Renoir’s reputation takes a bashing, plus autumn’s best exhibitions open as the art world hits London for Frieze week – in your weekly dispatch
Goya: The Portraits
The psychological penetration of Goya’s portraits is as unsettling as the acid colours of the flamboyant dresses and silk pantaloons of his 18th-century sitters are beguiling. At times, it seems the stylish Georgian portraitist Thomas Gainsborough has got together with the self-taught painter Henri Rousseau to produce pictures at once naive and sophisticated. Bold as brass and brave as a bullfighter, Goya sees people in full with humour, compassion and the force of truth. His portraits chronicle Spain from the optimism of the Enlightenment to the horror of the Peninsular war. Behold the rise and fall of reason.
• National Gallery, London, until 10 January 2016.
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Published on October 09, 2015 09:43