Black Paintings

Learned about from Jacob Geller, “Art for No One,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oqO3FXSecM.

“The Black Paintings (Spanish: Pinturas negras) is the name given to a group of 14 paintings by Francisco Goya from the later years of his life, likely between 1819 and 1823. They portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and his bleak outlook on humanity. In 1819, at the age of 72, Goya moved into a two-story house outside Madrid that was called Quinta del Sordo (Deaf Man’s Villa). Although the house had been named after the previous owner, who was deaf, Goya too was nearly deaf at the time as a result of an unknown illness he had suffered when he was 46. The paintings originally were painted as murals on the walls of the house, later being ‘hacked off’ the walls and attached to canvas by owner Baron Frédéric Émile d’Erlanger. They are now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.”

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“It is likely that the artist never intended the works for public exhibition: ‘these paintings are as close to being hermetically private as any that have ever been produced in the history of Western art.’”

From Atropos article:

“The arbitrary, irrational aspects of Goya’s Black Paintings have given them a place as precursors to modern art.”