Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 7

Art - Essay Example This is acknowledged to be one of the artist’s best known prints, and has been reproduced several times from the few impressions available. As compared to his later impressions, there are noted to be some differences such as the shape of the arm â€Å"which is not as yet fully defined† (Ivins: 182). This is one of the several aquatints created by Goya during the last years of his life. According to Schider (p. xxii), the tone of the picture can be lightened by scraping, but cannot be darkened, hence the method involves an exacting procedure. Similar to work done by mezzotint engravers the copper was first roughened with grainy aquatint. Then Goya created the masterpiece by scraping highlights into the prepared surface of the coppersheet. The menacing and mysterious figure of the gargantuan being who could be a Titan such as Prometheus or Zeus, was thus sculpted out of the darkness of the background. In Goya’s etchings with aquatint, known as â€Å"the Caprices†, his main technical achievement was: creating a visual world in which shapes emerge from the darkness (Murray: 153). The artist’s nightmares are portrayed; the form and content of which are unmindful of the natural laws of the universe. The light falls on the image evocatively, but is not realistic. The precise meanings of the images that he created were not clearly explained, and were left to the onlooker’s imagination to interpret at will. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes is observed to have mostly avoided classical themes, and especially did not use orthodox neoclassicism which defined a preference for line over colour, used static poses and refrained from depicting emotion. The term romantic classicism was coined by the art historian Sigfried Giedion, who believed that neoclassicism as an independent style did not exist, and that classical antiquity was compatible with romanticism