(1746-1828)

"The Man without an ISM"

Early Years: Goya was born in the small town of Fuendetodos on March 30, 1746. Goya started painting at the age of 14 and he was apprenticed to a local connoisseur, José Luzan. Goya spent four years apprenticed to Luzan. In 1763 Goya went to Madrid, where he hoped to win a prize at the Academy of San Fernando. There, he encountered Francisco Bayeu, who was working at the court in the academic manner extrinsic to Spain. Bayeu was prominent in forming Goya's early style. In 1771 Goya went to Italy for about one year. His activity there is unknown; he spent some months in Rome and also entered a composition at the Parma Academy competition, in which he was successful. It was at this time that Goya began to do prints after paintings by Velázquez, who would remain, along with Rembrandt, his greatest source of inspiration.

As A Court Painter: By 1786 Goya was working as a court painter for King Charles III, the most edified Spanish ruler of the 18th century. 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.

Later Years: In 1792, Goya had a near fatal illness that left him totally deaf. During his recovery, isolated from society, he began to paint demons of his inner fantasy world and thus, his preoccupation with bizarre creatures began. With gory precision, he reduces war scenes of barbarous torture to their horrifying basics. After a few years, Goya became obsessed with depicting the suffering caused by the political intrigue and decadence o the Spanish court and church. He disguised his repulsion with satire, however, such as in the disturbing "black paintings" he did on the walls of his villa. The fourteen large murals in dark tones present appalling monsters engaged in sinister acts.

 

 

In the life and work of Francisco Goya, the monarchs of Spain extends throughout the three reign of Carlos III (1759-1788), Carlos IV (1789-1808) and Fernando VII (1808-1833). The situation of the country at the beginning of the 17th century, is very different from the existing one from the death of Carlos III. At this time, the population increases remarkably, happening of 9,300,000 inhabitants in 1750 to 11,500,000 of inhabitants in 1797. The 17th century is called the century of the reforms. The European situation, after the wars, demanded performances that improved the existing situation in the economy, the society and the policy. These actions were carried out in Spain by the known political movement like Spanish Illustration. The Borbones adopts the well-known form of government generally like " enlightened despotism ". They are surrounded by a cabinet, normally formed by members of the low nobility, that take the weight of the state bureaucracy, like Esquilache, Floridablanca, Aranda or Godoy. Of this form, the monarchy fortifies the Secretaries of State and office, excluding the high nobility of the senior postses and the power who of them emanated

Goya's original technique of slashing brushstrokes made him a forerunner of anguished twentieth-century art. He was a great transitional figure who changed the Tradition while he manifested the resent and prophesied the future. In his long life, he produced masterworks in a variety of artistic styles and he often depicted subjects in unsparing revelation. Great Spanish painting has rarely been sentimental. His style is often classified as Neoclassicism. Neoclassicism is the revival of austere Classicism in painting and was a reaction to the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, when philosophers preached the gospel of reason and logic. This faith in logic led to the orderliness and "ennobling" virtues of Neoclassical art.

Goya was a multifaceted artist who was interested in painting, drawing and in any other techniques that would lead to a more general diffusion of his work, as was the case with etching on metal or stone. Goya is not only remarkable for his command of the styles of the period, but also for the wide variety of genres and subject matters that he explored. He achieved the highest standards in religious paintings, portraiture, political and social satire, and studies of scenes from daily life. He also studied such diverse subjects as witchcraft, reports on contemporary events and the effects of war. The influences on Goya's artistic development are clearly recognizable, although they did not stultify his own vision, and they acted as inspiration for his style of painting and the subject matter he dealt with. The study of Goya's Aragonese period is essential for understanding the origins and development of his work. His influence on the history of painting and etching has been great, despite the fact that the number of direct disciples of his work have been small.

 

 

 

 

 

Goya's stylistic development was not a conventional one. Goya was an artist ahead of his time, who created works full of personality, both in painting and in engraving without ever conforming to the conventional. In effect, he predicted the predominant movements of the 19th and 20th century. Romanticism, Impressionism, Expressionism and Surrealism were the principal movements to be influenced by his work.Goya was pictorially trained within the confines of the late Baroque and Rococco styles, as can be seen in the work produced in his youth. His journey to Italy brought him to into contact with the prevailing pictorial styles of Classicism and Neo-Classicism, the influences of which can be seen in some of his work on the Carthusian monastery of Aula Dei in Zaragoza.

At Court he used different styles. In the tapestry cartoons, the Rococco was predominant when dealing with subjects full of joy and vivacity. He allowed the new winds of Neo Classicism to influence him in some of his religious and mythological works, but he felt uncomfortable with the new style which was becoming increasingly fashionable. He decided to follow his own aesthetic sensibilities. In his old age he stated that his masters were Velazquez, Rembrandt and Nature.In the portraits and other works, the influence of Velazquez can be seen in Goya's treatment of space, light and staining techniques. This tendency became more and more pronounced to an almost impressionistic degree, from 1800 onwards. Goya's portraits, direct, psychological and realistic, renewed the genre.

Etching and aquatint were the predominant types of engraving used by Goya in which he created a series of works which were inspired by his personality and imagination. In the Caprichos fantasy and realism combined to produce a savage, daring social critique. Crude and desolate realism dominate The Disasters of War.The world of the subconscious blossomed in the mysterious, impactful images of the Black Paintings, painted in the Quinta del Sordo in Madrid. These images were to be appreciated years later by Expressionists and Surrealists as precursors of their movements.

Exaltation of the Name of Jesus

 

24 miles outside Zaragoza, in the village of Alagón, a mural of Goya's can be found in the old College of the Jesuits, now a Casa de Cultura. He painted the fresco in 1765-66. It covers the vault of the interior staircase and represents the Exaltation of the Name of Jesus (3.50 x 2.50) In the centre appears the anagram of Jesus which is also the symbol of the Society of Jesus (JHS), surrounded by cherubim floating in a cloud of Glory. The composition is simple and of great beauty, and demonstrates that Goya, despite his youth (he was19 years) already showed a technical and artisitic ability that was already considerable. The work clearly shows the direct influences of his second master, Francisco Bayeu, under whose direction he prepared the sketches; the indirect influence of Corrado Giaquinto can also be seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the walls of the church of the Carthusian monastery of the Aula Dei, Goya painted a cycle of scenes in oils of the Life of the Virgin Mary. It is the most extensive of his works, although of the eleven passages, only seven remain and some of those with partial losses. The cause of this damage was the abandonment of the monastery caused by the Desamortizacion de Mendizabal 1 in 1836. The north side, the area around the entrance and the greater part of the south transept are what remain of the painted parts of the monastery. The cycle was painted between 1772 and 1774, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the patroness of the Carthusian Order. In the cycle Goya used two styles: the late Baroque and Rococco, in which he had been trained, and the Classical, which he had assimilated during his travels in Italy. The first can be clearly seen in the Purification of the Virgin or Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, or in the Adoration of the Three Wise Men. The Classicism can be detected in certain figures and compositions such as the The Wedding of the Virgin, or the Visit of Mary to her Cousin Isabel. In these scenes there are realist details such as two children fighting over who is to carry the wedding train. These scenes fall within the best tradition of Spanish naturalism and foreshadow Goya's later work. The scenographic effect of the compositions are striking, with a composition that is solemn and well-balanced. The figures are created with broad brushstrokes, giving them a clear and substantial volume and shape. The Aula Dei cycle, to which insufficient attention has been paid by scholars, is the culmination of the younger Goya's work and the prelude to his artistic maturity.

 

 

 

 

Philip V ordered the creation of the Real Fábrica de Tapices de Santa Bárbara1 in 1720 in order to provide tapestries for the Court after the loss of the Spanish territories in Flanders and the interruption of supplies from Brussels to the Spanish Crown. In theory Goya painted for the Fábrica from 1775 to 1800, although his final work was completed in 1793 and he did no work from 1780 to 1786. For twelve years he produced no less than sixty three cartoons as models for the Royal Family's tapestries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goya was highly appreciated in his time as a portrait painter. Portraits formed the greater part of his production and were his main source of income (he charged between 10,000 and 15,000 reales for a portrait in 1800). The satisfaction of the customer brought new commissions or purchases of other works, as was the case with the Duke of Osuna. Goya captivated his clients with the profound psychological quality of his portraits, quickly but well painted, and the naturalness of the study, although he did not hesitate to use a grid when he thought it necessary. His brushwork was based on the "strategy of illusion", learnt from Velazquez. Goya adopted any innovation he discovered in the extensive Royal collection, on his travels or in his friends' houses and used them in the service of his art. His long life and his keenness to learn explain his ever-changing and protean style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first self-portrait of Goya that is known of (now in a private collection in Madrid) was painted after his return from Italy. One sees the head and shoulders of the painter, with a round face and long brown curly hair, against a neutral background. The painter already appears to have the ability to transmit a psychological vision of himself as a young rebel, bohemian (indicated by the long hair), and ambitious. According to an old tradition, he painted his portrait in his forementioned Sermon of San Bernardino of Siena (Church of San Francisco el Grande, Madrid, 1781-1784). Like Velázquez (in Las Meninas), whose painting Goya admired, studied and copied in an etching, Goya included himself as painter in the portrait of the family of the Infante Luis de Bourbon (1784, Fundación Magnani-Rocca, Corte di Mamiano, Parma), brother of Carlos III and one of the first of Goya's patrons at Court. One year previously Goya had "presented" himself in the portrait of the Count of Floridablanca (Banco de España, Madrid). The artist, with his back to the viewer shows a painting to the minister for his approval (perhaps a sketch of the "Sermon of San Bernardino of Siena" ?). In the Museum of Agen (France), there is another self-portrait of the painter posing before a canvas. The work is of the same year as the previous one, when the painter was 37. In the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, there is a sketch which only reveals the bust of the artist wearing a wig. In the period 1790-1795 he painted the small self-portrait now in the Academia de San Fernando. The whole body is seen and the painter is wearing a strange hat which served as a support for candles enabling him to work at night. There are another two self portraits in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the first with tricorne, done in brush and sepia (Lehman legacy, approx. 1785-1795) and the second, somewhat later (approx. 1800, brush with gray wash). In this work Goya stares at the viewer, with the shoulders hardly sketched in, with long unkempt hair and long sideburns that meet to form a beard. The image, which could rightly be called Romantic, reminds the viewer of Goya's contemporary, Beethoven. A similar portrait can be seen in a small oil painting (20 x 14 cm.) in the old Pidal collection, in which Goya, elegantly dressed in frock coat, shirt and tie, poses before a large canvas (approx. 1795-97). Amongst the preparatory sketches for the Caprichos (published in 1799) there is a self-portrait of the artist's head and shoulders (in the print part of the shoulders do not appear), in which the elegance of the artist's attire stands out, an elegance completed by a top hat. On the other side of the sketch are two small studies of his face, looking directly out at the viewer. The Comentarios of Manuscript 3 adds the note 'True portrait of him with bad humour and satirical gesture'. Another two (1, 2) appear in the preparatory drawings for print no. 43, The Dream of Reason Brings Forth Monsters (Prado, 1797) which the painter thought for a long time would be the frontispiece of the collection. Goya appears in another print next to a woman who has been identified as the Duchess of Alba in the preliminary drawing (Museo del Prado) for the print Dream of Lies and Inconstancy (Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid), one of the Caprichos not included in the collection. The plate for this print was destroyed. Around the period of the Caprichos are two self-portraits of short bust, both with the artist wearing glasses, both of which are very similar (Musée Goya, Castres y Musée Bonnat, Bayona). Family of Charles IV (1800-1801, Prado) is a collective portrait of a formal and iconological types. The formal inspiration of Velázquez's Las Meninas encouraged Goya to include himself in the painting with the same pose as Velázquez. At 69 years of age, in 1815, he painted the self-portrait later donated to the Academia de San Fernando by his son Javier. The signature is expressive, Francisco de Goya, Aragonese Painted by Himself. It is very similar to the portrait in The Museo del Prado and was painted around the same period. In 1820, another grave illness brought him close to death. Doctor Arrieta cured him and a grateful Goya painted a self-portrait (Minneapolis Institute of Arts, U.S.A.) in which the doctor half lifts Goya from the bed to give him a glass of medicine. In the dark background appear three female figures which are also subjects of the Black Paintings. The painting, with a complex perspective, in which Velazquez has again been used as inspiration for study, is a civil and lay offering. The last known self-portrait is a drawing of 1824 (Museo del Prado), short bust, in profile, with a hat. It may remind the viewer of the frontispiece of the Caprichos. Few portraits of Goya were painted in his lifetime. The Italian Gaetano Merchi (1747-1825) made a bust of him in bronze (Academia de San Fernando, Madrid) and the Court Painter of Fernando VII and Goya's successor, Vicente López, painted a portrait of Goya in 1826 (Prado Museum), which is a model portrait for a long series of images of the Aragonese painter that have lasted to the present day.

Shootings of May Third, 1808

This painting depicts an actual historical event. The subject is an incident that took place during Napoleon's intervention in Spain when a French firing squad executed civilians in Madrid in retaliation for the murder of some of Napoleon's troops the day before. Goya shows the horrors of war without nationalistic bias.

The Family of Carlos IV

Never has anyone depicted a menagerie of human grotesques as seen here. This art piece exhibits a superb revelation of stupidity, pomposity, and vulgarity. In this work, Goya shows off his ability as a colorist and an expert in the oil medium. The colors glow at the view and seemed to be thinly painted over the canvas. The transparent affect gives the entire picture plane solidity and optical pictorialism.

 

 

[Home][Masaccio] [Jan Van Eyck][Albrecht Durer][Caravaggio][Johannes Vermeer][Diego Velazquez][Jean Ingres] [Francisco Goya][Jean Pierre Renoir][Edgar Degas][Cezanne][Henri Matisse] [Piet Mondrian]

 

Copyright © Thinkquest Team C005662