Francisco Goya (1746 - 1828) was a Spanish painter and printmaker, the most important Spanish artist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. [1] He served as principal painter to the Spanish crown while producing print series and late paintings of extraordinary darkness and invention. He is commonly described as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns, and his treatment of war, superstition and human cruelty influenced generations of later artists. [2]
Early life and training
Goya was born on 30 March 1746 in Fuendetodos, a village in Aragon, and grew up in Zaragoza, where his father worked as a gilder. He studied under the painter José Luzán and at the local academy, and twice failed to win a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. [1]
Around 1770 he travelled to Italy at his own expense, studying in Rome. On his return he worked on frescoes for the Basilica of the Pillar in Zaragoza and in 1773 married Josefa Bayeu, sister of the court painter Francisco Bayeu, whose patronage opened the way to Madrid.
Court painter
From 1775 Goya designed cartoons for the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Bárbara, producing scenes of Spanish popular life that established his reputation. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1780, appointed painter to the king in 1786, and became First Court Painter under Charles IV in 1799. [3]
His portraits of the royal family, aristocracy and intellectual circles are notable for their psychological directness. Charles IV of Spain and His Family presents its sitters with a candour that has been read as unsparing, and the paired Maja paintings brought him before the Inquisition. [1]
Illness and the Caprichos
In 1793 Goya suffered a severe illness that left him permanently deaf. The isolation that followed coincided with a marked change in his work toward the imaginative and the disturbing. [2]
In 1799 he published Los Caprichos, a series of eighty aquatint etchings satirising superstition, clerical abuse, ignorance and social convention. The best known plate carries the caption "The sleep of reason produces monsters." Facing the risk of Inquisition proceedings, Goya withdrew the series from sale and later presented the plates to the crown. [3]
War and the Disasters
The French invasion of 1808 and the Peninsular War transformed Goya's subject matter. The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808, painted in 1814, depict the Madrid uprising and the summary execution of Spanish civilians by French troops. The latter is often identified as the first modern painting of war, refusing heroic convention in favour of terror and anonymity. [4]
The print series Los Desastres de la Guerra, made during and after the conflict but not published until 1863, records atrocity, famine and mutilation with documentary bluntness. [1]
Black Paintings and final years
Between 1819 and 1823 Goya covered the walls of his house outside Madrid, known as the Quinta del Sordo, with fourteen murals now called the Black Paintings, including Saturn Devouring His Son. Painted directly onto plaster and never intended for exhibition, they were transferred to canvas after his death and are held in the Museo del Prado. [3]
Uneasy under the restored absolutist rule of Ferdinand VII, Goya moved in 1824 to Bordeaux, where he continued to work in lithography and painting. He died there on 16 April 1828. [1]
Legacy
Goya's influence runs through Romanticism, Realism, Expressionism and Surrealism, and his war imagery remains a reference point for artists treating political violence. [2]
