Francisco de Goya | artist | 1746 - 1828 | National Gallery, London £ other Make this a monthly donation [{"Amount":10.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-06-21T09:56:01","DonorDisplayName":"Jane DALY","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":2.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"A national treasure that needs supporting"},{"Amount":8.3800,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-09-06T21:24:18","DonorDisplayName":"Andreas","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"EUR","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"It is great to visit for free such a prestigious museum.

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This is to say thank you for your daily guided tours and the free activities you run for children."},{"Amount":5.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-08-19T23:36:01","DonorDisplayName":"Fangbin Liu","DonorLocalAmount":5.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"I like to donate because I love this great museum and the great masterpieces kept in it."},{"Amount":10.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-15T16:27:55","DonorDisplayName":"Janet Scott","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":2.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"The wonderful National Gallery deserves all the support it can get."},{"Amount":2.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-10-25T09:01:

14","DonorDisplayName":"Richard Roberts","DonorLocalAmount":2.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"I hope this small contribution will allow you to continue your excellent work"}] Francisco de Goya Go to artist A-Z Goya was the leading Spanish painter and etcher of the late 18th century, and court painter to Charles III, Charles IV and Ferdinand VII of Spain.

His work ranges from the Rococo style of his early tapestry cartoons for the royal tapestry works to the sombre Romanticism in which he recorded the atrocities of the Peninsular Wars, and to the 'black' paintings with which he decorated his own house. In addition to portraits, frescoes and tapestry cartoons, he was known for small paintings of theatrical subjects, like the Gallery's 'El Hechizado por Fuerza' . Goya was born at Fuendetodos, near Saragossa, and trained by José Luzán in Saragossa (1760) and by Francisco Bayeu in Madrid (1766). He visited Italy in 1771. By 1775 he had settled in Madrid. In 1786 he was appointed court painter to King Charles III, but was made First Painter to Charles IV in 1799. In 1792, after a severe illness, he became deaf. Goya also painted the famous clothed and nude 'Majas' (Madrid, Prado), in response to the 'Rokeby Venus' by Velázquez (in the Gallery).

Goya witnessed the atrocities of the Peninsular War, and the subsequent political repression, and recorded them in his later works, such as 3rd May 1808. He went into exile in Bordeaux in 1824, where he died in 1828. Share this artist Goya, Francisco - Park West Gallery SHARE Francisco Goya (1746-1828) Famed artist Francisco Goya, often considered to be among the last of the Old Masters, created numerous paintings, etchings, drawings and lithographs. He served as a court painter to Spanish and Napoleonic rulers and uncompromisingly captured the horrors of war and the darker side of human nature. Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746 in the small village of Fuendetodos in northern Spain, though the family would soon move to Saragossa. Goya’s introduction to the arts began at an early age. At fourteen, he entered an apprenticeship with local artist José Luján, later moving to Madrid where he studied with Anton Raphael Mengs.

In 1771, he returned to Saragossa, where he painted Rococo frescos for a local cathedral, gaining him early notoriety. In Madrid, Goya worked in the studio of artists and brothers Francisco and Ramón Bayeu y Subías and he married their sister in 1773. In the mid-1770s, Goya began working for the Royal Tapestry Factory in Santa Bárbara, creating preliminary paintings known as tapestry cartoons. This work gained the initial attention of the Spanish royals for whom he would later become court painter. They would also help Goya develop his expertise in the portrayal of human nature in his art. Goya was appointed member of the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1780 and would soon become a favorite of the aristocracy and royals by whom he was commissioned to create numerous portraits. In 1786, Goya became the official painter of King Charles III and was named court painter to his successor, Charles IV, in 1789. In 1792, during a visit to Cádiz in Andalusia, Goya contracted an illness which would leave the artist permanently deaf.

This turn of events would profoundly affect Goya’s life and art. He spent much of his recuperation over the next few years in isolation and during this time, he read and observed the events and philosophies of the French Revolution. He created a series of etchings portraying the crueler side of human nature – particularly criticizing Spanish society in the 18th century – in a darker, freer, and more satirical style for which Goya would later become known. The series of eighty prints, called “Los Caprichos” (“The Caprices”), was completed and published in 1799. That same year, Goya was promoted to first court painter by the monarchy and was also commissioned to produce numerous society portraits. His portraiture was noted for its unapologetic realism, refusing to flatter his subjects in his work. In 1808, Napoleon’s army invaded Spain and Goya was named court painter to the French. When the Spanish monarchy was restored in 1814 Goya was pardoned for his work with the French but Ferdinand VII did not enjoy Goya’s art and the artist no longer painted for the crown.

From 1810 – 1820, Goya created an 80-piece series of etchings, capturing in often horrifying detail the atrocities of the French/Spanish conflict, titled “Los Desastres de la Guerra” (“The Disasters of War”). The series would not be published until 1863, decades after Goya’s death. During this time, his wife, Josefa, also died. In 1816, Goya created etchings on bullfighting, called “Tauromaquia” and between 1816 and 1824, Goya created another series of etchings critiquing human nature, “Los Proverbios,” also called “Los Disparates.” From 1819 to 1824, Goya retreated into deeper seclusion, purchasing a house outside Madrid called Quinta del Sordo, or “The Deaf Man’s House,” though the name was acquired during the previous owner’s residence. Here Goya created “The Black Paintings,” a series of nightmarish works executed on the walls of the house.

Discontent with the political state in Spain, Goya left Spain for France in 1824, settling in Bordeaux. Here, Goya began to explore the printmaking form of lithography. Goya created some of the first masterpieces in the medium – a series on the subject of bullfighting. Francisco Goya died in Bordeaux on April 16, 1828. His works continue to be avidly collected worldwide by both private and public art lovers and are also featured in numerous exhibitions, retrospectives, and permanent museum collections, including the Museo del Prado in Madrid, which display many of his works. Goya’s work would inspire artists for generations to come and his unflinching portrayal of the world around him served as a precursor to the realism of 19th century art. GALLERY Read More Own a Piece of Art History with the Holiday Sale Have you ever been in a museum admiring artwork by a master artist and thought, “What would it be like to own this? How would it look in my living ... Read More Halloween Art Gallery Showcases Different Sides of the Holiday Happy Halloween!

Whether it's the thrill of a good scare or the love of a fantasy world, everyone has a different reason to celebrate Halloween.Ranging from creepy to comical, here ... Read More Know Your Art – Mediums and Techniques Art - you either get it, or you don't, right? There is no in-between. You're either gifted with the know-how of all things higher and nobler or you're a skeptic ... Francisco de Goya Biography - Oil Painting Reproductions Francisco de Goya (1746 - 1828) Goya was born in a very poor village called Fuendetodos, near Saragossa, in Aragon, on 30 March 1746. Goyaï¿½s father was a gilder in Saragossa and it was there that Goya spent his childhood and adolescence. He began his artistic studies at the age of 13 with a local artist, Josï¿½ Lusï¿½n, who had trained in Naples and who taught Goya to draw, to copy engravings and to paint in oils.

In 1763 and 1766, he competed unsuccessfully for a scholarship of the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, probably working in the studio of the Court Painter Francisco Bayeu, who was also from Saragossa. To continue his studies he went to Rome at his own expense. In April of 1771 he participated in a competition held by the Academy of Parma introducing himself as a pupil of Francisco Bayeu. By the end of 1771, Goya was back in Saragossa, where he received his first official commission, the frescoes in the Cathedral of El Pilar. In 1773 Goya married Josefa Bayeu, sister of Francisco Bayeu. In 1774, the German artist Anton Raphael Mengs summoned Goya to Madrid to paint cartoons for tapestries for the Royal Factory of Santa Barbara. It is possible that Goya first met Mengs in Rome, since many years later he wrote that it was Mengs who made him return to Spain. In any event, it was Mengs who started him on his career at court.

Under the direction first of Mengs, and later of Francisco Bayeu and Mariano Maella, Goya executed over 60 tapestry cartoons between 1775 and 1792, see e.g. Fight at the Cock Inn, The Parasol, La Cometa. In 1780, Goya was elected a member of the Royal Academy of San Fernando. In 1780-81, he worked on the frescoes of El Pilar in Saragossa. On his return to Madrid he received the royal invitation to paint one of seven large altarpieces for the newly built church of San Francisco el Grande. The Kingï¿½s opinion of his work must have been favorable, because in 1785, a year after the paintings were first shown to the public, Goya was appointed Deputy Director of Painting in the Academy. In 1786, he became a court painter.

Among Goyaï¿½s early admirers and most important patrons during a period of 20 years were the Duke and Duchess of Osuna, who commissioned not only portraits of themselves and a family group but also a number of paintings to decorate their country residence near Madrid, the Alameda Palace, known as El Capricho. Among other paintings for the Duke of Osuna are two altarpieces, commissioned in 1788 for the chapel of his ancestors, St. Francis Borgia, in Valencia Cathedral. In 1783-85, Goya painted a number of portraits of the influential persons of his time: the portrait of the Chief Minister of State, the Count of Floridablanca, in which Goya himself appears; the family portrait of the Infante Don Luis, the Kingï¿½s brother, with himself again in the picture; the court architect, Ventura Rodriguez. In 1785, he was commissioned for a series of portraits of offices of the Banco Nacional de San Carlos. In these early official portraits, Goya adopted conventional XVIII century poses. His portrait of Charles III in Hunting Costume is based directly on Velasquezï¿½s paintings of royal huntsmen.

The death of Charles III in 1788, and the outbreak of the French Revolution, brought to an end the period of comparative prosperity and enlightenment in Spain during which Goya had reached maturity. Under the rule of the weak Charles IV and his unscrupulous Queen, Marï¿½a Luisa, Spain fell into political and social corruption, which ended with the Napoleonic invasion of Spain. Under the new regime Goya reached the height of his career as the most fashionable and successful artist in Spain. The new King raised him to the rank of Court Painter in 1789. During a visit to Andalusia towards the end of 1792, Goya was struck down by a long and serious illness of which the effect, as he wrote even a year later, made him, ï¿½At times rage with so ill a humor that he could not tolerate himselfï¿½. The nature of the illness is not known for certain but it caused temporary paralysis and partial blindness and left him permanently deaf, so that henceforth he could only communicate by writing and sign language. He returned to Madrid in the summer of 1793.

After the death of Francisco Bayeu in 1795, Goya succeeded his former teacher as Director of Painting in the Academy (but resigned for reasons of health two years later), and in 1799 was appointed First Court Painter. In 1799, Goya published the series of 80 etchings called Los Caprichos, bitter caricatures of life. Despite the veiled language of Los Caprichos they were withdrawn from sale after a few days. From the time of their ascension until 1800, Charles IV and Marï¿½a Luisa sat for him on many occasions, and many replicas were made of his portraits of them. He painted them in various costumes and poses, ranging from the early decorative portraits in full regalia in the tradition of Mengs to the simpler and more natural compositions in the manner of Velï¿½zquez. Goya was 62 years old when the Napoleonic invasion of Spain started in 1808, and Spain was subjected to six years of war and revolution.

Goya was in Madrid during the tragic events of 2 and 3 May 1808 when the population rose against the French and the uprising was savagely repressed. He later, in 1814, recorded the events in two of the most famous of his paintings The Second of May, 1808: The Charge of Mamelukes. and The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid. Meanwhile, with thousands of other heads of families, Goya swore allegiance to the French King, Joseph Bonaparte. During the war he was occupied with portraits of family groups and private citizens. At the time he made his personal record of the war in expressive and fearful drawings Desastres de la Guerra, which were later used for a series of 82 etchings, which were published only in 1863. In August 1812, when the British entered Madrid, Goya accepted a commission for an equestrian portrait of the Duke of Wellington and, soon afterwards, painted one other portrait of his only recorded English sitter.

On the restoration of Ferdinand VII in 1814, Goya resumed his office as First Court Painter. The portraits of Ferdinand were Goyaï¿½s last royal portraits, he went out of favor and fashion. From now on Goya was chiefly occupied with paintings for private patrons, for friends and for himself. He continued to record his observations and ideas in drawings. During this period Goya received two important ecclesiastical commissions for St. Justa and St. Rufina, painted in 1817 for the Seville Cathedral, and for The Last Communion of St. Joseph of Calasanz, painted in 1819 for the church of the Escuelas Pï¿½as de San Antï¿½n in Madrid. As a result of the revolution of 1820 Ferdinand VII was forced to recognize a constitution, but already in 1823 the French army restored the Spanish king to absolute power, and the persecution of the liberals was renewed with greater violence than ever before. Goya, who had made his last appearance at the Academy on 4 April 1820 to swear allegiance to the Constitution, went into hiding early in 1824.

After the declaration of amnesty Goya left Spain. Except for two short visits to Madrid in 1826 and 1827, the painter remained in France, mainly in Bordeaux, for the rest of his life. He died in Bordeaux on 16 April, 1828. CGFA- Bio: Francisco de Goya Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) Special thanks to the Microsoft Corporation for permission to use following biographical information from Microsoft® Encarta '97: Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was an innovative Spanish painter and etcher; one of the triumvirate�including El Greco and Diego Vel�zquez�of great Spanish masters. Much in the art of Goya is derived from that of Vel�zquez, just as much in the art of the 19th-century French master Edouard Manet and the 20th-century genius Pablo Picasso is taken from Goya.

Trained in a mediocre rococo artistic milieu, Goya transformed this often frivolous style and created works, such as the famous Third of May, 1808 (1814, Museo del Prado, Madrid), that have as great an impact today as when they were created. Early Training and First Projects Goya was born in the small Aragonese town of Fuendetodos (near Saragossa) on March 30, 1746. His father was a painter and a gilder of altarpieces, and his mother was descended from a family of minor Aragonese nobility. Facts of Goya's childhood are scarce. He attended school in Saragossa at the Escuelas Pias. Goya's formal artistic education commenced when, at the age of 14, he was apprenticed to a local master, José Luzan, a competent although little-known painter in whose studio Goya spent four years. In 1763 the young artist went to Madrid, where he hoped to win a prize at the Academy of San Fernando (founded 1752).

Although he did not win the desired award, he did make the acquaintance of Francisco Bayeu, an artist also from Arag�n, who was working at the court in the academic manner imported to Spain by the German painter Anton Raphael Mengs. Bayeu (the brother of Goya's wife) was influential in forming Goya's early style and was responsible for his participation in an important commission, the fresco decoration (1771, 1780-1782) of the Church of the Virgin in El Pilar in Saragossa. In 1771 Goya went to Italy for approximately one year. His activity there is relatively obscure; he spent some months in Rome and also entered a composition at the Parma Academy competition, in which he was successful. Returning to Spain about 1773, Goya participated in several other fresco projects, including that for the Charterhouse of Aula Dei, near Saragossa, in 1774, where his paintings prefigure those of his greatest fresco project, executed in the Church of San Antonio de la Florida, Madrid, in 1798.

It was at this time that Goya began to do prints after paintings by Vel�zquez, who would remain, along with Rembrandt, his greatest source of inspiration. Years as Court Painter By 1786 Goya was working in an official capacity for King Charles III, the most enlightened Spanish monarch of the 18th century. Goya was appointed first court painter in 1799. His tapestry cartoons executed in the late 1780s and early 1790s were highly praised for their candid views of everyday Spanish life. With these cartoons Goya revolutionized the tapestry industry, which, until that time, had slavishly reproduced the Flemish genre scenes of the 17th-century painter David Teniers. Some of Goya's most beautiful portraits of his friends, members of the court, and the nobility date from the 1780s. Works such as Marquesa de Pontejos (1786?, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.) show that Goya was then painting in an elegant manner somewhat reminiscent of the style of his English contemporary Thomas Gainsborough.

Etchings and Later Paintings In the winter of 1792, while on a visit to southern Spain, Goya contracted a serious disease that left him totally deaf and marked a turning point in his career. A mood of pessimism entered Goya's work. Between 1797 and 1799 he drew and etched the first of his great print series Los caprichos (The Caprices), which, in their satirical humor, mock the social mores and superstitions of the time. Later series, such as Désastres de la guerra (Disasters of War, 1810) and Disparates (Absurdities, 1820-1823), present more caustic commentaries on the ills and follies of humanity. The horrors of warfare were of great concern to Goya, who observed firsthand the battles between French soldiers and Spanish citizens during the bloody years of the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. In 1814 he completed Second of May, 1808 and Third of May, 1808 (both Prado).

These paintings depict horrifying and dramatically brutal massacres of groups of unarmed Spanish street fighters by French soldiers. Both are painted, like so many later pictures by Goya, in thick, bold strokes of dark color punctuated by brilliant yellow and red highlights. Straightforward candor and honesty are also present in Goya's later portraits, such as Family of Charles IV (1800, Museo del Prado), in which the royal family is shown in a completely unidealized fashion, verging on caricature, as a group of strikingly homely individuals. Final Works The Black Paintings, scenes of witchcraft and other bizarre activities, are among the most outstanding works of the artist's late years. Executed about 1820, these paintings are now in the Prado, Madrid. Originally painted in fresco on the walls of Goya's country house and now transferred to canvas, they attest to his progressively darkening mood, possibly aggravated by an oppressive political situation in Spain that forced him to leave for France in 1824. In Bordeaux he took up the then new art of lithography, producing a series of bullfight scenes, considered among the finest lithographs ever made.

Although he returned to Madrid for a brief visit in 1826, he died in self-imposed exile in Bordeaux two years later, on April 16, 1828. Goya left no immediate followers of consequence, but his influence was strongly felt in mid-19th-century painting and printmaking and in 20th-century art. Online Since 1996 Francisco de Goya. Life and biography. Francisco de Goya Francisco de Goya Francisco de Goya is an innovative Spanish Romanticism painter, one of the great Spanish masters. As an artist, Goya was by temperament far removed from the classicals. In a few works he approached Classical style, but in the greater part of his work the Romantic triumphed. Straightforward candor and honesty are present in all Goya's works. The subversive and subjective element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of later generations of artists. 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 grandfather of modern art".

Francisco de Goya became one of the most influential figures in Spanish art of all time. He was also extremely important in the development of modern aesthetic sensibility, a forerunner of Romanticism, both in the content of his paintings, with their in-depth exploration of reality and references to the dream world, and in his very original technique. Life of Goya Early Training and First Projects Goya was born in the small Aragonese town of Fuendetodos (near Saragossa) on March 30, 1746. His father was a painter and a gilder of altarpieces, and his mother was descended from a family of minor Aragonese nobility. Facts of Goya's childhood are scarce. He attended school in Saragossa at the Escuelas Pias. Goya's formal artistic education commenced when, at the age of 14, he was apprenticed to a local master, Jose Luzan, a competent although little-known painter in whose studio Goya spent four years. In 1763 the young artist went to Madrid, where he hoped to win a prize at the Academy of San Fernando (founded 1752).

Although he did not win the desired award, he did make the acquaintance of Francisco Bayeu, an artist also from Aragon, who was working at the court in the academic manner imported to Spain by the German painter Anton Raphael Mengs. Bayeu (the brother of Goya's wife) was influential in forming Goya's early style and was responsible for his participation in an important commission, the fresco decoration (1771, 1780-1782) of the Church of the Virgin in El Pilar in Saragossa. In 1771 Goya went to Italy for approximately one year. His activity there is relatively obscure; he spent some months in Rome and also entered a composition at the Parma Academy competition, in which he was successful. Returning to Spain about 1773, Goya participated in several other fresco projects, including that for the Charterhouse of Aula Dei, near Saragossa, in 1774, where his paintings prefigure those of his greatest fresco project, executed in the Church of San Antonio de la Florida, Madrid, in 1798.

It was at this time that Goya began to do prints after paintings by Velazquez, who would remain, along with Rembrandt , his greatest source of inspiration. Years as Court Painter By 1786 Goya was working in an official capacity for King Charles III, the most enlightened Spanish monarch of the 18th century. Goya was appointed first court painter in 1799. His tapestry cartoons executed in the late 1780s and early 1790s were highly praised for their candid views of everyday Spanish life. With these cartoons Goya revolutionized the tapestry industry, which, until that time, had slavishly reproduced the Flemish genre scenes of the 17th-century painter David Teniers. Some of Goya's most beautiful portraits of his friends, members of the court, and the nobility date from the 1780s. Works such as Marquesa de Pontejos (1786, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.) show that Goya was then painting in an elegant manner somewhat reminiscent of the style of his English contemporary Thomas Gainsborough.

Etchings and Later Paintings In the winter of 1792, while on a visit to southern Spain, Goya contracted a serious disease that left him totally deaf and marked a turning point in his career. A mood of pessimism entered Goya's work. Between 1797 and 1799 he drew and etched the first of his great print series Los caprichos (The Caprices), which, in their satirical humor, mock the social mores and superstitions of the time. Later series, such as Desastres de la guerra (Disasters of War, 1810) and Disparates (Absurdities, 1820-1823), present more caustic commentaries on the ills and follies of humanity. The horrors of warfare were of great concern to Goya, who observed firsthand the battles between French soldiers and Spanish citizens during the bloody years of the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. In 1814 he completed Second of May, 1808 and Third of May, 1808 (both Prado).

These paintings depict horrifying and dramatically brutal massacres of groups of unarmed Spanish street fighters by French soldiers. Both are painted, like so many later pictures by Goya, in thick, bold strokes of dark color punctuated by brilliant yellow and red highlights. Straightforward candor and honesty are also present in Goya's later portraits, such as Family of Charles IV (1800, Museo del Prado), in which the royal family is shown in a completely unidealized fashion, verging on caricature, as a group of strikingly homely individuals. Final Works The Black Paintings, scenes of witchcraft and other bizarre activities, are among the most outstanding works of the artist's late years. Executed about 1820, these paintings are now in the Prado, Madrid. Originally painted in fresco on the walls of Goya's country house and now transferred to canvas, they attest to his progressively darkening mood, possibly aggravated by an oppressive political situation in Spain that forced him to leave for France in 1824. In Bordeaux he took up the then new art of lithography, producing a series of bullfight scenes, considered among the finest lithographs ever made.

Although he returned to Madrid for a brief visit in 1826, he died in self-imposed exile in Bordeaux two years later, on April 16, 1828. Goya left no immediate followers of consequence, but his influence was strongly felt in mid-19th-century painting and printmaking and in 20th-century art. Goya completed some 500 oil paintings and murals, about 300 etchings and lithographs, and many hundreds of drawings. He was exceptionally versatile and his work expresses a very wide range of emotion. His technical freedom and originality likewise are remarkable. In his own day he was chiefly celebrated for his portraits, of which he painted more than 200, but his fame now rests equally on his other work. Francisco de Goya Art Goya, an innovative Spanish Romantic painter of straightforward candor and honesty with in-depth exploration of reality and references to the dream world... More... 115 pictures for only $25.

Artist Info Related Content Biography Goya was born on 30 March 1746 in the small town of Fuendetodos near Saragossa to José Francisco de Paula, a gilder, and Gracia Lucientes, a member of an impoverished noble family. At the age of fourteen, Goya began a four-year apprenticeship in Saragossa to José Luzán, an undistinguished painter who had studied in Naples. In 1763 and 1766 Goya unsuccessfully participated in competitions sponsored by the Real Academia de San Fernando, Madrid. Sometime after 1766 he traveled to Italy, where he is documented from 1770 to 1771. An honorable mention in a competition held at the Academia de Parma helped him obtain religious commissions in Saragossa, where he settled by June 1771. On 25 July 1773, Goya married in Madrid Josefa Bayeu, the sister of Francisco Bayeu, the leading Spanish artist at court.

Bayeu greatly assisted Goya's career by obtaining for him a position at the royal tapestry factory, for which Goya executed sixty-three cartoons by 1792 (thirty-nine of them before 1780). Goya published in July 1778 his first serious group of prints: nine etchings after paintings by Velázquez in the royal collection. He was unanimously elected to the Academia in Madrid in May 1780 and he was appointed deputy director of the Academia in March 1785. Goya's contemporaries esteemed him most highly as a portraitist. He received his first important portrait commissions in 1783 from the Conde de la Floridablanca and the Infante Don Luis. Goya quickly became established as a portraitist of the leading members of Madrid society. In 1786 Charles III appointed Goya painter to the king; shortly after his coronation in 1789, Charles IV made him court painter.

Near the end of 1792 Goya fell victim to a mysterious illness that incapacitated him for much of the following year, left him permanently deaf, and caused him to reevaluate his goals as an artist. Goya subsequently developed fantasy and invention into powerful social commentary in the Caprichos, a series of eighty etchings offered for sale early in 1799, but their sardonic criticisms of the existing social order made the prints controversial, and Goya quickly withdrew them from sale. Between 1797 and 1799 Goya portrayed Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and other important liberal intellectuals, some of whose ideas probably are illustrated in the Caprichos. Jovellanos, Minister of Grace and Justice from November 1797 to August 1799, helped Goya to obtain the commission for the frescoes in the hermitage church of San Antonio de la Florida, Madrid, executed between 1797 and 1798. On 31 October 1799, Goya was appointed first court painter, the highest position available to an artist at the Madrid court.

He executed several individual portraits of the king and queen between 1799 and 1801. After 1801 Goya was seldom given royal commissions, although he continued to receive his large annual salary. In the early years of the nineteenth century, Goya continued to produce images of government officials in which the sitter's rank is clearly indicated. He also began to create intimate, psychologically profound portraits in which the subjects are depicted simply and directly without attributes of rank against neutral backgrounds. Scholars have long debated whether the oath of loyalty that Goya swore on 23 December 1808 to Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain signified genuine support for the Napoleonic regime, which had been established earlier that year in Madrid. Goya sympathetically portrayed many leaders of the French community in Madrid, but he later painted the duke of Wellington and others who worked for the liberation of Spain.

The violence that Goya witnessed during the Spanish War of Independence (1808-1814) inspired him to execute the Disasters of War, a series of eighty-two etchings done between 1810 and 1820, eighty of which were first published in 1863. Beginning in about 1808 Goya painted a significant number of genre scenes, and dealt with similar subjects in many drawings about the period 1810 to 1823. In 1814 Goya commemorated the heroism of Spaniards who had fought against the French invaders in two large paintings. Attempting to regain royal favor, he did six portraits of Ferdinand VII, between 1814 and 1815. Ferdinand restored Goya's salary, which had been discontinued during the Napoleonic occupation, but he did not give the artist any commissions. In 1816 Goya published Tauromaquia, a series of thirty-three prints illustrating the historical development of bullfighting and the feats of famous contemporary bullfighters.

He created, from 1815 to 1824, the Disparates, a series of etchings related in mood to the Caprichos but larger in scale and more difficult to interpret; eighteen of the twenty-two plates in this series were published for the first time in 1864. In 1819 Goya suffered a relapse of his illness and almost died. This traumatic experience is probably reflected in the fourteen Black Paintings which he executed about 1820/1823 in oil directly on the walls of two rooms in the country house on the outskirts of Madrid, popularly called Quinto del Sordo (house of the deaf man), that he had purchased in February 1819. In 1824 Goya emigrated to Bordeaux, France, where he lived until his death on 16 April 1828, except for visits to Paris (summer 1824) and to Madrid (spring 1826 and summer 1827). [Brown, Jonathan, and Richard G. Mann. Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries.

The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1990: 3-5.] Bibliography 1887 Viñaza, Conde de la (Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano). Goya: su tiempo, su vida, sus obras. Madrid, 1887. 1916 Beruete y Moret, Aureliano de. Goya, pintor de retratos. Madrid, 1916 [Published in NGA systematic catalogue incorrectly as 1915]. (Trans. by Selwyn Brinton. London, 1922). 1923 Francisco de Goya Biography – Francisco de Goya on artnet News Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828) was a Neoclassical painter, highly regarded as the last of the Old Masters and the first Modern artist. Goya was born in Fuendetodos, Northern Spain, but later moved to Saragossa, where his father worked as a gilder.

His keen interest in the decorative Rococo Style that was prominent at the time led to his apprenticeship with Jose Luzan Martinez, a local painter who had studied the art in Naples, Italy, under renowned artist Giuseppe Mastroleo . The precocious Goya found inspiration in the works of then masters such as Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez , and Rembrandt Van Rijn . Eager to learn more, Goya moved to Rome, Italy, for a short period of time around 1771, returning back home about a year later. At this time, he began to work under brothers Francisco Bayeu y Subias and Ramon Bayeu y Subias in their Madrid studio. Goya later married their sister. The artist’s membership with the Royal Academy of Fine Arts helped him secure work as a designer with the Royal Tapestry Factory. Goya’s obvious talent soon became apparent to the royal aristocracy of his time, and he was made Court Painter in 1786. This was the peak of his career, and some of the renowned works he produced during this period include Duke and Duchess of Osuna, Portraits of King Charles IV, and the Count of Floridablanca.

The Spanish nobility became fond of the painter and commissioned him to prepare hundreds of portraits, including the Dutchess of Alba , the 9th Duke of Osuna, the 15th Duke of Medina Sidonia, and the Marchioness of Pontejos. However, the artist suddenly developed an illness between 1792 and 1793, which rendered him deaf, and he withdrew from people, becoming somewhat introspective. In the midst of creating his official commissions and religious paintings, the deaf artist undertook a series of experimental dark paintings, which were published in 1799 under the title Caprichos. Goya’s painting career took a nosedive after the French invasion of Spain and ensuing restoration of the new Spanish King Ferdinand VII, who was not particularly fond of the painter. His works after the French left Spain included the Disasters of War, The Charge of the Mamelukes, Santa Justa and Santa Rufina, and the Black Paintings.

After this period, Goya developed mistrust for the Spanish royalty, and moved to Bordeaux, France, where he died of a stroke in 1828, leaving behind a collection of paintings that remain evocative and poignant up to this day. Timeline Francisco Goya Francisco Josï¿½ de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) Goya was born in the small Aragonese town of Fuendetodos (near Saragossa) on March 30, 1746. His father was a painter and a gilder of altarpieces, and his mother was descended from a family of minor Aragonese nobility. Facts of Goya's childhood are scarce. He attended school in Saragossa at the Escuelas Pias. Goya's formal artistic education commenced when, at the age of 14, he was apprenticed to a local master, Josï¿½ Luzan, a competent although little-known painter in whose studio Goya spent four years. Panama 1967. Self-Portrait, 1815. Monaco 1996. Self-Portrait in his studio, 1775-80.

Engraved by the French engraver Pierre Albuisson. In 1763 the young artist went to Madrid, where he hoped to win a prize at the Academy of San Fernando (founded 1752). Although he did not win the desired award, he did make the acquaintance of Francisco Bayeu, an artist also from Aragon, who was working at the court in the academic manner brought to Spain by the German painter Anton Raphael Mengs. Bayeu (the brother of Goya's wife, Josefa) was influential in forming Goya's early style and was responsible for his participation in an important commission, the fresco decoration (1771, 1780-1782) of the Church of the Virgin in El Pilar in Saragossa. In 1771 Goya went to Italy for approximately one year. His activity there is relatively obscure; he spent some months in Rome and also took part in the Parma Academy competition, in which he was successful.

Returning to Spain about 1773, Goya participated in several other fresco projects, including that for the Charterhouse of Aula Dei, near Saragossa, in 1774, where his paintings prefigure those of his greatest fresco project, executed in the Church of San Antonio de la Florida, Madrid, in 1798. It was at this time that Goya began to do prints after paintings by Velï¿½zquez, who would remain, along with Rembrandt, his greatest source of inspiration. Detail of frescoe painting (1774) for the Charterhouse of Aula Dei. Please note, that this image is not a stamp, but a scan of the frescoe, found on the Internet, and meant only to illustrate this part of his work. Years as Court Painter By 1786 Goya was working in an official capacity for Charles III, the most enlightened Spanish monarch of the 18th century. Goya was appointed first court painter in 1799. His tapestry cartoons executed in the late 1780s and early 1790s were highly praised for their candid views of everyday Spanish life.

With these cartoons Goya revolutionized the tapestry industry, which, until that time, had slavishly reproduced the Flemish genre scenes of the 17th-century painter David Teniers. Some of Goya's most beautiful portraits of his friends, members of the court, and the nobility date from the 1780s. I have been unable to find his tapestry cartoons on stamps, but here are a couple of paintings of his friends from that period. For your viewing pleasure I have uploaded the similar Spanish stamps, issued 1958 in monochrome print. I find it interesting to see how their appearance is totally different from the multi-colour reproductions of the paintings. Spain 1958 and Panama 1978. Dona Isabel Cobos de Porcel. Please note that the Panama-stamp is "mirrored" in relation to the similar Spanish issue. It is the Spanish issue, where Dona Isabel looks to the right, that is the correct position. Unfortunately such mirrored issues are very common among countries who are less careful in their research and stamp productions. Sometimes things go too fast ... ! Spain 1958 and Manama 1972. Conde Fernan Nunes.

Soviet Union 1985. Portrait of Antonia Sarate. The painting belongs to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The sheet has a nicely embossed museum-logo in the middle. On the right is a close-up of the painting. Etchings and Later Paintings In the winter of 1792, while on a visit to southern Spain, Goya contracted a serious disease that left him totally deaf and marked a turning point in his career. A mood of pessimism entered Goya's work. Between 1797 and 1799 he drew and etched the first of his great print series Los Caprichos (The Caprices), which, in their satirical humour, mock the social mores and superstitions of the time. The most famous of his paintings from this period is undoubtedly "The Naked Maya" (painted 1798), depicted on numerous stamps world wide. It belongs to the Prado Museum in Madrid. It is pretty large (97 x 190 cm), and shows clearly the then ideal for the female body. Spain 1930. "The Naked Maya" by Francisco Goya.

This Bulgarian souvenir sheet, issued 1996 in commemoration of Goya's 250th birth anniversary, shows the two versions of this painting: "The Naked Maya" and "The Clothed Maya". Speculation has it that the nude version used to be hidden behind the clothed version in the same picture frame, and that the lady was the Duchess of Alba, with whom Goya was infatuated. How he managed to get a noblewoman to pose this way (in Spain!) is only one more of the many mysteries surrounding this work. As late as in 1930 the US government, through the U.S. Post Office Department, forbade and returned letters coming from Spain carrying this stamp because of the nudity that was at that time considered obscene !! How times have changed :) Bulgaria 1996. Souvenir sheet of the two versions of "Maya" by Goya. One of the nicest of Goya's paintings, "The Love Letter", painted 1812-1814, was issued by France for Stamp Day 1981.

The same painting, but in a totally different appearance, was issued by Burundi in 1968 for The International Week of Letter Writing, and by Bulgaria 1996 in commemoration of Goya's 250th birth anniversary.. It is amazing how the same painting can turn out so completely different in both colour, details and general appearance. Note that all three stamps are proportionally the same size. France 1981. The Love Letter, painted 1812-1814. Burundi 1968. Idem. Bulgaria 1996. Idem. Goya was a true master in depicting everyday's life in medieval Spain, and his captivating canvasses from the beginning of the 19th century, showing sceneries as chatting ladies, children playing around, and ordinary working people, add to the general impression of Goya being a man of the people, who painted life as it was, rather than a highly intellectual artist who would paint what the present ruler wanted to see. Bulgaria 1996. Chatting Ladies on a Balcony. Fujeira 1971. Forgers at Work.

Painted 1812. Dubai 1968. Boys with Mastiff. Painted 1786-1787. Later series, such as Desastres de la Guerra (Disasters of War, 1810) and Disparates (Absurdities, 1820-1823), present more caustic commentaries on the ills and follies of humanity. The horrors of warfare were of great concern to Goya, who observed at first hand the battles between French soldiers and Spanish citizens during the bloody years of the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. In 1814 he completed Second of May, 1808 and Third of May, 1808 (both Prado). These paintings depict horrifying and dramatically brutal massacres of groups of unarmed Spanish street fighters by French soldiers. Both are painted, like so many of Goya's late works, in thick, bold strokes of dark colour punctuated by brilliant yellow and red highlights. Below are shown fragments of these two paintings, considerably enlarged for a better view of the extremely detailed works. Goya concentrated exclusively on achieving a horrific effect, excluding everything that was irrelevant.

They represent a revolutionary advance in the whole conception of the range and purpose of painting. For the first time war was depicted as futile and inglorious and for the first time there were no heroes only killers and the killed. Fujeira 1968. Riot at Puerta del Sol on 2nd May 1808. Bulgaria 1996. Shootings of 3rd May 1808. Click here for a view of the full painting . The link will open in a new window. Straightforward candour and honesty are also present in Goya's later portraits, such as Family of Charles IV (1800, Prado), in which the royal family is shown in a completely unidealized fashion, verging on caricature, as a group of strikingly homely individuals. In our times we would say thet they were relaxed and casual, but looking closely at the painting there is nothing casual about the family group, on the contrary. The painting looks much like a colour photograph, as one would depict royal families in our modern times, when they are fully dressed up for some family celebration such as a wedding, jubilee or similar.

It is not without reason that the Spaniards themselves have nicknamed this painting to "The grocer and his family, after having won the Grand Lottery" !! The question is then, what was the grocery the king dealt with :-) Postes Lao 1984. Family of Charles IV (painted 1800). Final Works The Black Paintings (c. 1820, Prado), chilling scenes of witchcraft and other bizarre activities, are among the most outstanding works of the artist's late years. They were originally painted in fresco on the walls of Goya's country house and are now transferred to canvas. Painted predominantly in blacks, browns, and greys, they attest to his progressively darkening mood, possibly aggravated by an oppressive political situation in Spain that forced him to leave for France in 1824. Togo 1978: Sabbath of Witches, painted 1821-22. Goya: Saturn devouring his son. Please note that this is not a stamp, but an image found on the Internet, and meant to illustrate this last part of his artistic career.

The painting "Saturn" for example (left), shows the god of Time and Old Age devouring his sons: Goya put it in his dining room! As you walk among these paintings in the Prado, you'll see the colours getting darker and darker, the figures getting weirder and weirder, as though Goya had painted them in an insane asylum, but it should be remembered that at the time these paintings were made, Goya was deaf, and it seemed to him that people without their voices became absourd and grotesque, and this is how he painted them. In Bordeaux he took up the then new art of lithography, producing a series of bullfight scenes, considered among the finest lithographs ever made. Although he returned to Madrid for a brief visit in 1826, he died in self-imposed exile in Bordeaux two years later, on April 16, 1828. During this final period of his life he produced over 60 etches and watercolors, and four bullfight pictures. Austria 1961. Toreador kills a bull. Albertina Museum, Vienna. The stamp is beautifully SON-cancelled in Linz. Bulgaria 1975.

Tantal. Issued in a set of various European painters. Goya is considered, with El Greco and Diego Velï¿½zquez, one of the greatest Spanish masters. Just as Goya found inspiration in the work of Velï¿½zquez, so Goya in turn inspired Edouard Manet and Pablo Picasso. He left no immediate followers of consequence, but his influence was strongly felt in mid-19th-century painting and printmaking and in 20th-century art. Sources and links: The Frick Collection The Frick Collection Place Active: Europe, Madrid School: Spanish Neo-Baroque and Romantic Biography: Born in Fuendetodos, Goya served his apprenticeship in nearby Saragossa and then studied with Francisco Bayeu in Madrid. He was in Italy in 1770/71, and in 1774 he became a designer for the Royal Tapestry Factory. Appointed court painter to Charles III in 1786, he continued to hold that post under Charles IV and Ferdinand VII. In addition to portraits, Goya painted historical, religious, and genre subjects, bitter satires, and demonological fantasies; he also was a brilliant graphic artist.

In 1824, out of favor with the court, he left Spain and settled in Bordeaux, where he died. Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996. Goya 1 Francisco Jos� de Goya y Lucientes (1746 - 1828) The Shootings of May Third 1808 Spanish painter and etcher Goya was born in the small Aragonese town of Fuendetodos (near Saragossa). His father was a painter and a gilder of altarpieces, and his mother was descended from a family of minor Aragonese nobility. Goya's formal artistic education commenced when, at the age of 14, he was apprenticed to a local master, Jos� Luzan. In 1763 the young artist went to Madrid. By 1786 Goya was working in an official capacity for King Charles III; he was appointed first court painter in 1799. The Black Paintings, scenes of witchcraft and other bizarre activities, are among the most outstanding works of the artist's late years.

In 1824, the political situation in Spain forced him to leave for France. In Bordeaux he took up the then new art of lithography, producing a series of bullfight scenes, considered among the finest lithographs ever made. Although he returned to Madrid for a brief visit in 1826, he died in self-imposed exile in Bordeaux two years later.

Question: Born near Saragossa, who became court painter to Charles III of Spain in 1786?
Answer: GOYA