"There is no doubt that Goya thought that one of the drugs chiefly responsible for the sleep of reason was the Church, and he had the lowest possible opinion of ecclesiastical institutions. However, this did not prevent him from painting religious pictures, completely sincerely because, like all Latin people, however little he believed in Christianity, he felt himself to be within the structure of the Catholic Church. One of his finest works was the decoration of a church near Madrid called S. Antonio de la Florida. He used the kind of device that would have appealed to Tiepolo. He painted a balcony round the drum of a cupola, and behind it he put a crowd of loiterers who are supposed to be watching the saint raise a man from the dead. Very few of them are interested in this unusual event. They are interested in each other or themselves, and show very well the curious tension between the individual and the collective, which is the essence of a crowd."
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Ch. 3: Goya
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Kenneth Clark
Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark of Saltwood, OM, CH, KCB, FBA (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was an English art historian and director of London's National Gallery (1934–1945) who is remembered for his television series Civilisation first broadcast in 1969.
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