BellaOnline Forums Education Art Appreciation Goya Painting - Don Manuel Osorio de Zuniga

Goya's most famous painting (according to art.com) is a nude so I didn't want to post that here for us to talk about However his second most famous painting is family-friendly -



http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--13026964/SP--A/IGID--2267514/Don_Manuel_Osorio_de_Zuniga.htm

The boy seems to be taunting the cats with the bird! That's not very nice. Are we about to have little bird parts all over?

How about the other poor birds in the cage, down at cat-level?

Goya has always been one of my favorite artists for his breadth of style throughout his career. I saw his works in the Prado when I was 19, and I will never forget them.

During the period when he painted the Don Manuel Osorio work, birds were viewed as a symbol of innocence. How appropriate, then, that you chose not to post his most famous Maya. (allowing the children their innocence?)

The theft, in November 2006, of Goya's "Children with a Cart" is considered one of the FBI's top ten art crimes.

Wait - but they recovered it right?

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Yes, yes, yes, they recovered it. The list is impressive though, isn't it?! I wonder if a magnificent Cezanne is floating around on the yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean or the South China Sea.

...or maybe in some schmuck's dank and dirty basement.

Shudder!

You picked a nice Goya piece. There is a LOT that is very difficult to look at.

I always feel badly if art is stolen because the art usually has lasted hundreds of years with great care - and now it's somewhere that it can decay and be lost forever. At least I console myself with the thought that in modern times we have all the pictures and images of the "lost works" so at least we have that record of them to enjoy. Imagine the pieces that were lost before say the 1800s, so that we really don't know at all what they were like.

Jill - I was going with the "top selling" ones, which began with a nude, and then this one was second. So these are his most popular works, the ones most people see and know. I imagine if we went down into unpopular paintings by any artist that we'd reach things we didn't want to look at, for whatever reason.

But sure if we want to talk about less popular paintings by artists too, that's fine!! Which painting should we start a new thread on?

So back to this one, the innocent bird is on a leash. But isn't it a raven / magpie which are symbols of wisdom and avarice? Why would he use that bird, rather than a less "meaningful" bird? Or is it a wise innocent?

Lisa, I am not talking about unpopular pieces. I am talking about the stuff that is HUGE and well known and makes it into the Art History classes.

YOu can't just do art via Wickipedia.

Ah but it's not wikipedia! It's art.com meaning it is the actual 100% honest list of popularity by buyers who would hang the art in their homes. So this is actual real world popularity.

Now you could argue that this is popularity of "the masses" vs of critics - but that's the same discussion about whether a blockbuster movie is any good just because 20 million people liked it. Is their point of view less valid than another person's point of view?

So that all being said, what would an "educated art student" feel his best painting is then, even though they apparently wouldn't hang it in their home? We can certainly talk about that!

I am just going to go to bed.

His famous stuff is about totally different.

I am very happy to talk about any painting you want!

I posted a link to the painting that the articles I read said was his most "important in history", is that better?

Yes, that one is HUGELY regarded. It's a wonderful piece. Sad, upsetting, but wrenchingly, sensitively rendered.

I guess i should talk about that one over in that thread. LOL. later. Thanks for adding it.

Goya's Saturn Devouring His Children is also rather seminal, and completely disturbing. [Shudder]

Jilly, although it is disturbing, "Saturn Devourning his Children" is an extremely moving piece. Of all the pieces I viewed in the Prado in Madrid (at 19), I remember that one most vividly. Goya had a long career that spanned a lifetime of changing media and styles - a reflection of his lifetime as an artist. He painted portraits of the royal family, designed tapestries, did a series on the horrors of the Napoleonic War and the black period, etc. True artists infuse their artwork with their own soul, and this may be why "Saturn" is so gut-wrenching. At the time he painted "Saturn", Goya had suffered a serious illness that rendered him deaf, and left him with nightmares and a feeling of isolation. There are many interpretations of his intentions with doing such a work, and only he truly knows whether the horror he portrayed was intentional or the act of a "crazy man."

Like it or not, truly great art evokes emotion, whether in the visual medium, the auditory, or the kinesthetic realm. That is the opinion held by many, but your opinion about art may be totally different.

I do agree with you that you cannot "hold" art on a website, unless, of course, it is designed in the web medium for that purpose. Great art needs to be appreciated in the real, physical sense for the layers of paint, the textures, the topographic surfaces, how it changes under different light, or what you see from different angles. The web cannot portray that, any more than a film can give us back a person who has passed away.

Carolyn, that is so true about needing to see art in larger formats. Even a nice huge slide in an art history class cannot compare to the real thing. For example, Caravaggio's works in Rome brought me to a transcendent state. Luminous. Even sensual. Bernini must be seen in 3-D to be fully appreciated. The Sistine Chapel frescoes are astounding in person, even though it really, really hurts your neck to view the ceiling ones!

I am not dissing the Saturn work at all. It's truly moving and you can sense the horrid desperation. But I would not want that work hanging in my house. It would destroy my personal peace.

And right, i am not saying he doesn't have more peaceful stuff either, just making a point about Goya's seminal works.

Different artists expressed their pain in their own ways. Whereas Van Gogh was also a very disturbed individual, he has a body of work I personally am very sympathetic to. I LIKE viewing his seminal stuff. Some of his pieces are sad but I would hang them in my home.

Yep, everyone's art mileage will vary, too. And also change over our own life events, depending on what speaks to us at the time.

I can just imagine how you felt in Rome! Caravaggio was such a master in the use of chiaroscuro...and can you imagine the love-hate emotions Michelangelo must have had with his work in the Sistine Chapel? "Aaah! I just got paint in my eyes!" and "I've got to stop laying down on the job. My back is killin' me!"

How do you feel about works by Pollack and Miro, Chagall or Jasper Johns? I love MOMA in NYC...yet I know many people who do not consider that "art", and only give validity to the old classics, like those you experienced in Italy.

OK if you guys haven't posted it already, I'll start a new thread on Saturn Devouring his Children

Sorry that was me Lisa posting that.