- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Pantheon Books; 1 Amer ed edition (July 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0375406115
- ISBN-13: 978-0375406119
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 16 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,643,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Old Man Goya
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Julia Blackburn has already established herself as one of the finest writers of non-fiction, but with Old Man Goya she takes her ability to re-create the past to a new level in her haunting evocation of the final years of the great Spanish painter, Francisco de Goya. Partly inspired by the painful loss her own mother (who was also a painter), Blackburn's desire to write about Goya developed when she learnt that in 1792, at the age of 47, the painter went permanently deaf; "I wanted to know what sort of world this deaf man had inhabited and how he had managed to live with the isolation of deafness and how it had changed the way he used his remaining senses". The result is a remarkably perceptive voyage into Goya's mind, which hovers between history and fiction, as Blackburn moves between the death of her own mother, visits to Goya's old haunts in Spain and France, and the painter's own remarkable lust for life in the midst of domestic upheavals and the horrors of warfare in early 19th-century Spain.
Old Man Goya moves from Goya's early days as a rich court painter, creating "dozens of designs of light-hearted subjects", to the trauma of deafness, the devastation of the bloody Peninsula War that swept Iberia between 1807 and 1812, the death of his first wife and old age with a mistress half his age. Interspersed amongst the text are 23 beautiful Goya copperplates through which Blackburn "can see Goya, a silent witness who makes no comment, but gives a shape to everything he sees", whose relish for the absurd, the cruel and the carnivalesque remained with him throughout his long life. Blackburn's elegant prose and unerring eye for domestic and artistic detail creates a wonderfully compassionate portrait of Goya, and she happily concedes to being "caught up in the spinning energy of the man as he hurtled relentlessly through the years", a journey that her readers will find well worth pursuing. --Jerry Brotton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Irish Times
'Sensitive and intelligent…Julia Blackburn has steeped herself in her subject and in the period’
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed this book for the insight it gave me into Goya’s work. His work marks a break in tradition when artists began to feel free to put their private visions on paper as opposed to simply illustrating known subjects. Goya worked for the establishment and at the same time accused and ridiculed it. I was impressed by his courage, cunning or possibly pure good luck in managing to do the two things simultaneously. I was struck by his need to continue working against all the odds – a trait of character which seems to distinguish genius.
Written by a biographer/novelist rather than an art historian, the book describes not simply Goya the artisan; Julia Blackburn also uncovers Goya’s personality, intimately and sensitively. Setting his life and work within its historical context she gives us a vivid and horrifying account of the Peninsular War and its aftermath.
She uses photographs of Goya’s etching plates for the illustrations which produces a reverse negative-positive effect. This gives the illustrations an eerie, unreal quality which seemed fitting for images which often portray bizarre apparitions and a truly nightmarish reality. I would however have appreciated a translation of the list of illustrations and specific references to them within the text, where relevant.
I liked the way Julia Blackburn fuses the experience of her mother’s illness and death with her telling of Goya’s story. This personal touch allows the reader to identify with the author and draws the reader more deeply into the weave of the story. Blackburn’s style of writing is natural and unpretentious making her gift for description, her imaginative power and the scope of her knowledge all the more enjoyable.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Having enjoyed Julia Blackburn's recent 'Thin Paths', I turned back 10 years to her excellent book on the Spanish painter Goya. This not-quite-straight biography concentrates on the latter part of the painter's long career when he had lost his hearing. The 'facts' of Goya's life are sketchy in many places, so the author has filled in the gaps using her creative imagination. She makes clear where she is doing this and the whole project works extremely well. What we get is an intimate and moving picture of the political and domestic context in which Goya plied his art, including three-dimensional portraits of his family and a useful reminder that, even after wars have ended according to history books, revenge killings, famine and repression often continue for many years.
Format:Hardcover
I started off enjoying this book very much. The style of writing is sometimes lyrical and quite poetic and the author communicates great enthusiasm for her subject. Unfortunately the book is really much more about her than about Goya. Her research does not appear to have been very extensive and there are one or two anachronisms and historical improbabilities that appear to stem from a belief that she is 'in tune' with Goya and intuitively knows about him without checking for evidence!
It is OK as a travel book or historical novel but not as serious biography.
It is OK as a travel book or historical novel but not as serious biography.
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