It stood to reason that Novelist André Malraux, onetime fighter pilot with the Loyalists in Spain's civil war, and internationally famed art critic, would eventually zero in on Francisco Goya. An illness deafened Goya in his 40s and turned him from pleasant art to black indictments of man's inhumanity and fate's immutability. Believing that Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 spelled liberation, Goya at first collaborated. Inevitable disillusion further deepened his pessimism. Malraux, too, had a severe comeuppance in middle age when his Communist leanings proved to have been a flirtation with the devil. Thereafter, he turned from adventuring and novel...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
