Goya

The life and times of Francisco de Goya y Lucientes served as the base material for this memorable 6-episode miniseries. Appropriately produced by TVE and filmed on historical locations, it is an spectacle of interest not just for art lovers or Goya connoisseurs but for anyone into well-crafted drama. A painter who begun himself a revolution of proportions, Goya was a witness of the Napoleonic wars and of a nation in arms resisting the aggression with undismayed heart and soul. He was that ancient paradox of the artist: An extremely sensitive individual who was also a bullfighting aficionado. He was a womanizer in his own aesthetic and impassioned way; he was friends with kings and poets, and a victim of social and political prejudices. He was an exhaustively troubled man: Deaf, neurotic, literally mad. Goya was no saint and his richly contrasted self is what makes him a hell of a subject for a movie or a television project. This one succeeds in honestly portraying him and making a valuable statement on the origins of his essential oeuvre.