The Fear (Homage to Francisco Goya) 1987

Here’s Corneliu Baba, paying homage to Goya in this painting filled with dark, brooding color. It’s like he's wrestling with the weight of history and art itself. I imagine Baba layering these figures one by one. Each face is like a mask of anxiety and despair. See the way he builds up the texture, like a thick skin of paint, especially around the eyes. There’s a lot of fear and tension in this picture. Those smudgy figures in the background, the hooded shapes closing in, are definitely looming. It’s not just about illustrating fear, but about making fear physical. That feeling of being cornered, exposed, vulnerable, Baba understood that deeply, and he puts it right there on the canvas. Thinking about it, artists have always borrowed, stolen, and riffed off each other. It’s a conversation across time.