Customer Reviews

Goya, the Origins of the Modern Temper in Art

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This winner of the College Art Association's Charles Rufus Morey Book Award (1981) has received numerous reviews of highest acclaim. Coming as they do from noted art critics, these probably set the book as high or higher than normal five-star reviews could. From the back cover of the book:

"Extremely perceptive, indeed extremely powerful . . . I can think of few, if any, books that have so daringly, so concretely, so successfully managed to cope with a problem that critics, just as much as historians, have for many years tended to shy away from: What is it that makes a great artist great for us? It is one of the most important problems that can be asked and Licht's imaginative answers deserve great acclaim."

--Francis Haskell, The New York Review of Books"

"The most brilliant, far-ranging, and profound study of this fascinating artist that I have ever read." --Linda Nochlin, Mary Conover Mellon Professor of Art, Vassar College

"Licht's book is a refreshing corrective. His erudition is rich and allusive. He looks minutely at the pictures, his argument is arresting." --V. S. Pritchett, The New Yorker

"A brilliant book . . . filled with new observations and striking analogies" --Sir John Pope-Hennessy, European Paintings Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Though he slights neither Goya as a person nor the time in which he lived, Prof. Licht focuses on analyzing Goya's oeuvre and explaining why it was, as the subtitle suggests, a departure from the art of the past. Thus it was from Licht that I gained a new appreciation of and respect for Goya's works in each of his periods. As an added bonus, Licht's writing is so far from academic that even those with no background in art will find him a pleasure to read.

The only aspect of this book will probably disappoint many is that most of the reproductions are in black and white. But while books with colored prints of Goya's works abound, I've found no other that does such an excellent job of not only explicating his art but also of clearly establishing him as a pivotal artist.

Consider what those well-qualified to judge have written about GOYA: THE ORIGINS OF THE MODERN TEMPER IN ART.

1) H.W. Janson, Prof. of Art History, NY University: "For the past century and a half, Goya has been viewed--and rightly so--as the one towering giant, the one master of unquestioned genius, among the founders of modern art. Fred Licht's book is unique in its broad perspective as well as in its daring comparisons, which at last put Goya in the company he deserves. It was a true revelation to me."

2) Robert Rosenblum, Prof. of Art History, NY University: "Endlessly fascinating. A book that casts a dazzling light not only on Goya but also on the entire history of modern art and culture."

3) Dore Aston, Prof. of Art History, Cooper Union: "A vibrant and vastly intelligent interpretation of Goya's oeuvre. Through his penetrating inspection of Goya's key works, Professor Licht is able to locate the precise tenor of Goya's irony, anger and disaffectation--the characteristics that make Goya undeniably the prototypical modern artist. In lucid prose unburdened with pedantic detail, the somber story of Goya's life and time is dispassionately revealed through each phase of his work."

4) Linda Nochlin, Prof. of Art, Vassar: "The most brilliant, far-ranging and profound study of this fascinating artist that I have ever read. Licht not only illuminates the art of Goya and his contemporaries, but provides us...with extraordinary insights into the art and moral dilemmas of our own time as well. This is indeed a unique art-historical undertaking, one which combines sensitive formal analysis with keen epistemological penetration and. . .is carried out with such richness of concrete detail, such wit, and such intelligence."

Although the accolades were written of a book published in 1979, I do not think they would be retracted in light of Robert Hughes' more recent GOYA. --B. Evans, 8/3/07