SUSAN SONTAG ON THE ETHICS OF PHOTOGRAPHY

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August 22, 2014

REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS by Susan Sontag

"Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else; they haunt us"

This book was first published in 2003 but couldn’t be more topical. Images of James Foley’s beheading at the hands of ISIS terrorists that briefly circulated via You Tube and Twitter this week are just the latest in a never-ending sequence of atrocities that raise ethical, and politically charged, questions about what the media should show in print, online or on TV.

It is human nature to be torn between fascination and repulsion when confronted by such images. The late Susan Sontag understood that deciding whether or not to view such graphic representations of man’s inhumanity to man makes us either spectators or cowards. Being neutral is not an option.

Regarding The Pain Of Others is both a companion piece and an updating to Sontag’s 1977 collection of essays On Photography. In it, she explores how still photographs come to influence and, in some cases, define the way we regard war and conflict.

Her starting point is the Three Guineas essay published in 1938 in which Virginia Woolf wrote of the horror and disgust she felt at seeing photographs of victims of the Spanish civil war. These  forced Woolf to conclude “War is an abomination, a barbarity, war must be stopped”. This outrage is perfectly understandable, even praiseworthy, but also naive.  Sontag asks pointedly: “Who believes today that war can be abolished?” Continue reading →

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FOUCAULT ON REASON AND MADNESS

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March 10, 2013

MADNESS & CIVILIZATION by Michel Foucault

(Translated from the French by Richard Howard) First published 1964

Subtitled ‘A history of insanity in the age of reason’, this densely argued and fascinating book shows how madness as a spectacle and disability has fascinated and haunted the history of mankind since the 15th century.

In this meticulously researched, controversial study Foucault observes how “fear of madness grew at the same time as fear of unreason”. This was represented in Goya’s famous etching ‘The Sleep of reason produces monsters‘. Hieronymus Bosch was another artist who depicted madness to symbolise the fall of man.

This book begins at the end of the Middle Ages after a cure for leprosy had been found. Foucault shows how the role of the leper in society was replaced by the poor, the criminals and the insane.

Madness represents the direct opposite of strength, purpose and reason so is associated with weakness, dreams and illusions. Continue reading →

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GOYA’S CAPRICES

Filed under: Italy, Modern Art — 1 Comment
December 29, 2007
goya gallery

At the end of the 18th century, Francisco Goya , aged 51, shortly after serious illness had left him deaf, began work on a series of 80 etchings known as “Los Caprichos” (the caprices) that were to influence artists and writers into the 20th century, particularly the Surrealists.

All 80 of these works are celebrated at a small but perfectly formed free exhibition at Palazzo Pigorini in Parma called ‘Goya – Due Secoli di Capricci‘ . On two floors of this elegantly restored gallery you get the chance to marvel at Goya’s works which are accompanied by displays of illustrated books and a selection of works by the many artists he influenced – including George Grosz, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali with works spanning the period from 1800 to 1950.

What struck me was how contemporary the themes of these satirical prints seem. Western society may have progressed to the point that we can enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle and technologically sophisticated existence but the hypocrisies and cruelties underlying human nature which Goya and his followers expose are all too recognisable.

Goya’s works are vicious and uncompromising attacks on the Spanish aristocracy,the clergy and human vanity in general. The images of monsters, ghouls and other supernatural figures are full of horrific detail and accompanied by acerbic captions.

sleep of reason

The message of the most famous print (The Sleep of Reason produces monsters’) certainly is all too topical in our age of heightened religious intolerance and rigid adherence to irrational dogma:
“La fantasia abandonada de la razon, produce monstruos imposibles: unida con ella, es madre de las artes y origen de sus marabillas.” (”Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels).”

Another image shows a teacher depicted as a donkey (ass) alongside the caption “When the teacher is an ass the student learns only how to bray“.

350px-c2a1lo_que_puede_un_sastreMore radical still is the open distaste towards organized religion with print 52 (see left)- ‘Lo que puede un Sastre!’ with the lines “It is superstition that makes people bow and pay trembling homage towards a plank of wood dressed up as a saint” .

The exhibition offers an insight into one of the primary inspirations for Surrealist artists and a sobering reminder that blinkered attitudes towards belief have changed little over the last two centuries.

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