Francisco Goya

I managed to see the Francisco Goya exhibition 'Fantasies, Follies and Disasters' at Manchester Gallery recently before it ended and that was fantastic. I was disappointed with the size of the exhibition as I expected it to be much bigger considering it was advertised so much but it was still excellent.

I think I was really excited by the etchings because the content was so creepy and grotesque. I loved all of the scenes of cloaked figures looming over people and the dark shadowy creatures lurking in the background as though they were part of the victim's imagination. I really loved the detail applied to the creatures and the expressions on the human faces, there was real horror captured in the images. I preferred the more mythical/fantasy based images rather than the pure torture and war atrocities but it was all really amazing.


I was also really impressed with the Chapman Brothers piece 'Disasters of War' which was based on the Francisco Goya etchings. I've always been quite skeptical of the Chapman brothers work as it always seems a bit too disgusting, too much shock value for my liking but this piece was really fascinating. The artists depicted scenes from the etchings in tiny figurines, similar in a way to toy soldiers, at first glance it looks like a collection of any small figures but on closer inspection you can pick out the specific details from the etchings and it was really interesting to look at as there were so many details.