Picasso, the mad painter!
[a.k.a. the man who painted music while listening to paintings] [26 out of 40]

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Maja vestida - Francisco Goya (1800-1808)

The young woman lying on the sofa wears a thin, tight-fitting dress that reveals her physical form. Her face is round and her cheeks are rosy. Her hair is thick and dark. Around her hips, she also wears a tight pink silk sash and her shoulders are covered by a jacket. On her feet, she wears a pair of golden shoes with pointed toes. The young woman looks towards the observer of the work without showing embarrassment or modesty. She has her arms raised and hides her hands behind her neck. The background is devoid of furnishings and details. The lack of documentation regarding the commission of the Maja paintings led some historians to think that the two works depict the Duchess of Alba, also known as Cayetana.
Goya was very close friends with the Duchess of Alba and created numerous portraits of the noblewoman. Experts have therefore emphasized a certain resemblance between these and the face painted in Maja desnuda. Louis Viardot, in 1843 in the text Les musées de Espagne, proposed the hypothesis that the Duchess posed for the painting. More recent historians, however, argue that the face and perhaps even the body of Maja desnuda is that of Pepita Tudó, Goya's lover. Another hypothesis is that while portraying Pepita, Goya also captured the features of his friend the Duchess. The female figure depicted in Maja desnuda is more graceful than that in Maja vestida. Furthermore, the two faces are not similar but only vaguely alike.
The young woman depicted in Goya's work wears accessories that were at the time worn by aristocratic women. The protagonist thus assumes an ambiguous identity. The title identifies her as maja, but the clothing suggests a young noblewoman. The term derives from popular Spanish language and means elegant. [source analizidellopera.it]

Associated LP from 1992