My daughter Jane and son Keith accompanied me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art the other day. Next to the Louvre, the Met is my favorite museum. I am going again in three weeks.
The painting that struck me with the most force is Goya’s Group on a Balcony. It’s paintings like this that elevate Goya to the top rank. The shallow space is a simple, amorous stage. Manet, that admirer of Spanish art, frequently uses this same space in his paintings.
Group on a Balcony by Goya
Colors are subdued and the light is dim and, if not exactly threatening, worrying. As always, Goya suppresses detail and looks for efficiencies.
WHAT is this painting about? Are the women protected from us by the railing, or are the rails prison bars put there by the dark shapes hovering over them. The beauties, lost in reverie, look lazily on us to ensure that we admire them; they are posed for us. Perhaps the hovering shapes are their jealous protectors.
Whatever they are, they are inserted in that mysterious space that defies simple description.