El «Cuaderno italiano», 1770-1786: los orígenes del arte de Goya

"The ‘Italian Notebook’ came to light in the mid-1980s and was published in the early ’90s. It has generated extensive commentary, perhaps more than other Goya books, as seen in the entries on the Museo del Prado website , a wonderful illustrated source for those who don’t have the facsimile published by the Prado. But rather than talk about sources for drawings in the notebook, or identities of named individuals, I invite people to look at this book as an intimate document of Goya’s life. First, the name ‘Italian Notebook’ is misleading, since many of the pages have sketches and notes drawn or written after Goya’s return to Spain in 1771, suggesting that this was the last of several sketchbooks he used during his two-year Italian stay. It begins traditionally enough, its early pages featuring figure sketches and Old Testament subjects. But then we get to a single page with three lists naming Italian cities, then cities that Goya qualifies as ‘the best’, and a shorter list of ‘cities only seen from outside (or from a distance)’. Although the first list is untitled, it would seem to be a list of cities visited. The lists are written with a single ink, at a single sitting (although he adds in chalk cities in southern France, possibly seen on his return to Spain). In all likelihood he wrote the list toward the end of his journey, since he appears to use the same ink on the final page of the sketchbook, where he lists works he has seen in Genoa, Venice, Parma and Loreto. “I invite people to look at this book as an intimate document of Goya’s life” I have a small collection of notebooks, purchased on trips, half-filled, with empty pages I sooner or later use for miscellaneous notes, so Goya’s use of this sketchbook resonates with me. He notes names of contacts who helped him on his travels; he sketches after classical and more recent sculptures; he doodles, superimposing in ink carnival masks over a pencil drawing of a putto. Back in Spain, he makes preliminary sketches for his 1773 commission at the Aula Dei , and over a decade later keeps lists of financial investments. He notes the date of his marriage, but most importantly, the names of six children born to him and to Josefa Bayeu from 1774 to 1782—none of whom survived beyond childhood. (The list was apparently written before the birth in 1784 of his sole surviving child Xavier.) This all becomes especially poignant when we flip more pages to find drawings in the hand(s) of a child or children, presumably the only surviving trace of them."