Majas on a Balcony Attributed to Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828)Oil on canvas; 76 3/4 x 49 1/2in. (194.9 x 125.7cm)H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.10) http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/european_paintings/Majas_on_a_Balcony/viewObject.aspx?&OID=110000990&PgSz=1
Many masterpieces of art have been the subjects of much scholarly discourse, either because of their merits as such or because of their hold on the imagination of an art-worshiping public. Each generation of critics unfailingly contributes its share to the growing literature on Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Rembrandt’s Night Watch and other such celebrated treasures. Well for these that they receive the fanfare they deserve.
On the other hand, there are a vast number of paintings by the masters which are relatively obscure – mere items in a catalogue and consigned to the musty halls of some museum. They are mentioned, to be sure, in monographs on their creators written by conscientious scholars who wish to keep a comprehensive account of the artists’ works; but as is often the case, these minor pieces are summarily dismissed in a line or two, perhaps rather unjustly. Though these works may not be great in themselves, nevertheless they may be of great interest and value, particularly to the art historian, because they evince the development of a certain style or technique and constitute a significant link in the evolution of art.
To this latter category belongs Majas on a Balcony by Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), which is a part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This work is inevitably overshadowed by its celebrated sisters – the Maja Vestida and the even more fabulous Maja Desnuda, reputedly the greatest female nude of Spanish painting. Even so, it is not without merit; it has some interesting iconographic and stylistic features which deserve consideration and treatment.
This essay is an analytical study of Majas on a Balcony. It is an attempt to examine the various components of the paintings and to define their functions in relation to each other and the total meaning of the work.
The methods of analysis employed in this paper require some comment. Though this study adheres to the tenets of objective analysis, a certain degree of personal judgment is to be expected, for after all, a painting appeals not only to one’s visual perception and intellectual faculty but also to the emotions as well; that is to some extent, the experience of Goya’s work as described here is refracted through the prism of this writer’s particular sensibilities. Also the various factors of the piece shall be isolated and treated separately for purposes of convenience and clarity, although actually, these elements co-exist simultaneously and are, therefore, inextricably interrelated; so that even when a part is singled out for examination, the reader must keep in mind that no factor exists independently, that each element perform an organic or compositional function within the scheme of the whole. Finally, the comparative method shall be resorted to whenever its application is appropriate. With these methods objective appraisal, analysis of individual parts and comparison – which are not without limitations, we approach the material under study.
Majas on a Balcony is a rather large work in oil, its measurements being 76 ¾ by 49 ½ inches. It employs a narrow vertical rectangle to frame the subject. A reclining rectangular frame, suited more to panoramic views, would not have been congruous. The artist has chosen the standing rectangle to affect a concentrated, a more intimate presentation of the subject.
This work is one of the many genre paintings by Goya portraying scenes from contemporary life. The physical setting is an azotea or balcony, a characteristic appendage of Spanish houses and an integral part of social life and character in the towns and cities of Goya’s country. The features and props of the setting are confined to an iron railing with vertical grills, a very austere structure (compared to the rich elaborate grill-work of which we are accustomed to think as flourishing in Spain.) which alludes to the socio-economic character of the house; the edge of the floor; some chairs – rather inelegant – one of which has cheap wicker matting; and in the background, a bare wall, a only proof of whose presence is a shadow to the extreme right suggesting a material surface.
Four people are portrayed, two young women and two men. In the course of the following paragraphs, observations are offered as to their identities, their stance and the meaning, which the artist wishes to convey through them. Although some degree of speculation is here involved, it is not without logical grounds.
Two young women, presumably Spanish, are attired in the high-waisted, bosom-hugging fashion of the French Empire style, with its characteristic flamboyant accessories. Their elegance is further enhanced by personal adornments – earrings and an unusual number of rings, this last style no doubt, also imported from France, where it was the height of fashion, in the Empress Josephine’s salon, to wear rings even on the toes. The lace mantillas, of course, are typically Spanish. The young woman on the left is nudging her companion as if about to say something to her, and the other is bending forward to listen. There is a flippant air about them, even commonness, in spite of the elegance of their attires. They are not aristocratic ladies as their fine apparel may suggest; they lack refinement and dignity, though they are extremely attractive. The artist calls them majas not mujeres. They are no ordinary women. They are courtesans.
And the men at the back, obviously visitors of the establishment, and judging by their garb, military officials, present a marked contrast to the two women. They hover in the background – two shadowy, self-conscious, even sinister figures, their faces only partly revealed. The seated figure turns his head as if to listen to the woman with the black mantilla, though in so doing he keeps his face averted to guard his identity. The other man, who has a mournful expression, uses his scarf to preserve his anonymity. Their mask-like faces recall the grin etchings of Los Descartes de la Guerra and the gloomy Titian paintings.
The initial impact of the picture is important. Its dimensions immediately call attention. The scene depicted is one that a passer-by may see at a glance while walking by the balcony, or proximity of the figures to the plane of the canvas creates an impression of immediacy. The gestures and stance of the people arrested in a particular moment of time impart to the painting that peculiar contingent quality of a candid photograph.
A closer scrutiny of the painting yields more impressions. The strong contrasts of light and shadow, the restrained use of color, the arrangement of forms, in addition to the attitudes and characters of the people, generate a dramatic mood quite different from the lyricism of, say, Corot’s The Letter. One is aware of the disturbing atmosphere of the piece: far from being merely decorative, it is a statement of a serious import. The artist’s treatment of his people – the frivolous poses of the women, their pretty but empty faces, the hypocritical attitudes and sheer ugliness of the men – points to the satirical intent of the work. Employing not exaggeration and caricature as Daumier often does, but irony and understatement, Goya makes a subtle criticism on the society of his time. Goya’s subtlety as a satirist is perhaps better demonstrated in hid royal portraits where he manages to expose his aristocratic subjects in all their pettiness, artificialities and stupidities without being discovered. In Majas on a Balcony, Goya combines an ironic treatment of material with an impressionistic technique, a mode of presentation, which succeeds in creating a piece of social criticism.
In the process of artistic creation, the artist chooses from many possibilities those elements which when integrated would express his intentions. In the choice of materials and in the act of execution, he is conditioned by the potentialities and limitations of his medium, by the disciplines of his art, by his capabilities, by his vision. The finished work is therefore a testament of all these things. Like any other artist, Goya considered certain possibilities and employed them while rejecting others. He treated his material in a certain manner to give expression to his vision and this particular manner by which re realized his art was his individual stamp as an artist.
It is interesting to set Majas on a Balcony beside Hogarth’s painting series, The Rake’s Progress and Marriage a la Mode, with which it shares the same intentions. A glance at Hogarth’s works suffices to show the very different modes the English artist has applied for satirical ends. In concept, style and execution, they are far removed from Goya’s piece; they give us an idea of those possibilities which Goya chose not to employ – the panoramic view; a complex if not cluttered, composition; a preoccupation with the minutiae of the physical setting; the decorative application of color; the blatant comedic quality amounting to caricature.
Let us now consider the compositional aspects of Goya’s painting. These are the possibilities he has adopted to achieve his ends.
The artist has arranged his figures within the frame with a classicist’s sensitivity to form. The figures are very closely grouped – an impression heightened by the narrowness of the frame, the scant spacing along the sides, and the vast empty space over their heads. The same character of posture is found in all four figures: an inclination of the body towards the center of the picture; but because three are seated and the fourth standing, the resulting structure acquires, not the repose of classical symmetry, but the tension created by the confrontation of contrasting elements. This structural tension finds support in tension on a different level – the discordant character of the majas on one hand and that of the men on the other hand, the women’s rosy, delicate features, close to idealization, reminiscent of Fragonard’s elegant ladies and Goya’s own more appreciative portraits of the damas of the Spanish court, their flippant expressions, the lightness and gayety of their costumes – all these are a marked contrast to the artist’s rendering of the men, the gravity of their attitudes, the grim faces, their severe uniforms. Aside from the motivic positions of the figures, another pattern is evident in the arrangement of certain details: that of parallel construction. This is immediately noticeable in the grills, in the relation of the railing to the seat and armature of the chair and the edge of the floor; it is also obvious in the composition of the group, which pairs off the people according to the directions of their inclination; even more interesting and subtle is the parallel pattern formed by the heads of the three seated persons making one line and their hands making another. All of these attest to the artist’s concern for composition.
In this painting, it is not the clarity of lines and silhouettes, which gives a distinct character to the rendering of the subject, but rather the corporeal substance of the masses. The sketchy technique employed blurs edges and outlines and give no definition to shapes. Goya’s style is in the painterly tradition, to borrow Wolfflin’s terminology.
Color is used with great restraint. The color scheme is confined to black, dark brown, flesh, yellow, white and very faint suggestions of blue and green. Color saturation is extremely low, yellow being the most vivid; there is a strong tendency towards neutrality. Color value ranges from very low – the extensive black and brown areas – to very high – white dress and white mantilla. The background is monochromatic, but there is a very fine gradation of value, from high to low towards the top of the painting. The browns are pervasive, not only dominating the picture, but also serving as a middle ground between extremes of light and dark. Color is definitely not decorative here. Its function is merely to heighten the mood and to underscore the irony of the scene, which a fuller development of chiaroscuro may well achieve.
The lighting is subdued and seems to come from no specific direction. The light, unevenly diffused, falls for the most part on the two majas, causing them to be projected outward, while the shadowy figures behind them tend to recede into the background. The handing of light, then, aside from imparting a corporeality to the figures, creates the illusion of spatial depth.
The spatial conception rests, as has been asserted above, on the use of chiaroscuro. Tone is sufficiently handled to give the figures the semblance of mass. Moreover, the very movement and flow of the composition also contribute to the sense of depth. There is no detail in the background to carry the eye beyond the immediate subject; there is no architectural construction, such as an archway, to establish linear perspective; but these do not bother us in the least, as they are entirely irrelevant. The methods already mentioned suffice to meet the spatial demands of the work.
Goya’s technique of execution deserves some comment because it marks him as an important transitional figure in the history of art, even a revolutionary, who influenced the following generations of painters. Some scholars regard him as the father of modern painting. Certain modes of rendering in Majas on a Balcony must justify this contention.
Two widely divergent techniques are apparent.
The first is the meticulous, delicate rendering of the women’s features, the careful concealment of the brush strokes, the liberal use of oil to create a smooth surface. These practices look back to the rococo tradition of the 18th century.
The second is a revolutionary technique – the undisguised brush-tracks, the bold sketchy strokes, the use of the palette knife to apply paint on the canvas resulting in a rough uneven surface. The mantillas and the decorative accessories of the women’s costumes show the effect of these new methods, which foreshadow Impressionism. Goya’s portrait of a lady, Doña Narcisa Baranana de Goicoechea, done in typical Rococo style, gives us an idea of the artist’s departure from conventional modes and his leap into the future in his “impressionistic” work.
Majas on a Balcony, for all its tremendous scale, is a terse unpretentious comment on human frailty. It is subdued but disturbing, it is pointed but subtle – these effects achieved by the ironic treatment of content and handling of technique. Its components are severely limited to essentials; there are no irrelevant details. It has a certain unevenness, an inconsistency in execution, which makes it fall short of being a masterpiece, but at the same time, this very weakness gives it a quality of spontaneity. The possibilities have been well chosen and satisfactorily organized to create a coherent statement.
Art is the mirror of reality, which is around us and within us, thus did Aristotle speak. But a work of art once created becomes a reality in itself and valuable for its own sake; it acquires an independence, an existence apart from the reality that it is supposed to reflect. Though it may shed light on human existence, make it meaningful, intensify or modify it, art is but the expression of that experience and not the experience itself. A good artist realizes this, and in the act of creation, he distinguishes between the reality of his experience and that of his art, although he knows, too, that each amplifies and enriches the other.
Goya’s Majas on a Balcony is a judgment on the society of his time, a pronouncement on the moral decadence that followed the accession of Napoleon’s brother, Joseph to the Spanish throne; but its essence is not the particular reality of a dubious balcony scene – it is the universal reality of human folly. ©
(Republished with special permission from the author)
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