Pictures are exhibited, dimensions are listed, signature and year of origin are noted; and now words stride forth . . . . introduction, biography, criticism . . . . leading the way out into the world, in the van of the canvases.
As it happens, however, the gates are barred and bolted as once upon a time, was the Quinta del Sordo [Goya's house, known as "The House of the Deaf Man."] . . . . Not a whisper penetrates from the outside . . . . Deaf to mere words, Goya goads his pilgrims, clochards, beggars across dark chasms . . . . A goat? . . . . ah, let it be a goat, then, if goat it be! What leaps to the eye is a demoniac black that purs in deepest despair over the palette, midst torrents of gray and white and ochre . . . .
The gates are barred and bolted, but inside an old man ships forth a witches' sabbath from out of the depths of his soul, as he cackles grimly . . . . Is it an indictment? Ah, no, bitter scorn that is the mesage!
These are scenarios of silent suffering . . . . of yearnings and rebellions . . . . of visions and dreams of color . . . . color . . . . color that screams from the palette in grief and desperation.
Words? What use are words?
Still, custom must have its due!
A bow to Jodengracht [Rembrandt's quarter of Amsterdam]
A bow to Quinta del Sordo! [1973]
[Ashton, Dore, ed. Twentieth-Century Artists on Art. New York: Pantheon Books. 1985.]
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