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Time-Life Library of Art
The World of Goya: 1746-1828
This wonderful book addresses Goya's life, artistic contributions and historical significance of his time and work. There are numerous color and black and white pictures. *Painter of the Spanish mind *The apprentice years *Making it in Madrid *Painter to the king *The passionate Duchess *Los society unmasked *Witness to a Holocaust *The serene exile
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
3 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
About the author
Richard Schickel
97 books32 followersRichard Schickel is an important American film historian, journalist, author, filmmaker, screenwriter, documentarian, and film and literary critic.
Mr.Schickel is featured in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. In this 2009 documentary film he discusses early film critics in the 1960s, and how he and other young critics, rejected the moralizing opposition of Bosley Crowther of The New York Times who had railed against violent movies such as Bonnie and Clyde.
In addition to film, Schickel has also critiqued and documented cartoons, particularly Peanuts.
Schickel was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1964. He has also lectured at Yale University and University of Southern California's School of Film and Television.
Mr.Schickel is featured in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. In this 2009 documentary film he discusses early film critics in the 1960s, and how he and other young critics, rejected the moralizing opposition of Bosley Crowther of The New York Times who had railed against violent movies such as Bonnie and Clyde.
In addition to film, Schickel has also critiqued and documented cartoons, particularly Peanuts.
Schickel was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1964. He has also lectured at Yale University and University of Southern California's School of Film and Television.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 21, 2019
A brief but solid introduction to this renowned Spanish artist, some of whose work (such as Saturn Devouring His Son) is widely-known. As is this series' design, the book is equal parts a look at the artist, his work and the world that he lived in. Gorgeous photos and prints of Goya's art compliment a nice bit of history combined with a touch of art insight. Well worth reading.
August 17, 2025
Pro: An informative overview of Goya’s life in Spain. I especially appreciate the history lesson about the times in which he lived. It helps to explain many of the subjects of his art.
Con: What I desire in an art book about a single artist is a chronological display of his or her greatest works.
Here many great works are left out and the order has a logic that is not chronological.
Bottom line: if you are really interested in Goya’s art you will need to find some other book(s) to complete your education.
Con: What I desire in an art book about a single artist is a chronological display of his or her greatest works.
Here many great works are left out and the order has a logic that is not chronological.
Bottom line: if you are really interested in Goya’s art you will need to find some other book(s) to complete your education.
November 16, 2022
Interesting read on Goya and how his perspective on the world, slowly but surely, took a rather cynical tone and reflected harsher times during Napoleon's reign. Pieces I found interesting: The Witches Sabbath, many of the "Black Paintings". The Duchess of Alba; whose life might as well have inspired Madame Bovary. Note that a lot of the paintings he did do later in his life, might've not have been for anyone but himself to look at.
October 9, 2016
It has Goya pictures on large, glossy paper, what more do you want?
January 4, 2025
I grew up with a set of these Time-Life books of the world of artists on my parents' bookshelf, but it wasn't until I was an adult that I started reading them whenever I was in town visiting. They're short and nowadays rather dated, but I've always found the ones I've read to be strong primers on Cezanne, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh (which spends a great deal of its time on Gauguin as well). Maybe I'll go back and write reviews of those one day, but they've helped increase my appreciation of those artists, Cezanne particularly, and given me context and historical meaning whenever I go to the Met or other museums in New York where I live to see their work, which I do once or twice a month. (Well, there's no Leonardo or Michelangelo to speak of here, but the others are well represented.)
So over Christmas of 2023 I read this book on Goya, one of my favorite Spanish painters, and it was good timing because the Met recently reopened their galleries for European paintings from 1250-1800, including one full room devoted to Goya, plus a few paintings that spill into other rooms, including many that are discussed in the book. I've also seen Goya at the Frick Collection this month and anxiously await the full reopening of the Hispanic Society of America—once you learn a little about someone you start noticing their paintings everywhere. And it's a whole new experience to see them with an understanding of where they came in his career and what was happening in his life and in Spain at the time, whether it was the long shadow of Velazquez from a century earlier, the presence and influence of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo—that's the older Tiepolo—early in Goya's career (and this even helped me appreciate an exhibit of both father and son Tiepolo's drawings that just closed at the Morgan Library), his love affairs and family life—which both show up in his art—his own sickness that led to his deafness—which was much earlier in his life and career than I had previously understood (I thought it was near his retirement from the court, but it was actually mid-career)—and of course the devastation of Napoleon Bonaparte conquering Spain (through manipulation of the corrupt monarchy, Goya's employers, as much as military force) and installing a puppet government.
As the court painter Goya navigated a minefield of loyalties during those years, but he captured the extreme violence and the people's suffering in a series of prints I didn't know about before. Of course the Peninsular War gave us arguably Goya's most famous painting The Third of May 1808, which shows an execution in the street and influenced Manet (in his The Execution of Emperor Maximilian, which isn't mentioned in the book) and so many other artists, but I didn't know it had a companion piece The Second of May 1808 which shows the uprising that caused the royalist soldiers to rove through Madrid carrying out the extrajudicial executions shown in the more famous painting. Both are at the Prado, of course, along with the best collection of Goya in the world—and Velazquez and many others—so now I want to go there more than ever.
And then of course there's his print series Los caprichos and his famous Black Paintings, done as frescos on the walls of his home but now at the Prado as well, at least as far as I know (there are fourteen). Photographic reproductions aren't like seeing the real thing for these paintings, but it's a fairly close approximation for his prints, something I just heard the British art critic (etc.) Bendor Grosvenor mention in a COVID-era podcast—prints reproduce much better online than large paintings, because the dimensions largely hold, and that's true whether it's in print or on a screen. Anyway, this book is full of wonderful color and black-and-white photos, including some portraits (of patrons, etc.) and pictures by other artists that flesh out the portrait of Spain in the late 18th and early 19th century.
I've always associated Richard Schickel with film criticism, ever since I read his book The Disney Version as a ninth grader in the 1990s, but he's completely up to the task of covering Goya's life and times. I'm sure that in the decades since this was published there have been more researched books, deeper analyses, better reproductions, etc., but this book still holds up admirably as an introduction to Goya, and like all the books in this series it's a fantastic entryway into this fascinating artist's life.
So over Christmas of 2023 I read this book on Goya, one of my favorite Spanish painters, and it was good timing because the Met recently reopened their galleries for European paintings from 1250-1800, including one full room devoted to Goya, plus a few paintings that spill into other rooms, including many that are discussed in the book. I've also seen Goya at the Frick Collection this month and anxiously await the full reopening of the Hispanic Society of America—once you learn a little about someone you start noticing their paintings everywhere. And it's a whole new experience to see them with an understanding of where they came in his career and what was happening in his life and in Spain at the time, whether it was the long shadow of Velazquez from a century earlier, the presence and influence of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo—that's the older Tiepolo—early in Goya's career (and this even helped me appreciate an exhibit of both father and son Tiepolo's drawings that just closed at the Morgan Library), his love affairs and family life—which both show up in his art—his own sickness that led to his deafness—which was much earlier in his life and career than I had previously understood (I thought it was near his retirement from the court, but it was actually mid-career)—and of course the devastation of Napoleon Bonaparte conquering Spain (through manipulation of the corrupt monarchy, Goya's employers, as much as military force) and installing a puppet government.
As the court painter Goya navigated a minefield of loyalties during those years, but he captured the extreme violence and the people's suffering in a series of prints I didn't know about before. Of course the Peninsular War gave us arguably Goya's most famous painting The Third of May 1808, which shows an execution in the street and influenced Manet (in his The Execution of Emperor Maximilian, which isn't mentioned in the book) and so many other artists, but I didn't know it had a companion piece The Second of May 1808 which shows the uprising that caused the royalist soldiers to rove through Madrid carrying out the extrajudicial executions shown in the more famous painting. Both are at the Prado, of course, along with the best collection of Goya in the world—and Velazquez and many others—so now I want to go there more than ever.
And then of course there's his print series Los caprichos and his famous Black Paintings, done as frescos on the walls of his home but now at the Prado as well, at least as far as I know (there are fourteen). Photographic reproductions aren't like seeing the real thing for these paintings, but it's a fairly close approximation for his prints, something I just heard the British art critic (etc.) Bendor Grosvenor mention in a COVID-era podcast—prints reproduce much better online than large paintings, because the dimensions largely hold, and that's true whether it's in print or on a screen. Anyway, this book is full of wonderful color and black-and-white photos, including some portraits (of patrons, etc.) and pictures by other artists that flesh out the portrait of Spain in the late 18th and early 19th century.
I've always associated Richard Schickel with film criticism, ever since I read his book The Disney Version as a ninth grader in the 1990s, but he's completely up to the task of covering Goya's life and times. I'm sure that in the decades since this was published there have been more researched books, deeper analyses, better reproductions, etc., but this book still holds up admirably as an introduction to Goya, and like all the books in this series it's a fantastic entryway into this fascinating artist's life.
June 3, 2008
Goya's work is amazingly haunting...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews