Francisco Goya - Crazy Like a Genius

Written and presented by renowned art critic Robert Hughes, Crazy Like A Genius explores the world of Francisco Goya: charting his achievements as a court painter, satirist and war reporter, as well as a topographer of the inner self - of madness, fear and despair.

This program offers a detailed visual and intellectual analysis of Goya masterpieces, including Witches in the Air, The Third of May and The Dream of Reason, as well as examples of his early work and portraiture such as The Duchess of Alba, The Nude Maja and The Clothed Maja.

Hughes gives an insight into the enormous changes that took place in Goya s work in the course of his life: the shift from light to dark.

In Spain, he travels to Goya s native Aragon and in Madrid he is seen visiting galleries, palaces and churches where Goya s works are on display. In New York Hughes calls on the American painter, Leon Golub, who shares his fascination for Goya, and elicits a contemporary artist s perspective on the Spanish master s work.

Hughes professes himself incapable of summing up Goya s achievements neatly, but concludes that to meet Goya is still to meet ourselves.

One of those rare programs where you feel afterwards as if a layer of dead skin has been stripped from your eyeballs and your powers of perception have shot up accordingly