Goya, or the Tortuous Road to Understanding — Lion Feuchtwanger

Lion Feuchtwanger's majestic historical novel is set in turbulent Spain of the Napoleonic era. Its hero is the artist Francisco Goya -- and his fabulous affair with Gayetana, Duchess of Alba, is the bright central thread of its rich tapestry. Goya, one of the immortals of art, was involved in the fate of Spain at a turning point in his country's history; and the story of his love for the Duchess of Alba, Spain's great lady, reflects that. The Duchess, lively and brilliant, “bad and beautiful,” was the subject of two of his most controversial canvases, the Maja Nude and the Maja Clothed. It was a romance in the great tradition, a public scandal even for a scandal-ridden Madrid. Yet Goya's life, his work, and the difficult intellectual struggle he engaged in throughout his life challenging his human integrity and worth is far more than being merely the province of love affairs, however glamorous. Goya transitions from fashionable court painter for Charles IV to a painter with a political conscience who used his art to protest Spain's oppressive and cruel policies. The infamous Spanish Inquisition, in particular, takes up a significant part of both Goya's life and its trying predicament, and likewise of Feuchtwanger's novel about him: the tortures, the trials and executions, as well as the bullfights, the carnivals, the splendor of the court and the Escorial, the vast royal palace.