After leaving the city of Merida we move in Andalusia, in order to get to Rota and do in this place our headquarters in search of traces of Goya in Cadiz. We arrived at the Playa de la Luz, famous for its pens Romans engaged in fishing and where we rest to admire the sunsets over the Atlantic in the hotel of the same name.
Back in Cadiz, both Teresa and I felt the same feelings from when we first visited in 1986, as the city retains the spirit of the years, but modernity has increased to the outskirts of Old Town. We left the car and started to walk its streets in search of the Rosary, where the parish, and beside it, the Holy Cave where Goya left his mark creative.
When we saw the first pictures were yellowish and not well appreciated, although the book published by the Banco Zaragozano in 1983, with texts by Professor Federico Torralba and magnificent photos of Luis Mínguez and printed by Octavio and Félez in Zaragoza, could appreciate the great skill with which Goya painting executed such works. In our books the way Goya Goya and facing the wall, talk about the importance of these works, before being restored. in 2000 were restored in the Prado Museum and exposed in the same and it was when we saw in all its splendor and colorful painting and appreciate the change of concept that Goya prints of his work after Andalusia. Cajamadrid published a study of intervention in 2001. Now they are back in place, where the great Aragonese were painted on his second voyage Cadiz in 1796.
Interestingly Goya is located in Cadiz where he falls ill and becomes deaf, but also thanks to the care of his friend Sebastian Martinez, his family, Cadiz and the air of the Atlantic Ocean, is recovering from the tumble of heifer death, which leaves him with ill health but his eyes, hands and brush most creative and brilliant.
The Holy Cave existed in the Chapel or Crypt of the Church of Rosario, occupied by the Confraternity of Penitents Mother's Antigua since 1756, in 1771 access to the same address the priest Don José Sáenz de Santamaría, who in 1781 promoted to expand the Oratorio underground and build on top commissioning a new architect Don Torcuato Cayon project , which was completed by the architect Torcuato Benjamin. The construction of the new neoclassical oratory influenced by the way to Ventura Rodriguez, a friend of Goya and builder of the Santa Capilla de la Virgen del Pilar in Zaragoza, is one example of neoclassical architecture in Andalusia.
The reliefs were commissioned the sculptor Cosme Velazquez penitence and the crypt is a magnificent Calvary Galdulfo Vaccaro and sculptors. The promoter of the new building instructs the musician Joseph Haydn's famous musical piece to accompany the preaching of "The Seven Last Words of Our Redeemer on the Cross" on Friday morning Ghost.
This new chapel is accompanied oval lunettes decorated with paintings of Zacarias Gonzalez Velazquez, whose theme is The Marriage of Cana, dated in 1795 and José Camarón collection of manna. Both fit the season and architecture but they are cold, they comply with the order and keep both reminiscent of antique prints. Also a portrait on the front shield by the painter Francisco Riedmayer.
Goya recovered in 1792 and it is quite possible that before returning to Madrid and take the commission to paint three paintings in the Holy Cave. In 1793 in Madrid again, and its creative power is turned on and investigate new pictorial materials, working on hojadelata, and that had a factory round and certainly will provide the plates Sebastian Martinez, and scenes painted on them for calling bulls Caprichos, for the first time using this terminology for their work and presenting at the Academy of San Fernando. By this time Manuel Godoy soars in power and protects Goya as a painter and in 1796 invited him to Rome Site in Granada, to paint his portrait horses in the landscape of the river Genil, coinciding with that Duchess of Alba who was in Seville with her husband the Duke, who died in that city.
Goya moved to Cadiz to paint the custom of the Holy Cave and leaves us three pictures, in which, with some memory of the paintings of Aula Dei, faces three issues. The multiplication of the loaves and fishes, with a triangular composition in an oval in which the figure of Christ divides the scene. In The Parable of The Wedding of the King's son, leads to a large room where only one of the guests is bound fired for not meeting standards, other workers are concentrated at the bottom. King reminds the Wise Man of Aula Dei in their approach and execution. The sacrament breaks with a composition circulate within the oval, hardly reminiscent architecture, everything revolves around Christ and his future tragedy. It is the most fluid brushwork and in the future apply this concept in his frescoes in the cupola of San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid. The color of these three paintings reminds us of the air and sea from Cadiz.
When his work is aimed at Sanlucar de Barrameda to meet the Duchess of Alba widow.
Carlos Barboza