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January 30, 2009
So is it a masterpiece by Goya, a masterpiece by another hand, or have you changed your opinion of the painting entirely?
I think that's the question I would like to use to survey the specialists about The Colossus, which may or may not be a Goya.
You see, I specialize in a period without names - and medievalists see the problems created by the idolization of genius artists very clearly. Plenty of folks who specialize in fields with better attributions to individuals, from Chinese scroll paintings to the present, see the problem, but let's face it - lots of people don't see or won't admit a problem.
The questions: If the label changes to The Colossus, Asensio Juliá, will as many editors include the work in textbooks? Will the Prado keep it out all the time? Does your opinion of Goya change, or your opinion of the painting?
Here's an example of the Genius Artist approach in the Times Online:
Nigel Glendinning, a British art historian, doubted that anyone but Goya could have painted the work. He told the Spanish newspaper ABC: "I never said it would be impossible that [someone else] might have intervened in the work of Goya, but the painting is too audacious to be by Asensio Juliá, because of the centrifugal strength of the composition and its iconic power. I hope to be able to see the study and the proofs."
Well, maybe he's been overestimating Goya or underestimating Juliá all these years - given that his own apprehension of iconic power depends on his belief that this painting is by Goya, even though he's dressing it up with some formalist language (composition). One of the great founders of formalist analysis of art, Heinrich Wölflin, called for an art history without names and never got it. Will Glendinning's opinion of Goya change, or his opinion of the painting change? What he's saying is that it's a masterpiece and therefore it must have been created by a certified genius. Goya. We'll see. But the medievalists are in the corner, nudging each other and laughing quietly.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at January 30, 2009 7:48 AM
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http://sites.google.com/site/franciscodegoyaelcoloso
Posted by: nao at August 22, 2009 10:40 AM