Francisco Goya was born in 1746 in a
small town near Zaragoza. When he was 14
he began a 4 year apprenticeship to a
local master, José Luzan. Goya then left
for Madrid with the intention of winning
a prize at the Academy of San Fernando.
Although he didn’t win, he met the court
artist Francisco Bayeu who was to prove
influential in forming Goya’s early
style.
Bayeu was heavily influenced by the
German painter Anton Taphael Mengs, and
passed elements of this style on to
Goya. Bayeu was also instrumental in
Goya’s first involvement in a
commission. This was the fresco
decoration of the Church of the Virgin
in El Pilar in Zaragoza.
From 1773, after spending a year in
Italy, Goya worked on a number of other
fresco projects, including one for the
Charterhouse of Aula Dei, near Zaragoza.
However, it was in 1798 that he worked
on his greatest fresco project for the
Church of San Antonio de la Florida,
Madrid. Goya had now begun working on
prints based on paintings by one of his
two greatest sources of inspiration,
Velázquez. Rembrandt was the other
artist that Goya drew inspiration from.
Goya began working on official portraits
commissioned by King Charles III around
1786. One of his paintings from this
time, Marquesa de Pontejos, is on
display in the National Gallery in
Washington, D.C. He also worked on
several tapestry cartoons depicting
Spanish life, and these revolutionized
the Spanish tapestry industry. However,
in the winter of 1792, Goya’s life took
a dramatic turn when he became totally
deaf after a serious illness. Not
surprisingly, this led to much of his
subsequent work having a pessimistic air
to it. He drew and etched the first in a
series of prints, the satirical Los
Caprichos (The Caprices). Others
followed, including the Desastres de la
Guerra (Disasters of War), and
Disparates (Absurdities).
Goya had witnessed the horrors of
war, at first hand, during the French
occupation of Spain, and he drew on this
for two of the paintings that he
completed in 1814. The Second of May,
1808 and Third of May, 1808 both depict
brutal massacres of his countrymen by
the French. The thick, bold strokes of
dark colour that he used were typical of
many of his later paintings. Another
characteristic of Goya’s paintings
towards the end of his life was that
they had an openness and honesty,
especially his portraits. His portrait,
Family of Charles IV, portrays the
Royals in a realistic manner, and not
idealized as many other artists did. It
is on display in
Madrid's Prado Museum.
Towards the end of his life, Goya
painted a series of fresco scenes on the
walls of his country house. These were
the Black Paintings, and he used mainly
blacks, browns and greys to depict
scenes of witchcraft. Goya was evidently
becoming depressed by the political
situation in Spain, and these paintings
reflected his mood. He was forced to
leave Spain in 1824, because of the
oppression in his native land, and moved
to France. Goya began to pursue the then
new art of lithography, and he produced
a series of bullfight scenes that are
among the best lithographs ever made. He
died, in France, in 1828.
