Goya or the evil path of knowledge

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The historical novel Goya or the arge path of knowledge appeared in 1951 and is a late work by Lion Feuchtwanger . He was born in the United States, where Feuchtwanger after the seizure of power by Hitler into exile had fled. In a letter to Arnold Zweig in early 1943, Feuchtwanger estimated the duration of work on the novel at one and a half years. However, this turned out to be seven years, more than Feuchtwanger had ever spent on a novel. The novel was to be followed by a second part, but it could no longer be realized. The book was in 1971 by Konrad Wolf filmed , with Donatas Banionis embodied the Goya.

action

The plot of the novel is set in Spain at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century . The novel is divided into three main parts, which consist of many sub-chapters. Each of the main chapters introduces the reader to the historical events and political upheavals of the time. At the beginning, the path of the painter Francisco de Goya to the “First Court Painter ” of Charles IV is told .

Goya, who was initially pleasing, but also, now and then, deviating from the traditional manner and painting increasingly disturbing portraits , already had access to the highest circles of the Spanish nobility through his art at the beginning of the novel. He begins an equally destructive and passionate affair with the Duchess of Alba , who belongs to one of the oldest noble families in Spain. Much of the novel is devoted to this confusing and disturbing liaison.

In addition, Goya becomes increasingly involved in intrigues at court and is initially involved in political power games against his will. Driven by his often sour, good-natured assistant Agustin, Goya's apolitical stance gradually changed and he began to discover his art as a means of drawing attention to the abuses of the strongly Catholic feudal state in Spain . In Goya's first dangerous pictures, his enthusiastic friends discover an idioma universal , a language that everyone will understand, that is universally valid. Nevertheless, Goya remains indebted to his aristocratic clients for the time being, if his portraits are from now on also interspersed with imaginable irony .

Feuchtwanger uses a fictional crisis in his relationship with the Duchess of Alba to explain Goya's breakdown in 1792, which ends with the painful loss of his hearing . The reader accompanies Goya on the way out of the isolation of the illness to a new art form. Recognizing the nullity of the statements of his previous portraits, Goya deals with the etching .

The result is the Caprichos , Goya's cheeky and deep-sighted caricatures of temporal conditions, with crude criticism of the arrogance and vanity of the nobility, but also of the Inquisition , which lies like a threatening black shadow over Spain at the end of the 18th century. With these works Goya finally breaks away from the dominant academic paths of painting and increasingly follows his own ideas of painterly expression. The novel closes with the delicate publication of the Caprichos, which through a few tricks ends neither with the capture of Goya by the angry Inquisition nor with the disfavour of the attacked court.

expenditure

  • First edition: Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1951, 613 pp.
  • English edition under the title: This is the Hour. Viking, New York, 1951.
  • Collected Works in Individual Volumes Vol. 13: 2nd edition structure, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-351-02213-1
  • Paperback: 9th edition. Structure of the Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-7466-5613-7

filming

See also

literature

  • Ludwig Maximilian Fischer: Reason and Progress. History and fictionality in the historical novel Lion Feuchtwanger, illustrated by the example of Goya. Forum Academicum, Königstein / Ts. 1979, ISBN 3-445-01990-8
  • Sylvia Neu: Personality structure and literary text: the theory of social forms of individuality, represented by the personality Lion Feuchtwanger and the historical novel "Goya or The Arge Path of Knowledge" Dissertation, Magdeburg 1990

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