Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga
Francisco Goya
FRANCISCO GOYA, 1788. OIL ON CANVAS.
Caged birds, a leashed magpie, three watchful cats and a child just past the threshold of consciousness. Goya’s portrait of the son of Spanish nobility is amongst the greatest painting of a child ever produced, his mastery on full display as the boy’s porcelain skin glows against the bright red of his suit, the restrained brushwork of lace creating an ethereal quality that captures the dream-like state of childhood. But as is so often the case with Goya, the real portrait exists around the subject. The kept birds are a marker of innocence, while the cats, considering their pounce, a harbinger of loss for the very things the birds represent. Magpies, across culture, are creatures of superstition and can be substitutes for the soul. A young boy has his soul under control, but it is caught between two planes, one of innocence and one of experience, and all the necessary danger that will bring.