Category: RealGoya

Goya was born in Fuendetodos (Zaragoza) on Wednesday, March 30^th 1746. And he did so under the igneous sign of Aries, that astrologically ‘governs’ the head area in individuals. In Goya there is no doubt of this predominance in its body structure.

Aries corresponds to the element Fire, which attributed the qualities of Energy, both in overcoming as in the constant search for new goals and risks. Fire is the most active and impulsive Zodiac element, applied in the natives a great self affirmation and thrust. Makes people aggressive, mark tireless beings, more than often wrathful, because they will want to be always the first in everything.

Carta astral de Goya

Goya’s Astrological Chart

The planets mark an attitude:

If little was the influence of the corresponding element Fire that identifies him, let’s know through the analysis of their birth Planets (see graph of astrological chart) what tell us about his personality:

We see its Sun’s birth in the seasoned sign of Aries, which is accompanied by three more Planets with great power: Venus, Mercury and Mars respectively.

Venus means ‘harmony and beauty’, Mercury ‘intelligence, the nervous system and reflexes’, Mars ‘combativeness, confrontations and even accidents’.

Being “combined” in its own sign, raises greatly its power over the life of the individual.

Recognized are the attributes of these Planets in the personality of Goya, even the appearance of the unbridled combativeness. All these Planets are extraordinarily empowered in the Fire sign of Aries. Even more, bodily the head governs in humans (paradoxically the amputation and disappearance of his head). Creating in this case an energetic set that, at the level of brain, will enhance the subject to extreme lengths in its action. Passion, struggle, creativity, intellect, come together in a ‘totum revolutum’ that seeks its tangible expression of a fierce and bitter way.

In addition, this planetary ‘set’, receives some strong aspects from other Planets. It is the case of Jupiter, the ‘expander‘, which offers a very positive aspect that helps in life for obtaining support and material benefits, especially abroad. The Moon’s birth, of vital importance to know the mentality of an individual, is located on the sign that governs Cancer, together with the planet of the psyche, Neptune.

The Moon symbolizes the maternal, childhood, home, the changes, the feminine side of life. The “gaseous” planet Neptune besides it, creates a high degree of confusion in the native and of no strength in these aspects, although reinforces the idealism and search for them. It creates difficult stages in childhood, where desire and reality move in a difficult whirlwind to control and assimilate. Sure situations that Goya lived in his childhood. But the driving force of his natal sign Aries, as long as he was growing, was forging a firm and hard character. Aries is the sign of the Warrior, the ‘wrestler of the Zodiac’. These people will never go unnoticed to others. For them if there is no struggle and confrontation, even if it’s only dialectic, they themselves promote it. They want and need their intentions and interests to materialize quickly, being very demanding with each other and with themselves.

His Planet Mercury in Aries makes Goya everything that his eyes see inspires him. His Planet Pluto, mythological Hades God of the underworld, connected with a strong appearance of idealists and psychic Neptune, lies in the mysterious sign of Scorpio. This sign is associated with all the unseen, to the deeper areas of our psyche. In Goya enhance capacity and need to “bring to light” all messages that are cooked in this `mental athanor’. The deaths, the underworld, the most ancestral fear of men are captured on the canvas with total mastery. The most varied torments of humanity, many often hidden within us, come to light with ‘chiaroscuro’ images. These planetary aspects demonstrate that Goya lived in first person those emotions, giving a special dye to his character.

When born, his natal Uranus, planet associated with the unexpected changes that do not depend on the native, stood in the sign making it stronger, Aquarium. This increases his overwhelming power doing that the subject lives many extreme situations that mark his life and his work.

Chronos, the God of Time, represented by the planet Saturn, is at birth also in a site of exaltation. The idea of Goya that ‘time devours his children’ is a purely “Saturn’s” vision of this native celestial influence. The “specific weight” of this planet in Goya is so great, will mark constantly its hard and up to rough relationship and communication with the environment and time playing live.

The ‘saturnalia’ tend to travel the more difficult roads, to experience on their own skin the pain and the wounds of the worldly realities. Goya not only lived a special time, but he was also involved in a large cast of characters and circumstances.

As any person with concerns and a wrestler right off the bat, generated controversy and resulted in radical changes in the messages of his painting. The planets could not be exempt to the analogy of his changes.

But what tells us his astrological chart?

I commented at the beginning that Aries, sign of Goya, governs the head in the human body. As a result, the Arians often suffer from strong headaches. It is more remarkable in this particular case because of the very strong combination of 4 planets in his sign. Aries governs the suprarenal glands, which are that pump adrenaline into the bloodstream in case of emergency, as in the “suddenness” activity or furor of the Arians, giving these natives its reputation for impetuous. A characteristic very marked in Goya. In summary, due to the “Government” of Aries on the head and the sum of planetary components strongly affected in that sign at birth, it is very likely that he suffered an infection of meninges of bacterial origin, since the bad position of the planet Venus in opposition to Saturn and square to Neptune, poisonings are favoured. This planetary situation also indicates a ‘lack of regulation’ of the level of calcium in the body fluids.

Where is the head?

But from the astrological and symbolic point of view, returns to stay clear the importance of the data. Until after his death the ‘universal master’ keeps us on tenterhooks. His Solar sign Aries, that governs the head, already heralded the importance of such a zone would be his life-long artistic and vital. After his death, the disappearance of his head is like the enigma that Goya accompanied throughout his life: the separation between the earthly and the ‘dream world’…

P.S.:  In traditional Astrology (we talk about thousands of years of existence), and that nothing has to do with the popular horoscopes or misleading predictions of the media, when birth time of one person is unknown there are two paths of research.

One; if it can be recognized and aware three or more dates by the individual to analyze, which recalls the approximate time of the incident which has been of importance for him, charting the corresponding to the movement of the stars (these are cyclical astronomically speaking) from his birth date to the aforementioned events. When it matches analog planetary aspects with which indicates his birth date we are approaching to the time of birth.

Two; when there is no possibility of having the previous data, in this case of Goya, we must make a psychological study of his personality, actions, and attitudes over time. This way we approach his intimate real intimate status to the archetype of the Ascendant where it belongs.  The Ascendant of each individual is given by the study and projection in the Celestial Plan, of his time, latitude and longitude of the place of birth. This gives us the division of the 12 zodiacal houses, which make up the scenario in which the person will manifest in life. In fact, when we talk about someone is born under the Aries sign, Cancer, Leo or anyone else, we only speak about Sun position at a given time. While the rest of the Planets and Zodiac houses, depending on time, latitude and longitude native, can infinitely vary the result…

Posted on 23/09/2011 by Carlos Bogdanich on his blog “Cuarta Dimensión” (‘Fourth Dimension’).

Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer
Aguafuerte, punta seca, buril y bruñidor 178 x 220 mm.
Sad Presentiments of What is to Come.
Etching, burin, drypoint and burnisher.

All or almost has been said already about Goya. It is impossible to add something to what was said. These lines are not a comment from a specialist but from an artist who has had “encounters” over nearly forty years with Don Francisco de Goya, rather, with his work.

Beginning in the 1960s began editing in Argentina the collection “La Pinacoteca de los Genios” (‘The Art Gallery of the Genius’). My godfather Manuel, distributor of newspapers and magazines, gave me the first issues, among them the one devoted to Goya.
In the 1970s, the Latin American Publishing Center issued some magazines about graphic techniques. In 1973 I had not finished yet my degree at the Fine Arts faculty when one day I found several copies dedicated to engravings by Goya. I bought with a companion of studies four of them, two for each one. Those who I took home were referred to ‘The Disasters of War’. I knew the painting of Goya through books and “La Pinacoteca” (the Art Gallery), but not “discovered” yet the engravings, perhaps I had seen them but not understood. The impact of those images was emotionally intense. I had strange dreams from that vision, and same happened to my friend.

The social and political atmosphere we lived then in Argentina was violent and dangerous. “Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer” (“Sad Presentiments of What is to Come”) was an announcement of what happened very shortly thereafter.
Goya is raw, realistic, not horrified, he sees, record, for him and for us. Terrible scenes beautifully engraved.
He and others were witnesses, then we also went and we continue to our shame.

I then looked with passion and admiration “Los Caprichos, Los Disparates” (‘The Caprices, The Nonsense’), and later, in Galleria degli Uffizzi, I was delighted with his painting, his wonderful flown brushstroke, subtle, rich, what fabrics! What jewels those small shoes…!
Later, already in Barcelona, I worked myself the engraving returned again and again to Don Francisco, and was a renewed vision. I did many sketches in tempera, black and white, lights and shadows, “studying” those amazing prints. I never used them for my work, but it developed in me the taste for the austerity of black and white to express what one considers essential.

Gabinete de Goya. Goya’s Cabinet.
Calcografía Nacional. Madrid

In those years, a visit to the National Chalcography allowed me to meet the then newly opened “Temple” devoted to the plates of the master. Under a red-tinted light, I stared at these plates worked with an exquisite delicacy that surprised me because it left suspended the extreme violence of the printout on the paper. The plates are now treated steel, but we, the engravers, know that copper shines behind.

In my studio Ataúlfo 10, in Barcelona, I spent many years engraving and by chance I came a noon in June, sovereign sun, to Fuendetodos. That dry and severe landscape, flooded of light, impressed me. Energetic, powerful in its apparent poverty.
Then I taught several courses of etching techniques in the studio named now Antonio Saura, in tribute to that artist whom I have always admired as one of my masters whose devotion to Goya is known. His tribute to “Aún aprendo” (“Still learning”) has been a proof of this and also the countless mentions throughout his work.

Understanding an artist requires time and time changes our perception. Large amount of images I devoured in my youth, and often many come back and help me to better understand while they are interwoven with each other.
I have not returned to see the black paintings in the Prado Museum since in the late 1970s they changed their frames, which in my opinion was fatal. It also complained, long years ago, precisely by Antonio Saura.

There are works that when discovered produce great excitement and one don’t want to see them again, perhaps for fear of not being touched with the same intensity. Something like this happened to me with the black paintings. However, to the engravings I come back always, and also to the lithographs, because for more than twenty years that I am each day with stones, teaching and doing. It’s a pity that Goya was already an old man when he met lithographic art, but his way of working was already renewal since the beginning.

A few years ago I had the fortune to see, during its restoration, the dome Regina Martirum in El Pilar, Zaragoza. There’s a surprising Goya by its historical proximity, i.e. by its modernity. All the great masters have jumped the borders of their era at some point, becoming for us, “modern”, a term this led and brought that added nothing to the understanding of his work if not previously understood what it means to be modern. The broad brushstroke, oblivious to all the unnecessary, the self-assurance, spontaneity and richness of color, the “brushstrokes”, that others also used, but in him is a gesture of anticipatory breach. And even that it was an order!

Grupo de personajes a contraluz, a la entrada de una cueva.
Aguada a tinta china con pincel. 160 x 230mm.
A group of characters to backlight, at the entrance of a cave.
Gouache ink with brush.

And today I have come back to look at gouache ink drawings, magnificent by its liveliness, its throb and his grace, and these qualities, that freshness of ink that appears even damp, remind me much to Hokusai, where drawing throbs in the gait of passers-by, in the fireworks on those nights of full moon, and how those peasants steep in the rain… It never rains in Japan as it does in Hokusai or Kurosawa.

José Pio de Molina, 1827
Oleo / lienzo (Oil canvas) 60×50 cm

There is nothing in Goya that get us closer to nature. Of course, I am sensitive to the landscape, so I liked that Gonzalo de Diego reflection about the landscape background of so many horrific scenes, that called rightly, no landscapes, which are just backdrops or sceneries, an almost theatrical background without too much presence. Goya is interested in the human being, not nature. And there are those portraits, the characters crossed by his gaze up to leave only the main, essential trait, and as an example, the portrait of José Pío de Molina painted in 1828, one of his last paintings at the age of 82, with eyes already worn, and so wise.

Silvia Pagliano
January 2013

The visions and dreams of Goya are a sign of freedom and rebellion in stripe border of creation, subjectivity and Modernity. Goya has with him the only company of the mind and its functions, what means memory, thinking, feelings, imagination and emotions. This is not a few to achieve results that are, in the end, a show off cosmic imagination and fluidity that pour or sprout illuminated and transparent images of someone who expresses interest in the unconscious fairly before than Grandville, for example.

Si sabrá más el discípulo?
Capricho núm. 37 • Aguafuerte, aguatinta y buril • 218 x 153 mm

And who was Grandville? And what was his interest in the unconscious? The name “Grandville” was his grandparents professional stage name.  Draftsman, watercolorist, caricaturist and lithographer, Jean-Ignace Isidore (Gérard) GRANDVILLE was born on September 15^th 1803 in Nancy (France) to an artistic and theatrical family, and died in the asylum of alienated in Vanves (France) on March 17^th 1847, at age 43, possibly due to a throat infection.

Related to the genius of Goya, he would be known for their fantastic drawings and satirical cartoons created during the reign of Louis Philippe. Became known in Paris, very young, with the publication of the “Métamorphoses du jour” (Metamorphosis of Today) in 1829. It’s a collection of seventy lithographs of hybrids between humans and animals. In this regard, remember here that the precursor Goya had engraved year’s earlier similar fantasies.

The following year, 1830, Louis Philippe becomes King of France and during the following five years Grandville publish very critical cartoons about the King, by his betrayal to liberals ideal. From November 4^th 1830 comes out the magazine “La Caricature”, which under the direction of Charles Philippon, delivers 251 issues up to its latest one on August 27^th 1835. Grandville was one of the great illustrators of the magazine and Philippon himself, a large server of current affairs, would entrust him the magazine poster.

Censorship from 1835 will lead Grandville to illustrate books such as editions of “Fables of Lafontaine”, “Gulliver’s Travel” by Jonathan Swift, and the “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe.

With great success both critical and audience, between 1840 and 1842 performs his series on “The animals”, with subtitles, which mocks about society and the Government. Though the designs of Grandville are occasionally unnatural and absurd, they usually display keen analysis of character and marvellous inventive ingenuity, and his humour is always tempered and refined by delicacy of sentiment and a vein of sober thoughtfulness.  These drawings are remarkable for the extraordinary skill with which human characteristics are represented in animal facial features

However most of young artists, especially the surrealists, found a greater inspiration in the strange Grandville of “Un Autre Monde” (Another World) (1844), a collection of anamorphic drawing full of fantasy in which reverses the relationship between text and illustration. Also in 220 pictures of “Les Metamophoses du Jour” and “Les Fleurs animees” (Animated Flowers) (1847), his dull imagination announces truly precursor signs of contemporary surrealist invention, while Baudelaire called Grandville a “sickeningly literary spirit”.

The first article of Baudelaire on physical states under the influence of hashish, entitled “Du vin et du hashish” (Wine and Hashish), appeared in 1851, but his experiences with opiates and hashish had begun circa 1843, four years before the death of Grandville. Reflection of an era in full mutation, during which the progress of science and industry disrupted livelihoods and the way to represent the world, to Philippe Kaenel “sleep is a hypothesis, because we never know it more than by its memory, but this memory is necessarily a fabrication, an artifice.”

Dr. Moreau de Tours, who Baudelaire regularly visited, concluded that the dream had similarities to delirium and hallucination, and that these three phenomena had been able to relate conscious and unconscious world. Another doctor, Dr. Brière de Boismont, trying to elucidate the functioning of the brain and also wrote about the nightmares and dreams, not only about the hallucinations. His treatise is abundant in cases of singular dreams, among which some had visual similarities with the illustrations by Grandville.

The artistic and literary interests by the unconscious were demonstrating at the same time. In arts, the first example of this new objectivity applied to the study of dreams and the unconscious is seen in the illustrations of Grandville, better known in the years 1830 and 1840 as a cartoonist who was considered to be at the same height as Monnier, Daumier and Gavarni. Very early in his career gave proof of interest in dreams.

Füssli, Goya and Ingres showed the dreamer and the dream vision, the physical presence of the dreamer, as well as his dream. However Grandville breaks with this kind of images and so much in “Un autre Monde” as in “Metamosphose du Sommeil” (Metamorphosis of Dream) do not see more than the same dream, as if we were witnesses of the clinical fact in a succession of randomly associated shapes.

In 1847, year of his death, Grandville published two complex illustrations of the dream in “Le Magasin Pittoresque”. The first, “Crimen et expiation” (Crime and Expiation), tells about the guilt complex. The second, entitled “Promenade dans le ciel” (Ride in the Sky) is less simple to explain, according to the artist himself. Very little is known with regard to these images, and is ignored if the artist dreamed it himself or only built in his imagination.

In a passage located as an appendix to the second dream, Grandville considers the possibility of every day events, or even the blood circulation, affecting to sleep. In this sense, Baudelaire comments on Grandville give to understand that it was in a great propensity for analytical illustrations: “Before he died, applied his will, always stubborn, to record in a plastic form the succession of dreams and nightmares, with the precision of a set designer who writes the speech of a speaker”. The artist Grandville wanted, indeed, the pencil to explain the law of association of ideas…” (Charles Baudelaire in his complete works).

Grandville’s closest friends remembered that in the months preceding his madness and death, in 1847, he had forebodings of his death, dreamt of strange appearances and suffered from hallucinations.

Due to his scientific predilections, we can see on his artwork, not a few, signs of deep familiarity with the investigations of medicine. For example, in the edition in 1838 of the “Voyages of Gulliver” (Gulliver’s Travel), represents an exchange of brains, giving a prelude of a transfer of personality between the two receivers; He thus showed his knowledge of the brain dissections, practiced by the phrenologists. “Le Cauchemar” (The Nightmare) of Grandville is also a proof of his knowledge of the ways dreams lead to feelings of fear or terror: in his dream relives the daytime experiences and shows some common dreams, as the fall on a stairway.

Finally, Grandville illustrations allow measuring both knowledge as the writers on the unconscious in the years 1830 and 1840. Before Courbet show his interest, as later did it at the time that was in Paris with Baudelaire, Grandville was the most curious of this type of reinvestigation artist. But he remained as an illustrator, while working in an environment where to enter such scientific issues. Also Courbet will favor later the appearance of this theme, which will be a key component of the realistic material, into the mainstream of painting. With what the same Courbet seems to point in the direction of the art of Gauguin, Munch, Redon and the Picasso blue and pink, in which the sleepy figures illustrations or going into a trance of dream, the oniric imagination, come to constitute a bigger theme of avant-garde painting general trend.

GdD