Francisco Goya has long been considered one of the first to be labeled a modern artist. He favoured a very subjective element to his works and provided a pathway for the brilliance of painters such as Picasso and Manet. It would appear that Jake and Dinos Chapman; brothers who usually work exclusively with each other rely at times on artistic appropriation. Their work ‘Great deeds against the dead’ [1A] is an appropriation of one of Francisco Goya’s ‘Disaster of War’ etching prints. The series was Goya’s horrifyingly accurate portrayal of the horrors he had witnessed in the Peninsular war between Spain and France during 1808 - 1814. The work in question is a replication of ‘Plate 39: Grande hazaña! Con muertos!’ (A heroic feat! With dead men!) The graphic etchings were deemed too gory to be released during Goya’s lifetime, so were first published in 1863.
The work, which was originally their contribution to the ‘Sensation’ exhibition at the Royal Academy, was renamed ‘Great deeds against the dead’ (1994), and has been dubbed a ‘rectification’ of Goya’s earlier etches, and is overwhelmed with their own distinctive trade of somewhat pornographic surrealism. Goya’s use of art as provocation is what’s first thought to have sparked such a great and furiously obsessive interest from the Chapman’s; Jake Chapman has said, ‘Our work proceeds more by compulsion than by inspiration’. The Chapman’s, a much integral tool of Charles Sattchi’s Young British Artists movement, have long been known for their use of forceful shock tactics. The use of appropriation in this work can be judged from many angles; Goya’s works are a compelling anti-patriotic masterpiece that have been experienced not as a historic but a contemporary work of art; the images embody a sense of urgency and a demand to seek the truth. Goya’s works are ones that have never lost their power to shock. So much so, they were not published during his lifetime; not until 35 years after his death. Goya was one of the first to reveal and strip away the chivalry and idealism so apparent in earlier representations of war. He allowed succeeding generations of artists to witness war through his eyes, and as a result they have recognised in his disaster series a template for their own.
The Chapman’s incessant need to shock viewers with outrageous and often offensive works of art could be their goal, an audience in which they include themselves; the liberal, the humanist and the gallery going upper middle classes. According to the Chapman’s, Goya’s unflinching aesthetic was ahead of its time; they praised him as ‘the first modern artist to have psychological and political depth’. There are a number of reasons why these works differ and their meanings are so vastly different; the most obvious being the time in which they were completed. It is difficult to wrap our heads around the thought that during this point in time, a point when political correctness has literally gone mad, the Chapman brothers are no longer bound by the same restrictions Goya once was. If anything, they are allowed to test the waters and push the boundaries of contemporary art to a new level.
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