Francisco de Goya

What a Golden Spike!

Clasificación
What a Golden Spike!
Datos Generales
Cronología
Ca. 1797 - 1799
Dimensiones
218 x 121 mm
Técnica y soporte
Aguafuerte, aguatinta bruñida y buril
Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
Undisputed work
Ficha: realización/revisión
22 Dec 2010 / 29 May 2024
Inventario
225
Inscripciones

Que pico de Oro! (at the bottom)

 53. (in the upper right-hand corner)

Historia

See Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Painter.

Only one state proof with etching and aquatint, before the additional burnishing and burin, has survived in the Prado Museum.

A preparatory drawing for this engraving has come down to us from the Prado Museum.

Análisis artístico

A parrot rests on a pulpit and delivers a sermon with one leg outstretched. The audience, made up of old monks, is rapt. All of them have their mouths open, except for a monk wearing a bonnet, who is standing next to the pulpit, under the animal. The latter looks on with a gesture of displeasure, seeming to pay no attention to the trickster's palaver.

Goya has made an appropriate use of technique to create intense contrasts of light and shade. He uses medium-toned aquatint on the thigh of the figure on the left and burin to accentuate the contours of the figures as well as the small details such as the knuckles or a fingernail of the second figure on the left.

The manuscripts offer a double explanation of this image; the one in the Prado Museum states the following: "This has traces of an academic board. Who knows if the parrot is talking about medicine, but one should not take him at his word. There is a doctor who is a golden beak when he speaks and a Herod when he prescribes: he speaks perfectly of ailments and does not cure them: he dupes the sick and fills the cemeteries with pumpkins". However, a different interpretation of this work is proposed in the National Library: "The friars are regularly plagiaristic preachers; but since they praise each other so much, the foolish audience is open-mouthed".

Edith Helman believes that the source of inspiration for this engraving could be History of the Famous Preacher Gerundio Campazas (1758) by José Francisco Isla de la Torre y Rojo (Vidanes, 1703-Bologna, 1781). In this work he censures ecclesiastical orators who were preaching to the public with rhetorical extravagances in bad taste.

Conservación

The plate is in poor condition, with the aquatint worn (National Chalcography, no. 224).

Exposiciones
  • De grafiek van Goya
    Rijksmuseum Rijksprentenkabinet
    Amsterdam
    1970
    from November 13th 1970 to January 17th 1971
  • El arte de Goya
    Museo de Arte Occidental de Tokio
    Tokyo
    1971
    from 16th 1971 to January 23th 1972. Exhibited also at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, January 29th to March 15th 1972.
  • Goya. La década de Los Caprichos
    Madrid
    1992
    organized by Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando sponsored by Fundación Central Hispano, Madrid, consultant editor Nigel Glendinnig. From October 26th 1992 to January 10th 1993
  • Goya
    Nationalmuseum
    Stockholm
    1994
    consultant editors Juan J. Luna and Görel Cavalli-Björkman. From October 7th 1994 to January 8th 1995
  • Francisco de Goya
    Museo d'Arte Moderna
    Lugano
    1996
    exhibition celebrated from September 22nd to November 17th.
  • Ydioma universal: Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    Biblioteca Nacional
    Madrid
    1996
    from September 19th to December 15th 1996
  • Francisco Goya. Sein leben im spiegel der graphik. Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux. 1746-1996
    Galerie Kornfeld
    Bern
    1996
    from November 21st 1996 to January 1997
  • Goya artista de su tiempo y Goya artista único
    The National Museum of Western Art
    Tokyo
    1999
    from December 1st to July 3th 1999
  • Goya e la tradizione italiana
    Fondazione Magnani Rocca
    Mamiano di Traversetolo (Parma)
    2006
    consultant editors Fred Licht and Simona Tosini Pizzetti. From September 9th to December 3th 2006
  • Goya. Opera grafica
    Pinacoteca del Castello di San Giorgio
    Legnano
    2006
    exhibition celebrated from December 16th 2006 to April 1st 2007
  • Goya e Italia
    Museo de Zaragoza
    Zaragoza
    2008
    organized by the Fundación Goya en Aragóna, consultant editor Joan Sureda Pons. From June 1st to September 15th 2008
  • Goya et la modernité
    Pinacothèque de Paris
    París
    2013
    from October 11st 2013 to March 16th 2014
Bibliografía
  • HARRIS, Tomás
    Goya engravings and lithographs, vol. I y II.
    OxfordBruno Cassirer
    1964
    pp.127-128, cat. 88
  • GASSIER, Pierre y WILSON, Juliet
    Vie et ouvre de Francisco de Goya
    ParísOffice du livre
    1970
    p.182, cat. 557
  • WILSON BAREAU, Juliet
    Goya, la década de los caprichos: dibujos y aguafuertes
    MadridReal Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
    1992
    pp.192-195, cat. 113-115
  • SANTIAGO, Elena M. (coordinadora)
    Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    MadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional
    1996
    p.101, cat. 142
  • BLAS BENITO, Javier, MATILLA RODRÍGUEZ, José Manuel y MEDRANO, José Miguel
    El libro de los caprichos: dos siglos de interpretaciones (1799-1999). Catálogo de los dibujos, pruebas de estado, láminas de cobre y estampas de la primera edición
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado
    1999
    pp.282-285
  • OROPESA, Marisa and RINCÓN GARCÍA, Wilfredo
    ParísPinacoteca de París
    2013
    p. 67
  • WILSON BAREAU, Juliet
    Goya. In the Norton Simon Museum
    PasadenaNorton Simon Museum
    2016
    pp. 42-75
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