Goya, one of the immortals of art, was also a fallible mortal. He was involved in the fate of Spain at a turning point in his country's history; and the story of his love for the Duchess of Alba, Spain's great lady in those years, reflects his human complexity as well as his artistic greatness. The Duchess, lively and brilliant, "bad and beautiful," was the subject of two of his most controversial canvases, the Maja Nude and the Maja Clothed. She is one of those perversely attractive heroines who occur only rarely in life; their relationship was the explosive coming-together of two impetuous personalities. It was a romance in the great tradition, a public scandal even in scandalous Madrid.