Self-Portraits

Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828)

[Oil on Canvas, c.1815, Prado, Madrid]

Terrors are eyes' dust

of my dogs and monsters,

giants and catholics and kings;

their internecine wars

growl into my dead ears'

cloven expectations,

climb up the very walls

to hive the time again

towards existence

and the almost possible.

Thus can I show the horror vision grants

behind the tremor of our sight and skin,

draw out the dark that age has patterned.

Knuckle lead white and carbon

sour on bones' illusions.

Now beyond all courts and favours

can I step back into the shadows' mysteries

and dear God's hopes of favours;

fight back in dark oils and stark

against the blank and surface of the world

that etches past the brain's protective bones

as dry and marrowed out of copper

into the aqua vita black and resurrections

pressed through the arc of devils and their dams

in silence just behind the hum of pain

throbbing again from out my mother's

body of light gave life to the bright earlier beings

of pastel pales and greens under blue clouds

that scattered into sight and silence

just behind the scream.

It will be saved

                  as I

without the need of sound

that vision hides behind

and drags the horrors into

the beautiful

even without the mind's

obedience to its call.

Note:

Spanish Romantic artist thought of as both the last of the old and the first of the moderns. He was made First Court Painter to the Spanish Crown and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era. At about the age of 46, an illness left him deaf. After the Peninsular War he retired to a house outside Madrid with the idea of isolating himself. There he created the 'Black Paintings' which reflect his fear of insanity and pessimism. Some were painted directly onto the walls of the house. The second part of his name, 'Lucientes' means 'shining'.