For the bold technique of his paintings, the haunting
satire of his etchings, and his belief that the artist's vision is
more important than tradition, Goya is often called "the first of
the moderns." His uncompromising portrayal of his
times marks the beginning of 19th-century realism.
Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes was born on
March 30, 1746, in Fuendetodos, a village in northern Spain. The
family later moved to Saragossa, where Goya's father worked as a gilder.
At about 14 young Goya was apprenticed
to Jose Luzan, a local painter. Later he went to Italy to continue
his study of art. On returning to Saragossa in 1771,
he painted frescoes for the local cathedral. These works, done in
the decorative rococo tradition, established Goya's
artistic reputation. In 1773 he married Josefa Bayeu, sister of Saragossa
artist Francisco Bayeu. The couple had
many children, but only one-a son, Xavier- survived to adulthood.
From 1775 to 1792 Goya painted cartoons (designs)
for the royal tapestry factory in Madrid. This was the most
important period in his artistic development. As a tapestry designer,
Goya did his first genre paintings, or scenes
from everyday life.
The experience helped him become a keen observer
of human behavior. He was also influenced by neoclassicism,
which was gaining favor over the rococo style. Finally, his study
of the works of Velazquez in the royal collection
resulted in a looser, more spontaneous painting technique.
At the same time, Goya achieved his first popular
success. He became established as a portrait painter to the Spanish
aristocracy. He was elected to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in
1780, named painter to the king in 1786, and
made a court painter in 1789.
A serious illness in 1792 left Goya permanently
deaf. Isolated from others by his deafness, he became increasingly
occupied with the fantasies and inventions of his imagination and
with critical and satirical observations of mankind.
He evolved a bold, fee new style close to caricature. In 1799 he published
the Caprichos, a series of etchings
satirizing human folly and weakness. His portraits became penetrating
characterizations, revealing their subjects as
Goya saw them. In his religious frescoes he employed a broad, free
style and an earthy realism unprecedented in
religious art.
Goya served as director of painting at the Royal
Academy from 1795 to 1797 and was appointed first Spanish court
painter in 1799. During the Napoleonic invasion and the Spanish war
of independence from 1808 to 1814, Goya
served as court painter to the French. He expressed his horror of
armed conflict in The Disasters of War, a series of
starkly realistic etchings on the atrocities of war. Thery were not
published until 1863, long after Goya's death.
Upon the restoration of the Spanish monarchy,
Goya was pardoned for serving the French, but his work was not
favored by the new king. He was called before the Inquisition to explain
his earlier portrait of The Naked Maja, one
of the few nudes in Spanish art at that time.
In 1816 he published his etchings on bullfighting,
called the Tauromaquia. From 1819 to 1824 Goya lived in
seclusion in a house outside Madrid. Free from court restrictions,
he adopted an increasingly personal style. In the
Black Paintings, executed on the walls of his house, Goya gave expression
to his darkest visions. A similar
nightmarish quality haunts the satirical Disparates, a series of etchings
also called Proverbios.
In 1824, after the failure of an attempt to restore
liberal government, Goya went into voluntary exile in France. He
settled in Bordeaux, continuing to work until his death there on April
16, 1828. Today many of his best paintings
hang in Madrid's Prado art museum.
Source: WebMuseum
