Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (/ˈɡɔɪə/;Spanish: [fɾanˈθiskoxoˈseðeˈɣoʝailuˈθjentes]; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanishromantic painter andprintmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.[1] His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters.[2] Goya is often referred to as the last of theOld Masters and the first of themoderns.[3]
Although Goya's letters and writings survive, little is known about his thoughts. He had a severe and undiagnosed illness in 1793 that left himdeaf, after which his work became progressively darker and more pessimistic. His latereasel andmural paintings,prints anddrawings appear to reflect a bleak outlook on personal, social, and political levels and contrast with his social climbing. He was appointed Director of theRoyal Academy in 1795, the yearManuel Godoy made an unfavorable treaty with France. In 1799, Goya becamePrimer Pintor de Cámara (Prime Court Painter), the highest rank for a Spanishcourt painter. In the late 1790s, commissioned by Godoy, he completed hisLa maja desnuda, a remarkably daring nude for the time and clearly indebted toDiego Velázquez. In 1800–01, he paintedCharles IV of Spain and His Family, also influenced by Velázquez.
His late period culminates with theBlack Paintings of 1819–1823, applied on oil on the plaster walls of his house theQuinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man) where, disillusioned by political and social developments in Spain, he lived in near isolation. Goya eventually abandoned Spain in 1824 to retire to the French city ofBordeaux, accompanied by his housekeeper,Leocadia Weiss. There he completed hisLa Tauromaquia series and a number of other works. Following astroke that left him paralyzed on his right side, Goya died and was buried on 16 April 1828 aged 82.
Birth house of Francisco Goya, Fuendetodos, Zaragoza
Francisco de Goya was born inFuendetodos, Aragón,Spain, on 30 March 1746 to José Benito de Goya y Franque and Gracia de Lucientes y Salvador. The family had moved that year from the city ofZaragoza, but there is no record of why; likely, José was commissioned to work there.[4] They were lower middle-class. José was the son of anotary and ofBasque origin, his ancestors being fromZerain,[5] earning his living as agilder, specialising in religious and decorative craftwork.[6] He oversaw the gilding and most of the ornamentation during the rebuilding of theBasilica of Our Lady of the Pillar (Santa Maria del Pilar), the principal cathedral of Zaragoza. Francisco was their fourth child, following his sister Rita (b. 1737), brother Tomás (b. 1739) (who was to follow in his father's trade) and second sister Jacinta (b. 1743). There were two younger sons, Mariano (b. 1750) and Camilo (b. 1753).[7]
His mother's family had pretensions of nobility and the house, a modest brick cottage, was owned by her family and, perhaps fancifully, bore theircrest.[6] About 1749 José and Gracia bought a home in Zaragoza and were able to return to live in the city. Although there are no surviving records, it is thought that Goya may have attended the Escuelas Pías de San Antón, which offered free schooling. His education seems to have been adequate but not enlightening; he had reading, writing and numeracy, and some knowledge of the classics. According toRobert Hughes the artist "seems to have taken no more interest than a carpenter in philosophical or theological matters, and his views on painting ... were very down to earth: Goya was no theoretician."[8] At school he formed a close and lifelong friendship with fellow pupilMartín Zapater; the 131 letters Goya wrote to him from 1775 until Zapater's death in 1803 give valuable insight into Goya's early years at the court in Madrid.[4][9]
At age 14 Goya studied under the painterJosé Luzán, where he copied stamps[which?] for 4 years until he decided to work on his own, as he wrote later on "paint from my invention".[10] He moved to Madrid to study withAnton Raphael Mengs, a popular painter withSpanish royalty. He clashed with his master, and his examinations were unsatisfactory. Goya submitted entries for theReal Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1763 and 1766 but was denied entrance into the academia.[11]
Portrait of Josefa Bayeu (1747–1812)
Rome was then the cultural capital of Europe and held all the prototypes of classical antiquity, while Spain lacked a coherent artistic direction, with all of its significant visual achievements in the past. Having failed to earn a scholarship, Goya relocated at his own expense to Rome in the old tradition of European artists stretching back at least toAlbrecht Dürer.[12] He was an unknown at the time and so the records are scant and uncertain. Early biographers have him travelling to Rome with a gang of bullfighters, where he worked as a streetacrobat, or for a Russian diplomat, or fell in love with a beautiful young nun whom he plotted to abduct from her convent.[13] It is possible that Goya completed two surviving mythological paintings during the visit, aSacrifice to Vesta and aSacrifice to Pan, both dated 1771.[14]
In 1771 he won second prize in a painting competition organized by the City ofParma. That year he returned to Zaragoza and painted elements of thecupolas of theBasilica of the Pillar (includingAdoration of the Name of God), acycle of frescoes for the monastic church of theCharterhouse of Aula Dei, and the frescoes of the Sobradiel Palace. He studied with the Aragonese artistFrancisco Bayeu y Subías and his painting began to show signs of the delicate tonalities for which he became famous. He befriended Francisco Bayeu and married his sisterJosefa (he nicknamed her "Pepa")[15] on 25 July 1773. Their first child, Antonio Juan Ramon Carlos, was born on 29 August 1774.[16] Of their seven children only one, a son named Javier, survived into adulthood.[17]
Francisco Bayeu (Josefa Bayeu's brother), 1765 membership of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, and directorship of the tapestry works from 1777 helped Goya earn a commission for a series oftapestry cartoons for the Royal Tapestry Factory. Over five years he designed some 42 patterns, many of which were used to decorate and insulate the stone walls ofEl Escorial and thePalacio Real del Pardo, the residences of the Spanish monarchs. While designing tapestries was neither prestigious nor well paid, his cartoons are mostly popular in arococo style, and Goya used them to bring himself to wider attention.[18]
The cartoons were not his only royal commissions and were accompanied by a series of engravings, mostly copies after old masters such asMarcantonio Raimondi andVelázquez. Goya had a complicated relationship with the latter artist; while many of his contemporaries saw folly in Goya's attempts to copy and emulate him, he had access to a wide range of the long-dead painter's works that had been contained in the royal collection.[19] Nonetheless, etching was a medium that the young artist was to master, a medium that was to reveal both the true depths of his imagination and his political beliefs.[20] Hisc. 1779 etching ofThe Garrotted Man ("El agarrotado"[21]) was the largest work he had produced to date, and an obvious foreboding of his later "Disasters of War" series.[22]
Goya was beset by illness, and his condition was used against him by his rivals, who looked jealously upon any artist seen to be rising in stature. Some of the larger cartoons, such asThe Wedding, were more than 8 by 10 feet, and had proved a drain on his physical strength. Ever resourceful, Goya turned this misfortune around, claiming that his illness had allowed him the insight to produce works that were more personal and informal.[23] However, he found the format limiting, as it did not allow him to capture complex color shifts or texture, and was unsuited to theimpasto andglazing techniques he was by then applying to his painted works. The tapestries seem as comments on human types, fashion and fads.[24]
Other works from the period include a canvas for the altar of theChurch of San Francisco El Grande in Madrid, which led to his appointment as a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Art.
In 1783, theCount of Floridablanca, favorite ofKing Charles III, commissioned Goya to paint his portrait. He became friends with the King's half-brotherLuis, and spent two summers working on portraits of both the Infante and his family.[25] During the 1780s, his circle of patrons grew to include theDuke and Duchess of Osuna, the King and other notable people of the kingdom whom he painted. In 1786, Goya was given a salaried position as a painter to Charles III.
Goya was appointed court painter to Charles IV in 1789. The following year he became First Court Painter, with a salary of 50,000reales and an allowance of 500ducats for a coach. He painted portraits of the king and the queen, and the Spanish Prime MinisterManuel de Godoy and many other nobles. These portraits are notable for their disinclination to flatter; hisCharles IV of Spain and His Family is an especially brutal assessment of a royal family.[A] Modern interpreters view the portrait as satirical; it is thought to reveal the corruption behind the rule of Charles IV. Under his reign his wifeLouisa was thought to have had the real power, and thus Goya placed her at the center of the group portrait. From the back left of the painting one can see the artist himself looking out at the viewer, and the painting behind the family depictsLot and his daughters, thus once again echoing the underlying message of corruption and decay.[26]
La Maja Desnuda (La maja desnuda) has been described as "the first totally profane life-size female nude in Western art" without pretense to allegorical or mythological meaning.[29] The identity of theMajas is uncertain. The most popularly cited models are theDuchess of Alba and Pepita Tudó, mistress ofManuel de Godoy. The 19th-century Romantic legend of Goya claims that he had an affair with the Duchess of Alba, a notion that is not supported by historical or archival evidence. Neither theory about the models has been verified, and it remains as likely that the paintings represent an idealized composite.[30] The paintings were never publicly exhibited during Goya's lifetime and were owned by Godoy.[31] In 1808 all Godoy's property was seized byFerdinand VII after his fall from power and exile, and in 1813 theInquisition confiscated both works as 'obscene', returning them in 1836 to the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.[32]
At some time between late 1792 and early 1793, an undiagnosed illness left Goya deaf. He became withdrawn and introspective while the direction and tone of his work changed. He began the series ofaquatintedetchings, published in 1799 as theCaprichos—completed in parallel with the more official commissions of portraits and religious paintings. In 1799 Goya published 80Caprichos prints depicting what he described as "the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance, or self-interest have made usual".[34] The visions in these prints are partly explained by the caption "The sleep of reason produces monsters". Yet these are not solely bleak; they demonstrate the artist's sharp satirical wit, as inCapricho number 52,What a Tailor Can Do![35]
While convalescing between 1793 and 1794, Goya completed a set of eleven small pictures painted on tin that marked a significant change in the tone and subject matter of his art, and drew from the dark and dramatic realms of fantasy nightmare.Yard with Lunatics is a vision of loneliness, fear and social alienation. The condemnation of brutality towards prisoners (whether criminal or insane) is a subject that Goya assayed in later works[36] that focused on the degradation of the human figure.[37] It was one of the first of Goya's mid-1790scabinet paintings, in which his earlier search for ideal beauty gave way to an examination of the relationship between naturalism and fantasy that would preoccupy him for the rest of his career.[38] He was undergoing a nervous breakdown and entering prolonged physical illness,[39] and admitted that the series was created to reflect his own self-doubt, anxiety and fear that he was losing his mind.[40] Goya wrote that the works served "to occupy my imagination, tormented as it is by contemplation of my sufferings."[41] The series, he said, consisted of pictures which "normally find no place in commissioned works".[citation needed]
Goya's physical and mental breakdown seems to have happened a few weeks after the French declaration of war on Spain. A contemporary reported, "The noises in his head and deafness aren't improving, yet his vision is much better and he is back in control of his balance."[42] These symptoms may indicate a prolonged viral encephalitis, or possibly a series of miniature strokes resulting from high blood pressure and which affected the hearing and balance centres of the brain. Symptoms oftinnitus, episodes ofimbalance and progressivedeafness are typical ofMénière's disease.[43] It is possible that Goya had cumulativelead poisoning, as he used massive amounts oflead white—which he ground himself[44]—in his paintings, both as a canvas primer and as a primary colour.[45][46]
Other postmortem diagnostic assessments includeSusac's syndrome[47] or may point toward paranoid dementia, possibly due to brain trauma, as evidenced by marked changes in his work after his recovery, culminating in the "black" paintings.[48] Art historians have noted Goya's singular ability to express his personal demons as horrific and fantastic imagery that speaks universally, and allows his audience to find its own catharsis in the images.[49]
The French army invaded Spain in 1808, leading to thePeninsular War of 1808–1814. The extent of Goya's involvement with the court of the "intruder king",Joseph I, the brother ofNapoleon Bonaparte, is not known; he painted works for French patrons and sympathisers, but kept neutral during the fighting. After the restoration of the Spanish KingFerdinand VII in 1814, Goya denied any involvement with the French. By the time of his wife Josefa's death in 1812, he was paintingThe Second of May 1808 andThe Third of May 1808, and preparing the series of etchings later known asThe Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra). Ferdinand VII returned to Spain in 1814 but relations with Goya were not cordial. The artist completed portraits of the king for a variety of ministries, but not for the king himself.
Although Goya did not make his intention known when creatingThe Disasters of War, art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent Peninsular War and the move against liberalism in the aftermath of therestoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814. The scenes are singularly disturbing, sometimes macabre in their depiction of battlefield horror, and represent an outraged conscience in the face of death and destruction.[50] They were not published until 1863, 35 years after his death. It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticising both the French and restored Bourbons.[51]
The first 47 plates in the series focus on incidents from the war and show the consequences of the conflict on individual soldiers and civilians. The middle series (plates 48 to 64) record the effects of the famine that hit Madrid in 1811–12, before the city was liberated from the French. The final 17 reflect the bitter disappointment of liberals when the restored Bourbon monarchy, encouraged by the Catholic hierarchy, rejected theSpanish Constitution of 1812 and opposed both state and religious reform. Since their first publication, Goya's scenes of atrocities, starvation, degradation and humiliation have been described as the "prodigious flowering of rage".[52]
Plate 4:Las mujeres dan valor (The women are courageous). This plate depicts a struggle between a group of civilians fighting soldiers.
Plate 5:Y son fieras (And they are fierce orAnd they fight like wild beasts). Civilian women fight against soldiers with spears and rocks.
Plate 46:Esto es malo (This is bad). A monk is killed by French soldiers looting church treasures. A rare sympathetic image of clergy, who were generally shown on the side of oppression and injustice.[53]
Plate 47:Así sucedió (This is how it happened). The last print in the first group. Murdered monks lie by French soldiers looting church treasures.
Records of Goya's later life are relatively scant, and ever politically aware, he suppressed a number of his works from this period, working instead in private.[54] He was tormented by a dread of old age and fear of madness.[55] Goya had been a successful and royally placed artist, but withdrew from public life during his final years. From the late 1810s he lived in near-solitude outside Madrid in a farmhouse converted into a studio. The house had become known as "LaQuinta del Sordo" (The House of the Deaf Man), after the nearest farmhouse that had coincidentally also belonged to a deaf man.[56]
Art historians assume Goya felt alienated from the social and political trends that followed the 1814restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, and that he viewed these developments as reactionary means of social control. In his unpublished art he seems to have railed against what he saw as a tactical retreat intoMedievalism.[57] It is thought that he had hoped for political and religious reform, but like many liberals became disillusioned when the restored Bourbon monarchy and Catholic hierarchy rejected the Spanish Constitution of 1812.[58]
At the age of 75, alone and in mental and physical despair, he completed the work of his 14Black Paintings,[C] all of which were executed in oil directly onto the plaster walls of his house. Goya did not intend for the paintings to be exhibited, did not write of them,[D] and likely never spoke of them.[59] Around 1874, 50 years after his death, they were taken down andtransferred to a canvas support by ownerBaron Frédéric Émile d'Erlanger. Many of the works were significantly altered during the restoration, and in the words of Arthur Lubow what remain are "at best a crude facsimile of what Goya painted."[60] The effects of time on the murals, coupled with the inevitable damage caused by the delicate operation of mounting the crumbling plaster on canvas, meant that most of the murals suffered extensive damage and loss of paint. Today, they are on permanent display at theMuseo del Prado, Madrid.
Leocadia Weiss (née Zorrilla, 1790–1856),[62][63] the artist's maid, younger by 35 years, and a distant relative,[64] lived with and cared for Goya after Bayeu's death. She stayed with him in hisQuinta del Sordo villa until 1824 with her daughterRosario.[65] Leocadia was probably similar in features to Goya's first wife Josefa Bayeu, to the point that one of his well-known portraits bears the cautious title ofJosefa Bayeu (or Leocadia Weiss).[66]
Not much is known about her beyond her fiery temperament. She was likely related to the Goicoechea family, a wealthy dynasty into which the artist's son, Javier, had married. It is known that Leocadia had an unhappy marriage with a jeweler, Isidore Weiss, but was separated from him since 1811, after he had accused her of "illicit conduct". She had two children before that time, and bore a third, Rosario, in 1814 when she was 26. Isidore was not the father, and it has often been speculated—although with little firm evidence—that the child belonged to Goya.[67] There has been much speculation that Goya and Weiss were romantically linked; however, it is more likely the affection between them was sentimental.[68]
Goya died on 16 April 1828.[69] Leocadia was left nothing in Goya's will; mistresses were often omitted in such circumstances, but it is also likely that he did not want to dwell on his mortality by thinking about or revising his will. She wrote to a number of Goya's friends to complain of her exclusion but many of her friends were Goya's also and by then were old men or had died, and did not reply. Largely destitute, she moved into rented accommodation, later passing on her copy of theCaprichos for free.[70]
Goya's body was later re-interred in theReal Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid. Goya's skull was missing, a detail the Spanish consul immediately communicated to his superiors in Madrid, who wired back, "Send Goya, with or without head."[71]
Goya's influence on modern and contemporary artists and writers
Goya is often referred to as the last of theOld Masters and the first of themoderns.[72][73][74] Among the 20th-century painters influenced by Goya are the Spanish mastersPablo Picasso andSalvador Dalí who drew influence fromLos caprichos and theBlack Paintings of Goya.[75] In the 21st century, American postmodern painters such asMichael Zansky andBradley Rubenstein draw inspiration from "The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters" (1796–98) and Goya'sBlack Paintings. Zanksy's "Giants and Dwarf Series" (1990–2002) of large-scale paintings and wood carvings use imagery from Goya.[76][77]
Goya's influence has extended beyond the visual arts:
The Spanish composerEnrique Granados wrote a suite for solo piano in 1911 based on Goya's paintings calledGoyescas, and later wrotean opera of the same name based on the suite.
Spanish authorFernando Arrabal's novelThe Burial of the Sardine was inspired by Goya's painting.[78]
Russian poetAndrei Voznesensky'sI Am Goya was inspired by Goya's anti-war paintings.[79]
The video game Impasto was based on the works of Goya.[80]
In 2024, an extensive exhibition of Goya's etchings was held at theNorton Simon Museum in Southern California.[81]
Goya in Bordeaux (1999), Spanish historical drama film written and directed byCarlos Saura about the life of Francisco de Goya
Goya or the Hard Way to Enlightenment (1971) (German:Goya – oder der arge Weg der Erkenntnis) is a 1971 East German drama film directed byKonrad Wolf. It was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Special Prize. It is based on a novel with the same title by Lion Feuchtwanger.
Tiempo de ilustrados (Time of the Enlightened) in the seriesThe Ministry of Time. Goya (played by Pedro Casablanc) must repaintLa maja desnuda after a cult called the Exterminating Angels destroy it.
^"Even if one takes into consideration the fact that Spanish portraiture is often realistic to the point of eccentricity, Goya's portrait still remains unique in its drastic description of human bankruptcy". Licht (1979), 68
^Théophile Gautier described the figures as looking like "the corner baker and his wife after they won the lottery".[28]
^A contemporary inventory compiled by Goya's friend, the painter Antonio de Brugada, records 15. See Lubow, 2003
^Goya F., Stepanek S. L., Ilchman F., Tomlinson J. A., Ackley C. S., Braun J. E., Mena M., Maurer G., Polidori E., Reed S. W., Weiss B., Wilson-Bareau J. & Museum of Fine Arts Boston. (2014).Goya: Order & Disorder (First). MFA Publications.p. 14.ISBN9780878468089.
^Crow, Thomas (2007). "3: Tensions of the Enlightenment, Goya". In Stephen Eisenman (ed.).Nineteenth Century Art.: A Critical History(PDF) (3rd ed.). New York: Thames and Hudson. Retrieved12 October 2013.
^"Para occupar la imaginacion mortificada en la consideración de mis males" 4 January 1794. MS. Egerton 585, folio 74. Department of Manuscripts, British Museum. Reproduced in Gassier, Wilson, Appendix IV, p. 382.
^Chilvers, Ian (January 2004)."Goya, Francisco de".The Oxford Dictionary of Art (2014 online ed.). Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-860476-1. Retrieved15 April 2019.
Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains a significant amount of material on the prints of Goya
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