Charles IV of Spain and His Family is an oil-on-canvas group portrait painting by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. He began work on the painting in 1800, shortly after he became First Chamber Painter to the royal family, and completed it in the summer of 1801.
The portrait features life-sized depictions of Charles IV of Spain and his family, ostentatiously dressed in fine costume and jewellery. Foremost in the painting are Charles IV and his wife, Maria Luisa of Parma, who are surrounded by their children and relatives. The family are dressed in the height of contemporary fashionable clothing and lavishly adorned with jewellery and the sashes of the order of Charles III.[1]
The painting was modelled after Louis-Michel van Loo's 1743 Portrait of Felipe V and his Family and Velázquez'sLas Meninas, setting the royal subjects in a similarly naturalistic setting[2] as they pose for the artist who is visible at his easel at the left of the canvas.
The group portrait was completed the year after Goya first became court painter, the highest position available to a Spanish artist and one previously occupied by Diego Velázquez.
Goya did not say why he chose to model the work after the older master, though the notion of a tradition of Spanish painting did not exist at the time. Perhaps Goya was motivated by the troubled times; after eleven years Spain was still dealing with the implications and aftermath of the French Revolution, which ultimately led to Napoleon's invasion of Spain and his installation of his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne in 1808.[3]
The royal family is apparently paying a visit to the artist's studio: Goya can be seen to the left looking outwards towards the viewer.[4] Goya seems to focus his attention on three figures: the Prince of Asturias, i.e. the future Fernando VII, who is dressed in blue, his mother Queen Maria Luisa of Parma, standing in the centre, and King Charles IV. Although a formal portrait, there are indications of intimacy between the family members; Queen Maria Luisa holds the hand of the youngest child. In contrast to Velázquez's Las Meninas, the painting does not show any of the royal family's servants or attendants. More importantly, Goya omits narrative structure: it is simply a painting of people posing for a painting.[3]
As in Las Meninas, the artist is shown working on a canvas, of which only the rear is visible; however, the atmospheric and warm perspective of the palace interior of Velázquez's work is replaced here by a sense of, in the words of Gassier, "imminent suffocation" as the royal family are presented on a "stage facing the public, while in the shadow of the wings the painter, with a grim smile, points and says: 'Look at them and judge for yourself!'"[4]
Sitters
Charles IV of Spain and His Family (with numbers)
The barely visible man in the background shadows at the left is Goya himself[5] (2). Others are, left to right:
(5) Maria Antonia of Naples – by the time the work was created, she was yet to marry Fernando VII (but was expected to do so in the near future; that may explain the deliberate concealment of her face)
(13) their baby Carlos Luis (1799–1883), the future Duke of Parma[6]
(14) his wife Maria Luisa (1782–1824) – King's daughter, holding number 13
Interpretation
The French writer Theophile Gautier called it a 'picture of the corner grocer who has just won the lottery' and it has sometimes been suggested that Goya was in some way satirising his subjects. The idea has been dismissed by the art critic Robert Hughes: "This is nonsense. You didn't manage to keep your job as an official court portraitist if you were satirising the people you were painting. No, this is not a send up. If anything it is an act of flattery. For instance on the left, in the blue suit, is one of the most odious little toads in the entire history of Spanish politics, the future King Ferdinand VII, whom Goya actually manages to make quite regal. God knows how he did it, but he has. This is very much an act of respect, almost verging on an act of flattery."[7]
Prominent in Goya's portrait are the domestic intimacy of the royal family and the central role of the queen as a matriarch. She exudes fecundity as she is flanked by her family. Far from a cruel satire, Goya's depiction of the royal family is actually idealized and disregards what the forty-eight-year-old Queen Maria Luisa actually looked like. A Russian ambassador described her eleven years prior to this painting: "Repeated births, illnesses, and perhaps a touch of hereditary illness had taken their toll--the yellow pallor of her skin and the loss of her teeth dealt a final blow to her beauty."[8] The queen's inane smile (formed by crude dentures), her sagging, pallid skin contrasted with sumptuous gown and jewels, and overall appearance of doddering senescence, provide satirical fodder. But this subjective valuation is not only contrary to Goya's public presentation of his skills as an artist but to the artist's own apparent estimation of his consistent royal patron.[9]
John Ciofalo wrote that while "Velázquez sought to bridge the gap between art and the reality of the natural world, Goya sought to bridge the gap between art and the reality of his own mind," a byproduct of the Romantic era. One only has to look at the paintings in Las Meninas that have been identified as real. The paintings in Goya's The Family of Carlos IV have never been identified. One could assume they are indeed products of Goya's mind, of his imagination.[10]
^De la Croix, Horst; Tansey, Richard G.; Kirkpatrick, Diane (1991). Gardner's Art Through the Ages (9th ed.). Thomson/Wadsworth. p. 887. ISBN 0-15-503769-2.
El Greco: The Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest – Adoration of the Shepherds – Doña María de Aragón Altarpiece – Annunciation – Christ Carrying the Cross – The Fable – The Flight into Egypt – Holy Face of Jesus – Holy Trinity – Julián Romero and Saint Julian – Portrait of a Doctor – Portrait of a Gentleman – Portrait of a Young Nobleman – Portrait of an Elderly Man – Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman – Portrait of Jerónimo de Cevallos – Portrait of Rodrigo Vázquez de Arce – Saint Andrew and Saint Francis – Saint Anthony of Padua – Saint Bernardino of Siena[1] – Saint James the Great – Saint John the Evangelist – Saint Paul – Saint Sebastian – Saint Thomas the Apostle – Holy Trinity – The Saviour – Virgin Mary
Luna: The Death of Cleopatra
Maíno: Adoration of the Magi – Portrait of a Gentleman – The Recovery of Bahía de Todos los Santos
Murillo: Adoration of the Shepherds(1650) – Aranjuez Immaculate Conception – The Christ Child and the Infant John the Baptist with a Shell – Christ on the Cross(1675, 1677) – The Conversion of Saint Paul – The Good Shepherd – The Holy Family with a Little Bird – The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial – The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables – The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew – Our Lady of the Rosary – The Patrician's Dream – Rebecca and Eleazar
Pradilla: Doña Joanna the Mad
Ribera: Jacob's Dream – Democritus – Isaac and Jacob – Ixion – Tityos – The Martyrdom of Saint Philip – The Blind Sculptor
Sánchez Gallque: The Mulattos of Esmeraldas[2]
Velázquez: Las Meninas – The Triumph of Bacchus – Las Hilanderas – The Surrender of Breda – Mars Resting – Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV – Equestrian Portrait of Elisabeth of France – Equestrian Portrait of Prince Balthasar Charles – Equestrian Portrait of Philip III – Equestrian Portrait of Margarita of Austria – Equestrian Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares – Adoration of the Magi – Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan – Christ Crucified – Coronation of the Virgin – View of the Garden of the Villa Medici – Prince Balthasar Charles as a Hunter – Portrait of the Infante Don Carlos – Doña Antonia de Ipeñarrieta y Galdós and Her Son Don Luis – The Jester Barbarroja – The Jester Calabacillas – The Jester Don Diego de Acedo – The Jester Don John of Austria – Portrait of Francisco Lezcano – Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress – Portrait of Maria Anna – Portrait of Juan Martínez Montañés – The Nun Jerónima de la Fuente – Portrait of Pablo de Valladolid – Portrait of Philip IV in Armour – Portrait of Mariana of Austria – Portrait of Sebastián de Morra
Zurbarán: Agnus Dei – The Death of Hercules – The Defence of Cádiz Against the English – Hercules and the Hydra – Hercules Separates Mounts Calpe and Abylla – Hercules Fighting the Nemean Lion – Saint Elizabeth of Portugal – Saint Luke Painting the Crucifixion – Saint Peter Nolasco's Vision of Saint Peter the Apostle – Still Life with Pots – The Vision of Saint Peter Nolasco
Bouts: Triptych with Scenes from the Life of the Virgin
Bruegel the Elder: The Triumph of Death – The Wine of Saint Martin's Day – Excursion in the Countryside of Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia – Life in the Countryside – The Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia in the Mariemont Park(with de Momper) – Landscape(with de Momper) – The Five Senses(with Rubens)
van Dyck: Self-portrait with Sir Endymion Porter – The Betrayal of Christ – The Brazen Serpent – Diana and a Nymph Surprised by a Satyr – Saint Rosalia – The Crowning with Thorns
van Hemessen: The Surgeon
Francken the Younger: The Sciences and the Arts
Jordaens: Apollo as Victor over Pan – Meleager and Atalanta – The Painter's Family
Memling: Adoration of the Magi
Mengs: Portrait of José Nicolás de Azara
de Momper: Landscape with Sea and Mountains – A Farm – Flemish Market and Washing Place – Landscape with Skaters – The Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia in the Mariemont Park(with Brueghel the Elder) – Landscape(with Brueghel the Elder)
Rubens: The Judgement of Paris(1638) – The Three Graces – Adoration of the Magi – The Dance of the Villagers – Diana and Callisto – Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma – The Fall of Man – The Garden of Love – The Birth of the Milky Way – The Rape of Europa – The Rape of Ganymede – Saint George and the Dragon – Saturn – The Triumph of the Church – Deucalion and Pyrrha – The Five Senses(with Brueghel the Elder)
Lorrain: Landscape with St Paula of Rome Embarking at Ostia – The Ford – Landscape with St María de Cervelló – Landscape with the Burial of St Serapia – Landscape with the Finding of Moses – Landscape with the Temptation of St Anthony – Landscape with Tobias and Raphael
Poussin: Parnassus – Landscape with Three Figures – Saint Cecilia
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smARThistory – Goya, The Family of Charles IV
Media related to La familia de Carlos IV at Wikimedia Commons
