Goya

Hughes turns his renowned critical eye to one of art history's most compelling and enigmatic figures, Goya, whose life and work bridged the transition from the eighteenth-century reign of the old masters to the early days of the nineteenth-century moderns. Building upon the historical evidence that exists, he tracks Goya's development, as man and artist, from the early works commissioned by the Church, through his long, productive, and tempestuous career at court, to the darkly sinister and cryptic work he did at the end of his life. In a work that is at once interpretive biography and cultural epic, Hughes grounds Goya in the context of his time, taking us on a wild romp through Spanish history; from the brutality and easy violence of street life to the fiery terrors of the Holy Inquisition to the grave realities of war, Hughes shows us the cultural forces that shaped Goya's work.--From publisher's description.