(piano music playing) Steven: We're in the
Prado in Madrid and we're looking at a large
canvas by Francisco Goya. It's the The Family of Charles IV. There's a direct reference
to Velázquez's Las Meninas. We can see the artist
actually, a self-portrait, a bit more in shadow than
Velázquez painted himself, behind a large canvas,
pretty much at the same angle as one found in Las Meninas and of course, the royal family are right before us. Although in this case, the
king and queen are here not as a reflection in a
mirror, but directly before us. Beth: I think that strikes
us today as unflattering. I think we're much more
used to royal portraits that have a kind of idealism to it and here we have a range of that. Some of the figures look
more ideal in their poses and their faces than others, but there's certainly a way
that the queen, herself, looks very much I think
the way that she really looked and even the king to some extent. Steven: As opposed to a more idealized, more youthful figure
and I think that Goya is doing something quite
extraordinary by in a sense pushing those boundaries
and the royal family is allowing him to, but while
there is a kind of particularity to the faces and that kind
of psychological depth to each of the faces and
a striking beauty in terms of the representation of the children. The costume across this freeze
of bodies is spectacular, the sense of the ornament, the
sense of the military medals. Beth: Of the gold and the silver
sort of glittering in the light. You can catch the glistening
jewelry if your eye just wanders across the canvas. Steven: And Goya has
rendered it just brilliantly. Beth: Yeah, very, very loosely
in a very ventrally way, that's also very reminiscent of Velázquez. Steven: Now, it's interesting
that the royal family is looking in a sense back to Velázquez in this portrait, because
this is the time that's really Beth: It is. Spain is in a kind of a
crisis at this moment. You know, the French
Revolution has taken place. The royal families across
Europe are wondering whether or not they're going to be able to maintain order, maintain
their rule and in fact, this family would not be able to. Beth: No, not at all.
Fernando, who we see on the left in blue, actually,
collude with Napolean and Napolean's invasion of
Spain and Napolean would put his own brother on the
throne of Spain very soon. So this is a royal family
that doesn't have much longer to live in this way and
it's hard not to read the enlightenment in a
different way that in the modern world we look upon royal families. We don't see them as having
that kind of divine right and kind of royal lineage and a bloodline that makes them different from us. In a way, they look very
human and ... and many of them do and it's hard not
to see that enlightenment thinking in Goya's mind. We know, in fact, that he
was symphathetic with the enlightenment and the
critique of the monarchy. Steven: There certainly
is a kind of informality, that almost feels a bit like disarray in the composition of the figures, different from the informality
that one finds in Velazquez. But again, I think it's
interesting that Goya and the royal family are both looking
back to that period of stability and in the sense
trying to recapture that at a moment when everybody,
I think, is cognizant that Spain is at the
threshold of a moment when there may be significant change. (piano music playing)