A freedom fighter, Francis de Goya: Shared character of Bangladesh and Spain

During this month of October, the Bengal Art Gallery will display the prints of the very renowned Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828). The exhibition has been organised by the Embassy of Spain with the co-financing of the Inditex Chair of Spanish, an undertaking established in Dhaka University by our very well known textile multinational, owner of Zara shops. The prints belong to the Spanish National Museum of Engravings.
There are three Spanish painters that are above all our masters: Velazquez, Goya and Picasso. The Bengal Gallery in Dhamondi will exhibit 84 engravings of Goya of the various series of his work: critic of social customs (Caprichos); the disasters of war; the art of bullfighting. These selected works show well the originality and uniqueness of the talent of the artist. Goya excelled in several aspects of painting, as was the case in his portraits of some of the most relevant European politicians and military men of the time, like the royal Bourbon family or General Wellington. Or in the outstanding and exquisite Rococo cartoons for Royal Tapestry, where he represented pleasurable and vivid descriptions of day to day life of popular types and scenes his time: children, bull fighting, peasantry parties, popular beauties. Very few painters have achieved the lightness of colour, freshness, spontaneity and dynamism of Goya in those delicate tapestries.
But in it is his prints where his most profound and uncompromised talent lies. In the "Disasters of war," his innovative design is used to protest against atrocities, starvation and degradation of human beings. In the "Caprichos," as a follower of the Enlightenment and the nascent Liberalism, he denounced all sort of follies in the traditional popular customs, the common prejudices, the brutality of ignorance and self-interest. Being a true reformer, he never had a complacent view to the vices of society and persistently attacked them, none of the social classes being spared.
A recognised and talented painter, admired and loved by the royalty and the aristocracy of his time, he did not grant himself an easy life, as he was an independent personality who could not renounce his liberal beliefs or accept easily any form of authoritarian rule. This is why he neither sided with the French invaders in the Independence War of Spain against Napoleonic troops, in spite of his ideological proximity with them, nor could later accept the return of absolutism, choosing to spend his last years in exile in Bordeaux.
All these aspects of his personality are strikingly present in the engravings to be displayed in Dhaka. The Bangladeshi public will find many familiar motifs in Goya, as he was a freedom fighter as well. The desire for social reformation, the rejection of atrocities of war, the spirit of liberty, are all well present in Bangladesh, as they have been for centuries in the Spanish people, and they appear so creatively defended and represented by Goya.
This exhibition of Goya's works has been presented in some of the most important cities of the world, and only very recently in Beijing. By financing this exhibition, even in times of economic tightness in our country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain demonstrates its strong interest in the warm and rising relations between our two countries. Spain admires the economic progress, democratic system and growing political stability of Bangladesh. Because of this development, Spain is now one of the main European destinations of garments from Bangladesh. At the same time, our companies are increasingly considering Bangladesh as an emerging economy, full of opportunities. Only in the last 12 months, Spanish firms have obtained contracts to construct power plants for around 1,000 MW. In the textile sector, Inditex is one of the main Spanish multinationals in this country. They sell items of almost 150 Bangladeshi factories and contribute decisively to the employment of around 200,000 workers. The Muslim culture is another strong linkage between our two countries, as Spain remained a Muslim country for more than eight centuries of his history.
This exhibition is doubtless one further step forward in our relations. It will be framed within a "Spanish Week," as October 12 is our National Day, and the Westin Hotel has been so kind as to organise a Spanish gastronomic week from the 13th on. In this last case, a firm with close links with Spain, but Bangladeshi, Indesore, has organised, together with Westin, the visit to Bangladesh of two eminent cooks and a group of Flamenco musicians and dancers.

The writer is the Ambassador of Spain to Bangladesh.