To continue from my last story, I was talking to a friend in the program who also goes to UCLA and took a few classes on Velasquez and Goya and said that our guide was telling the pro government side of the paintings. Apparently Velasquez's paintings were commissioned by the king but they were criticizing and making fun of him and he didn't know it. The king would hang all of Velasquez's work in his castle and didn't know they were criticizing him through symbolism. Similarly, much of Goya's work was critical of the political situation of his time with regards to the king and queen's greed, their persecution of women as witches without proof, to name a few. Our guide did not tell us any of these theories and skipped the ones that were clearly critical of the king and queen.... Question everything.
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