Francisco Goya, The Family of Charles IV, c. 1800, Prado Museum, 280 cm x 336 cm (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid)
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Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:10] We’re in the Prado in Madrid, and we’re looking at a large canvas by Francisco Goya. It’s “The Family of Charles IV.” Here’s a direct reference to Velázquez’s “Las Meninas.”
[0:15] We can see the artist, actually — a self-portrait, a bit more in shadow than Velázquez painted himself, behind a large canvas, pretty much at the same angle as one found in “Las Meninas.”
[0:27] Of course the royal family [is] arrayed before us, although in this case, the king and queen are here. Not as a reflection in a mirror, but directly before us.
Dr. Harris: [0:33] I think that this strikes us today as unflattering. I think we’re much more used to royal portraits that have a kind of idealism to it, and here we have a range of that.
[0:43] Some of the figures look more ideal in their poses and their faces than others, but there’s certainly a way that the queen herself looks very much the way that she really looked. Even the king to some extent.
Dr. Zucker: [0:56] As opposed to a more idealized, more youthful figure. I think that Goya is doing something quite extraordinary by in a sense pushing those boundaries, and the royal family is allowing him to.
[1:07] While there is a particularity to the faces, and a psychological depth to each of the faces, and a striking beauty in terms of the representation of the children, the costume across this frieze of bodies is spectacular. The sense of the ornament, the sense of the military medals.
Dr. Harris: [1:27] Of the gold and the silver glittering in the light. You can catch the glistening jewelry if your eye just wanders across the canvas.
Dr. Zucker: [1:36] And Goya has rendered it just brilliantly.
Dr. Harris: [0:00] Very loosely, in a very painterly way that’s also very reminiscent of Velázquez.
Dr. Zucker: [1:44] Now, it’s interesting that the royal family is looking in a sense back to Velázquez in this portrait, because this is a time that’s really quite different. This is Charles IV, not Phillip IV. Spain is in a crisis at this moment.
[1:59] The French Revolution has taken place. Royal families across Europe are wondering whether or not they’re going to be able to maintain order, maintain their rule, and in fact, this family would not be able to.
Dr. Harris: [2:08] No, not at all. Fernando, who we see on the left in blue, actually colluded with Napoleon in Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, and Napoleon will put his own brother on the throne of Spain very soon. This is a royal family that doesn’t have much longer to live in this way.
[2:30] It’s hard not to read the Enlightenment in a different way, that in the modern world we look upon royal families. We don’t see them as having that kind of divine right and royal lineage and a bloodline that makes them different from us.
[2:44] In a way, they look very human, many of them do, and it’s hard not to see that Enlightenment thinking in Goya’s mind. We know, in fact, that he was sympathetic with the Enlightenment and the critique of the monarchy.
Dr. Zucker: [2:55] There certainly is a kind of informality that almost feels a bit like disarray in the composition of the figures, different from the informality that one finds in the Velázquez.
[3:08] But again, it’s interesting that Goya and the royal family are both looking back to that period of stability and in a sense trying to recapture that at a moment when everybody is cognizant that Spain is at the threshold of a moment when there may be significant change.
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