Goya: The Witches and Old Women Album at The Courtauld Gallery is a fascinating new exhibition that explores the artist’s later works.
The ground-breaking exhibition reunites all of the known drawings from one of Francisco Goya’s private albums, produced between 1819 and 1823.
The eight albums (named A-H) were broken up after the artists death and scattered around museums and private collections, but the Courtauld’s curatorial team has brought together all of Album H and has presented it in its original chronological order.
The album features a number of ink drawings depicting haggard old women, demonic witches and ugly scenes. Critics have called them some of the most terrifying artworks ever created, since they reflect a cruel, diabolical side of humanity rather than pure fantasy.
At the age of 50, Goya suffered a near-fatal illness that left him deaf and profoundly changed his life and work. A sharp contrast to his work as court painter to the Spanish crown, these series of private albums reveal the visions of his nightmares and anxieties about life and death.
The drawings were produced at the same time as his acclaimed Black Paintings, when he acquired a property outside of Madrid. Not only were his drawings rooted in human nature, but they were influenced by the horrific war between Spain and Napoleon Bonaparte. A year after completing the album, he left Spain for exile in Bordeaux.
Some of the images are macabre, disturbing and unreservedly crude, such as the Wicked Woman which sees a bald, cloaked, monstrous woman about to devour a new-born baby.
Nightmare is equally harrowing with a deranged woman riding a bull with crazed eyes and flailing limbs.
Mirth, however, is rather tender and moving, showing an elderly couple gaze at each other fondly, with years of life experience and companionship in their eyes.
There’s also a touch of black humour in Showing off? Remember your age, chiding an elderly man for forgetting his frailty and mortality. Death looms throughout the album and Goya confronts the fear, melancholy and exhaustion of later life.
The exhibition is well-curated and understated, allowing the horror of the scenes to speak to the viewer. It’s a rare glimpse into Goya’s personal life and imagination, as dark and troubled as it may have been.
Goya: The Witches and Old Women Album runs until 25th May at The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House. For more information, visit: www.courtauld.ac.uk
Photos of Goya: The Witches and Old Women Album by Chérie City
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