The hermitage of Saint Isidor
Francisco Goya·1798
Historical Context
The Hermitage of Saint Isidore was painted around 1798, depicting the popular pilgrimage site near Madrid on the feast day of the city's patron saint. The painting captures the vast panoramic landscape of the Manzanares valley with tiny figures streaming toward the hermitage, rendered with a luminous atmospheric quality that anticipates Impressionism. This is a cabinet painting, not a tapestry cartoon, and belongs to the group of works Goya produced for the Osuna family's country house, the Alameda. The same subject would later receive a radically different treatment in the Black Paintings, where the pilgrimage becomes a nightmarish procession. The contrast between the two versions spans Goya's entire artistic and psychological evolution.
Technical Analysis
Goya renders the hermitage scene with atmospheric breadth, using the panoramic format and warm light to capture the landscape and gathering with the observational skill of his mature period.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the panoramic scale: Goya's atmospheric panorama of the Manzanares valley uses the wide format to create a sense of Madrid's landscape rather than just a foreground scene.
- ◆Look at the tiny figures streaming toward the hermitage: placed at distance, they create a sense of the pilgrimage's communal scale without crowding the atmospheric landscape.
- ◆Observe the warm, luminous atmospheric quality: this is Goya's plein-air sensibility at its most pronounced in the tapestry cartoon format.
- ◆Find the contrast with the Black Paintings version: the same site — San Isidro's hermitage on the Manzanares — treated by Goya in 1788 and again around 1820 shows two completely different worlds.
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