A There are, according to current scholarship, 1600 existing portraits by Francisco de Goya—about a third of his painted output. The real number, though, is much greater since there are no pure landscapes in Goya’s work; in that everything he ever painted deals with people. In the work of no other great portraitist is a nation’s people, history, traumas, folk traditions and superstitions so comprehensively and relentlessly captured. His subject was a good one since Goya lived in interesting times: his lifetime was a period that saw Spain pass through the effects of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and the restoration of the monarchy; it was ruled by a succession of authoritarian and liberal governments; and was simultaneously marked by the Enlightenment. Put his work together—the public and private paintings, the sporting scenes and sketches, the unsettling and sinister etchings—and what you have is a portrait in the round of Spain itself.

B His work as a portraitist has its origins in the 45 tapestry cartoons he painted after he moved to Madrid in 1775. Although his designs don’t show portraits, they do show types—the majos and majas who gave Madrid its street swagger, peasants and rich men, courting couples, singers, hunters, children, and young men and women playing blind man’s buff or tossing a mangled onion in the air. The pictures have a light, rococo palette and the faces are individualised without being those of individuals. But in them, Goya practised poses and groupings and a way of handling light on and around figures that was to be invaluable.

C The tapestry designs also show social roles rather than the people inhabiting them, but when it came to painting portraits properly, Goya would turn this on its head. His greatest strength as a portraitist is that regardless of the sitter, be they a king and queen, the Duke of Wellington, or a doctor or writer, it was the person he showed first and the position second. It was this trait, most apparent in his royal portraiture, that has led him to be seen as satirising the Bourbon monarchy rather than as a painter who was simply expected to be the usual flattering conventions. In Robert Hughes’s phrase, he did not ‘pay reflexive homage to authority’ but instead walked a fine line between respect and truth.

D Goya’s success was rapid: in 1785 he was made deputy director of painting at the Royal Academy (his main message to his students was subversive—‘there are no rules in painting’) and in 1786 became painter to the camera, required to paint works required for royal service. He immediately spent some of his 15,000-reales salary on a two-weekend trip (one of only three in Madrid) which he promptly crashed on his first outing. His amour propre untouched, he wrote to his childhood friend Martín Zapater: ‘I have now established an enviable way of living: I do not wait on anyone in antechambers, and if anyone wants anything from me they must come to me; I have made myself more in demand and unless it is a person of rank or at the request of a friend I would do nothing for anyone…’

E Part of the reason for his success was that, unlike Gainsborough, for example, he did not resent portraiture as an economically necessary chore that ate away at the time he could devote to higher art. Portraiture fascinated him; it was, after all, part of that ‘sacred science’ which requires so much study, and his portraits reveal a fully engaged artist. There is hardly any repetition in his poses (to help, he drew on prints of English portraits as well as classical statuary), he worked hard to give his sitters in repose a sense of latent movement, and his portraits reveal a playful depiction of the space around them. When it came to clothing he allowed himself extraordinary freedom, the frogging on uniforms or lace on a dress sketched in thick impasto rather than being laboriously defined. From close up such three-dimensional scumblings look out of focus but from a distance, they coalesce into silks, braiding, and gauze. Such varieties of technique within a painting keep the eye entertained and moving.

F ‘My work is very simple. My art reveals idealism and truth,’ Goya claimed. The truth, though, is always more apparent than the idealism. In the most important commission of his career, for example, the portrait of Charles IV and the royal family of 1800, he eschewed entirely the grandeur of majesty to portray the assembled Bourbons as they appeared—a motley grouping (a French visitor had likened Charles and his queen Maria Luisa to a butcher and his wife) in fancy clothes. Goya may have been a political liberal but he wouldn’t have jeopardised his hard-won new position as first court painter—the first Spaniard since Velázquez to hold the role—in order to score political points at the expense of his patrons. That his sitters didn’t regard the portrait as unflattering was evidenced by succeeding royal commissions, not least his 1815 portrait of Ferdinand VII. Ferdinand himself was physically unprepossessing, tyrannical, vicious and small-minded, and it is exactly how Goya shows him. The king, however, looking in Goya’s particular mirror, saw no such characteristics staring back at him.

G The private side of Goya’s portraiture was a world away from the public. The contrast between the Ferdinand portrait and the remarkable 1820 double portrait showing Goya with Dr Arrieta, represents a moral reversal. The former is of a man—the 73-year-old painter in the throes of a debilitating illness being tended by his doctor. If Ferdinand represents human malignity and Goya his frailty, then Arrieta stands in as innate kindness. While not all his portraits are successful (some have a doll-like stiffness), this is what Goya at his best could do: in the guise of representing individuals he showed, without judging, man as a universal being.

A The Examinations School at Oxford University is where, last August, 34 contestants gathered at the World Memory Championships. It is an impressive historical venue, known for its austere yet grandiose setting of oak-panelled rooms, large Gothic windows, and looming portraits of eminent dukes and earls. It is here that generations of Oxford students have been tested in their final exams on their memory and knowledge, and it is here that these contestants were challenged to demonstrate their exceptional memorising abilities. Reciting poems, memorising digit sequences, and recalling faces from photographs are just a few of the tasks that test the limits of human memory in this competitive setting.

B They are using a technique known as the loci method, reportedly originating in 477 BC with the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos. He was able to memorize the guest list at a dinner by closing his eyes and recalling each individual around the table. The loci method, which was rediscovered and popularized by Simonides, has become an integral part of historical and modern memory training. This method involves associating items to be remembered with specific physical locations, creating a mental map that facilitates recall. After Simonides’s discovery, the loci method became widely embraced across ancient Greece, serving as a fundamental technique for orators and scholars. It was so effective that it was incorporated into educational curricula and became a cornerstone of rhetorical training. Aristotle wrote favourably about it, recognizing its value and effectiveness. Later, a number of treatises on the art of memory were published in Rome, further cementing its importance and utility in memory training. This method not only aids in memorization but also enhances the ability to retrieve information by navigating through these mental loci, effectively walking through a structured memory palace.

C One memory champion, Ed Cooke, can memorize the order of ten decks of playing cards in less than one hour. Psychologists Elizabeth Valentine and John Wilding have teamed up with Eleanor Maguire to study how memory champions like Cooke operate differently from average individuals. Their collaboration aims to explore the neural underpinnings that might explain the exceptional memory skills exhibited by competitors in high-pressure environments such as memory championships. When the researchers analyzed the brain scans from the number memorization, they found that the memory champions were activating some brain regions that were different from those the control subjects were using. These regions are known to be involved in visual memory and spatial navigation.

D To enable himself to memorize quickly, Ed Cooke has memorized a specific human being, verb, and object that he associates with every card in the deck. This detailed and highly personalized system allows him to rapidly encode and decode information during competitions. When Cooke commits a deck to memory, he does three cards in one go, with every three-card group forming a composite picture of a person doing something to an object. This method not only enhances the memorization process but also makes the recall process faster and more efficient. He then places those images along a specific familiar path in his mind, creating a vivid mental journey that he can easily traverse. When it comes to recall, Cooke takes a mental walk along this route and translates the images into cards, effectively and efficiently converting his vivid mental images back into the specific order of the deck. This innovative approach to memory exercises showcases the extraordinary capabilities of mental athletes and the sophisticated strategies they employ to achieve their remarkable feats.

E The term ‘photographic memory’ is frequently used to describe people with exceptional recall. Yet most researchers agree there is no proof that such a memory truly exists. If it is indeed a myth, it highlights how learned strategies are often more effective than natural talent. The belief in ‘photographic memory’ remains a point of contention among the public and scientists alike. Despite the absence of solid scientific evidence, this myth endures, reflecting how society’s fascination with remarkable memory tends to ignore the practical techniques that trained individuals use.

F The most renowned of the naturals was the Russian journalist S. V. Shereshevsky, who could remember long sequences of numbers learned decades before, as well as poems, strings of meaningless syllables, and nearly anything else he was asked to recall. Shereshevsky also experienced synesthesia, a rare sensory condition where the senses are interconnected, which significantly improved his memorization ability. His skills were not limited to these accomplishments; his remarkable memory covered an almost endless range of information, making him a figure of great interest and study. This synesthetic trait not only made his memorization tasks easier but also made vivid and long-lasting. His case has been extensively examined, as it offers deep insights into the potential of human memory when enhanced by neurological variations.

G K. Anders Ericsson, a well-known psychologist, claims that anyone can develop memory abilities comparable to those of memory champions through consistent practice and proper techniques. During two years of experimentation, S. V. Shereshevsky increased his ability to recall numbers from seven to over eighty. This led Ericsson to conclude that there is nothing as an innately superior memory. When he revisited original case reports of natural memorizers, he discovered that their remarkable abilities were actually based on the use of specific techniques—sometimes unconsciously—combined with extensive practice. Strategies are usually outstanding at remembering only certain kinds of material, whereas naturals exhibit strong memory across many types of tasks and can retain those memories more easily.