Gola maja
The famous painter Mariano Renovales, the son of a blacksmith, rises to fame in Rome, Paris and Madrid. Obsessed with his love for women and art, he paints his "Naked Maya", which leads to drama, jealousy and conflict.
The Naked Maya (1906) is a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, one of the most important Spanish writers of realism and naturalism. The novel is a powerful story from the artistic life that follows the fate of Mariano Renovales, a talented painter who rises from humble beginnings to European fame.
After success in Rome and Paris, he returns to Madrid where his private and artistic lives become dramatically intertwined. Obsessed with the beauty and body of his wife Josefina, he paints a nude that causes scandal and is reminiscent of Goya's famous The Naked Maya.
Blasco Ibáñez masterfully depicts the world of artists – bohemian life, passions, jealousies, the conflict between the ideal of beauty and marital reality, and the tension between artistic freedom and social norms. The novel abounds in sensual descriptions, psychological portraits, and sharp criticism of Spanish society at the beginning of the 20th century.
In its time, the novel caused great attention and scandal because readers recognized real people from the Madrid artistic circle in the characters. It is considered one of Ibáñez's most successful works from the so-called "erotic trilogy" of romance novels.
One copy is available
- Worn covers
