Word: guardie
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...Naked Emperors. Goya's foreign contemporaries -Guardi, Gainsborough, Fragonard-specialized in elegance. Goya did too, but instinctively pricked the bubbles he blew, fastening on the frivolous, pompous and stupid personalities inside the fine clothes of his noble sitters. Like the naked emperor of the fable, they seemed not to notice. Charles IV made him court painter and gave him a carriage. Occasionally Goya was commissioned to portray a beautiful woman, which enabled him to exhibit a warmer side. Friends who sat for him got off lightly; he could still admire...
Naked Royalty. In art, it was a period dominated by elegance and smugness. His contemporaries, Guardi in Italy, Fragonard in France and Gainsborough in England, all devoted 'themselves to the depiction of pomp and pleasure. Goya did, too, but he painted pompous fools and smirking harlots. He was as harsh and realistic a portraitist as ever lived (and sometimes a surprisingly offhand one), but that did not prevent him from becoming Madrid's court painter. Goya's paintings of the royal family were much admired, for no one dared admit that he showed them naked...
...love with, and bought, the original of the popular old chromo, September Morn, a fact which embarrasses him nowadays. But few experts could criticize the taste, or the diversity, of a collection which included prime examples of Hals, Gainsborough, Degas and Manet. His crystalline views of Venice by Francesco Guardi were matched against a soft, misty one by Corot. He contrasted Stefan Lochner's strict, gothic Presentation in the Temple with a tasty chunk of cheesecake by Francois Boucher, entitled Cupid and the Graces. Clearly, Collector Gulbenkian's appetite was wide and deep as his wallet...
Most artists had been content to sketch typical New York scenes-Central Park, Times Square-in gay or dramatic lights. Others had hoped to do for Manhattan what Pissarro did for Paris, Guardi for Venice and Whistler for London. Among those who had made the difficult attempt to discover Manhattan's essential qualities and translate them into art, at least four had partially succeeded...
...bling shell. Tumbling, ivied walls in scribed with ancient names and victories, pillars overlooking the wilderness or sprawled broken like dead giants in the grass, and marble steps descending into the sod inspired the "Views" for which Pannini became famous. Perhaps his the spaciousness and sparkle of Canaletto and Guardi, whose pictorial celebrations of declining Venice were equally in demand. But for nostalgic elegance Pannini's Roman Views rivaled anything Venice could produce. Without Pannini, wrote art critic Herman Voss, "a branch of art which is charming in itself would have been deprived of real perfection...