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Self-Portrait, 1815.

Oil on panel, 51 × 46 cm,

Royal Academy of San Fernando, Madrid.

Biography

1746:

Francisco Goya y Lucientes is born in Fuendetodos near Sargasso, Spain. His parents were members of the rural nobility and his father was a guilder. Except for a few isolated facts and dates, we know very little about Goya’s childhood and adolescence.

1759:

At the age of 13, Goya begins studying at local painter José Luzán’s workshop, where he will stay for four years.

1763:

He leaves for Madrid where he is denied entry into the Royal Academy of San Fernando.

1766:

At 20 years of age, he again “attempts to enter The Royal Academy of San Fernando without much result.”

1767–1771:

Stays in Rome where he is influenced by roman neoclassicism. He receives a special mention at a painting competition organized by the Academy of Parma.

1771:

Receives his first commission: it is for a fresco for the vault at the Cathedral of El Pilar in Sargasso.

1773:

Settles in Madrid where he marries Josefa Bayeu whose three brothers are painters. It is here where Goya receives a commission for the Royal Factory of Santa Barbara. Within 18 years, he will produce three series of tapestries (1774–1780, 1786–1788, 1791–1792). At the same time he pursues a career as a portrait artist.

1774:

The paintings of Aula Dei.

1778:

He does engravings influenced by Velázquez.

1780:

Goya is elected a member of The Royal Academy of San Fernando. He tries to introduce himself, little by little, into the complex University system. He makes a good impression on the royal family with his drawings, which are destined for the Prado Palace. His position appears to be improving, which helps to explain his growing rebellion against the artistic supervision of his brother-in-law, Francisco Bayeu.

1785:

Nominated several days before his fortieth birthday as the Deputy Director of Painting for the Royal Academy of San Fernando.

1786:

Becomes one of the King’s painters.

1789:

Promoted and becomes a painter for the King’s Chamber.

1792:

He becomes deaf after suffering from a serious illness for many years. He begins a series of etchings that permit him to satisfy his fantasy and imagination.

1795:

Goya is nominated as the Director of Painting for the Royal Academy. The same year he paints the first portrait of the Duchess of Alba whom he falls in love with.

1797:

His illness prevents him from serving his function as Director and Goya is nominated as an honorary director.

1798:

He undertakes the decoration of The Hermitage of San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid.

1799:

Publication of the collection of eighty plates of his Los Caprichos. He becomes the First Court Painter.

1805–1810:

He paints several still lives and undertakes the eighty-two plates from the Disasters of War series, during the agitated political times marked by the war and the French occupation.

1812:

His wife Josefa Bayeu dies.

1814:

Goya paints The Second of May, 1808 and The Third of May, 1808.

1816:

Publication of The Bullfight.

1819:

Buys a country house not far from Madrid, which will become “The House of the Deaf”. There, in 1821–1822, Goya most likely realizes his so-called Black Paintings. He also does his first lithograph.

1824:

He rejoins all of his friends in exile in France.

1825:

Publication of the lithographs: The Bulls of Bordeaux.

1828:

Goya dies in April in Bordeaux.

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“There are no rules in painting,” Goya told the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid during an address he gave in 1792. He suggested that students should be allowed to develop their artistic talents freely and find inspiration from their own choice of masters rather than adhere to the doctrines of the neo-classical school.

Adoration of the Name of God by Angels

1772

fresco, 700 × 1500 cm

El Pilar, Saragossa

Goya himself was known to have claimed that Velázquez, Rembrandt and Nature were his masters, but his work defies neat categorization and the diversity of his style is remarkable. Francisco Goya lived for eighty-two years (1746–1828), during which time he produced an enormous body of work – about 500 oil paintings and murals, nearly 300 etchings and lithographs, and several hundred drawings.

Self-Portrait

1773–1774

oil on canvas, 58 × 44 cm

Ivercaja collection, Saragossa

He was proficient both as a painter and a graphic artist, and experimented with a variety of techniques; even at the end of his life he was a pioneer of the new printing method of lithography. Essentially a figurative painter, Goya treated an enormous variety of subjects. He became the leading portrait painter in Spain, decorated the churches of Saragossa and Madrid with altarpieces and murals, and designed tapestries illustrating life in Madrid.

Betrothal of the Virgin

1774

oil on plaster, 306 × 790 cm

Aula Dei, Saragossa

Numerous personal sketch books contain his private observations. Two catastrophic events dramatically affected Goya’s life and his vision of the world. The first came in 1792 when, at the age of forty-six, he was struck by an illness, probably an infection of the inner ear, that left him totally deaf. The second cataclysmic event was the Napoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808, which was followed by six years of fighting for Spanish independence.

The Picnic

1776

oil on canvas, 272 × 295 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

During the war, hideous atrocities were perpetrated by both sides, and Goya recorded many of them in a series of etchings which are testaments to the cruelty of mankind.

Francisco Goya, the son of a master gilder, was born on the 30^th of March, 1746 in Fuendetodos, a small village in the barren Spanish province of Aragon. When Goya was a boy, the family moved to the busy commercial center of Saragossa, the capital of Aragon.

Dancing by the River Manzanares

1777

oil on canvas, 272 × 295 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Goya went to school at a religious foundation, the Escuelas Pias de San Antón. Here he met Martin Zapater, who would become a faithful friend. Aged fourteen, Goya took lessons in drawing and painting from José Luzán y Martinez, a local religious painter, who introduced his pupils to the works of the Old Masters through engravings he made them copy.

The Parasol

1777

oil on canvas, 104 × 152 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Among Luzán’s other pupils were three gifted brothers, Francisco, Manuel and Ramon Bayeu, who were to become his brothers-in-law.

In 1763, Goya submitted a drawing to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid in the hope of gaining a place, but his entry gained not a single vote from the academic judges. Three years later, he tried again – and failed.

Prince Balthasar Carlos

1778

etching after Velázquez, 32 × 23 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

In 1770, Goya went to Italy, probably travelling to Rome and Naples and in April 1771 he received special mention for a painting he submitted to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Parma.

By June of the same year, he had returned to Saragossa where he received his first important commission, the decoration of the ceiling of the coreto, or choir, of the Basilica of El Pilar, the city’s great cathedral.

In July 1773, he married Josefa Bayeu, the sister of his three fellow pupils.

The Crucifixion

1780

oil on canvas, 253 × 153 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Francisco Bayeu was, by this time, employed in decorating the new Royal Palace in Madrid under Anton Mengs, a leading exponent of the neo-classical style, and Goya hoped, no doubt, to further his career by marrying the sister of a prominent painter. The couple had seven children, although only one son, Mariano, survived to adulthood. In the winter of 1774, Goya and Josefa settled in Madrid.

La Novillada

1780

oil on canvas, 259 × 136 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

The capital city had been transformed during the eighteenth century by the Spanish Bourbon kings, who widened streets, opened piazzas and constructed numerous religious and civic buildings. They also expanded the five Habsburg palaces and created three new royal residences, requiring a team of designers to decorate their interiors.

In 1775, Anton Mengs (1728–79), first court painter to Charles III, returned to Madrid and was given the responsibility of overseeing the execution of numerous tapestry drawings.

Mary, Queen of Martyrs

1780–1781

fresco on the church’s dome

El Pilar, Saragossa

The Goyas move came in response to his first royal commission, to design a series of drawings for tapestries to hang in the personal dining room of the future King Charles IV, in the Escorial Palace. Goya was given the commission at the suggestion of Mengs, who had earlier commissioned Francisco Bayeu to work on the new royal palaces. For several years, Goya was gainfully employed painting further series of drawings for the Royal Tapestry Factory.

St Bernardino of Siena Preaching before Alonso V of Aragon

1781–1783

oil on canvas, 480 × 300 cm

San Francisco el Grande, Madrid

During the 1780s, Goya’s career prospered. Finally elected to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1780, he became its Assistant Director of Painting in 1785. In June 1786, he was named an official court painter at a salary of 15,000 reales per year (equivalent to about £150 at that time), and in 1789 was promoted to Court Painter, as a result of which he began to mix with a glittering array of royalty, aristocracy and statesmen, and became a celebrated portrait painter.

Maria Teresa de Bourbon

1783

oil on canvas, 132.3 × 116.7 cm

Mellon Bruce collection, Washington

However, the son of humble parents and born far from the splendours of the court, Goya never became a courtier in spite of his official position. He painted not only members of the fashionable elite, but also artisans, labourers and the victims of poverty. He sympathized with the Spanish Enlightenment, whose members disagreed in principle with all that the court stood for.

Portrait of the Count of Floridablanca and Goya

1784

oil on canvas, 262 × 166 cm

Bank of Spain, Madrid

Disturbed by the social inequalities of the day, the Enlightenment felt that the monarchy, through blindness and neglect, had done little to bring Spain out of the Middle Ages. Goya became a proficient etcher and recorded his personal observations in this medium.

In these, and in the numerous drawings he made in private sketchbooks, he ridiculed the vulgarity and follies of humanity. His critical vision appears to have been intensified by the deafness with which he was inflicted after an infection in 1792.

The Family of the Infante Don Luis

1784

oil on canvas, 248 × 330 cm

Corte di Mamiano, Parma

The early years of the nineteenth century were disastrous for Spain. On 21 October 1805, the Spanish fleet was destroyed by the British at Trafalgar, cutting Spain off from its colonies. In 1806, Spain agreed to help Napoleon in the conquest of Portugal. Thousands of French troops poured into Spain. In 1808 King Charles IV abdicated in favour of his dim-witted son, Ferdinand VII, and the old king fled to Bayonne in France with Queen Maria Luisa and Manuel Godoy, his Prime Minister.

Countess-Duchess of Benavente

1785

oil on canvas, 104 × 80 cm

Bartolomé March Severa, Madrid

Napoleon invited Ferdinand to Bayonne and persuaded him to return the crown to his father, upon which Ferdinand was imprisoned. Charles then abdicated in favour of Napoleon and went to live in exile in Rome, leaving Napoleon free to place his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne, in June 1808. Napoleon had not expected resistance and was surprised when large numbers of Spanish patriots began to wage a merciless guerrilla war against the invader.

The Marquesa de Pontejos

1786

oil on canvas, 211 × 126 cm

National Gallery, Washington

For six years, Spain became a battlefield: six years of bloodshed, terror and suffering. Napoleonic power began to decline in 1812. The British army advanced on Spain. It won victory after victory until finally entering Madrid in August 1812 and ousting Joseph Bonaparte and the French army. The liberal Cortes of Cadiz, the Spanish parliament, sought the restoration of the monarchy, but in constitutional form and answerable to the government.

Spring (The Flowergirls)

1786–1787

oil on canvas, 177 × 192 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Ferdinand VII returned to Spain to popular acclaim but, in defiance of the Cortes, immediately instituted an autocratic regime and brought an end to the Enlightenment in Spain. He re-established the Inquisition, dissolved the Cortes and imprisoned many of its members as well as many of those who had supported the French government. Goya, who had accepted the post of painter to Joseph Bonaparte during the French occupation, was brought before the Inquisition and accused of collaboration.

Summer (Harvesting)

1786–1787

oil on canvas, 276 × 641 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

However, he was acquitted on the grounds of his claim that he had never worn his French medal and had painted Joseph from an engraving and not from life. Ferdinand had no great interest in art, but was happy to have a celebrated artist in his employ; Goya continued to receive an annual salary of 50,000 reales and somehow managed successfully to avoid having to fulfil his duties as court painter. He became increasingly withdrawn and the imagery evident in his work became more and more imaginative.

Autumn (The Vintage)

1786–1787

oil on canvas, 275 × 190 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

He had long been fascinated by insanity and superstition, and in his old age, on the walls of his own house, the Quinto del Sordo, he painted powerful, dark images, known collectively as the Black Paintings. In 1812 Josefa Goya died. The following year Goya’s housekeeper, Leocadia Weiss, a recently divorced mother of two, gave birth to a daughter, Maria del Rosario Weiss, who is generally assumed to be Goya’s child.

Winter (The Snow Tempest)

1786–1787

oil on canvas, 275 × 293 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

A liberal coup in Cadiz in 1820 forced Ferdinand to accept a constitutional monarchy and, for three years, the king was under the domination of a liberal government.

In 1823, the French king, Louis XVIII, sent troops to Spain and restored Ferdinand to absolute power. The king immediately took punitive action and once again brought a reign of terror which saw liberals imprisoned or shot.

Wounded Mason

1786–1787

oil on canvas, 268 × 110 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Thoroughly disillusioned with Spain, Goya pleaded ill health and requested to go to Plombières to recover. Permission was granted and he made for Paris, where he saw the famous Salon. He then settled in Bordeaux, where some members of the Spanish Enlightenment were living in exile. In 1824, he was joined by Leocadia Weiss and her children.

Portrait of Charles III in Hunting Costume

1787

oil on canvas, 207 × 126 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

The King granted the artist several extensions of his French vacation and in May 1826 Goya, aged eighty, returned to Madrid in order to request that the king allow him to retire while continuing to pay his pension. Ferdinand agreed and Goya returned to Bordeaux where he died two years later, on April 16, 1828. Goya’s skill as a portrait painter lay in his ability to capture something of the personality of the sitter, more than to simply record an accurate likeness.

The Swing

1787

oil on canvas, 169 × 100 cm

Duke of Montellano collection, Madrid

He became celebrated as a portraitist relatively early in his career, and royal patronage ensured a steady stream of commissions.

More than 200 of his portraits are extant, and they offer for posterity of Spanish society at the time. Goya recorded three successive kings and their families, their courtiers and many Spanish aristocrats for posterity.

A Village Procession

1787

oil on canvas, 169 × 137 cm

private collection

He also painted political potentates – among them statesmen, liberal thinkers and army officers who helped to mould Spanish history – and he painted his friends and associates. Goya greatly admired the paintings of Diego Velázquez (1599–1660).

In 1774, he was asked to design tapestry drawings for the future King Charles IV, giving him the opportunity of studying Velázquez’s masterpieces in the royal collections.

Highwaymen Attacking a Coach

1787

oil on canvas, 169 × 137 cm

private collection

Four years later, Goya printed eleven engravings after Velázquez, the first copies of Velázquez’s works to be made. Including himself as artist in the picture was a device that Goya was to adopt and to use often as Velázquez did in Las Meninas. More than a century after Velázquez’s death, Goya stepped into the master’s shoes as the leading portraitist of the Spanish court. When he was first appointed official court painter in 1786, Charles III was on the throne.

The Meadow of San Isidro

1788

oil on canvas, 44 × 94 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Charles, a hard-working and enlightened monarch, devoted himself to reforming a country that had scarcely moved out of the Middle Ages.

Goya’s less flattering Portrait of Charles III in Hunting Costume of 1787 is of a man renowned for his ugliness. Charles III respected tradition, but at the same time encouraged the cult of liberty, welcoming the ideas of the French Enlightenment as they filtered into Spain.