Francisco José de Goya Biography

Dromo's Den

GOYA (Y LUCIENTES), Francisco José de (1746–1828). The leading painter, etcher, and designer of the Spanish school in the eighteenth century. He was born March 30, 1746, at Fuendetodas, a village of Aragon, near Saragossa. According to the most likely tradition, his family were peasants, who nevertheless placed their son in the academy established at Saragossa by José Lusan y Martinez, a painter of ability, who had studied in the Neapolitan school. According to tradition, Goya was obliged to leave Saragossa on account of some escapade, and went to Madrid. There he was powerfully affected by the works of Velazquez (q.v.) and by the great frescoes Tiepolo was then painting in the Royal Palace. He seems to have studied with Francesco Bayeu, a classicist and disciple of Raphael Mengs. After some years in Madrid he went to Rome. He studied the Italian masters rather by contemplation than by actual copying, and in Rome, as everywhere, was most interested in the picturesque life of the people. Returning to Spain, he received at Saragossa his first important commission, the frescoes of the ceiling of the church of Santa María, with the "Adoration of God." In 1772–74 he painted in the Cartuja Aula Dei, a Carthusian convent 10 kilometers north of Saragossa, a large series of frescoes of the "Life of the Virgin," many of which survive in a damaged but unrestored condition. In 1775 Goya returned to Madrid. He was employed by Raphael Mengs, then superintendent of fine arts in Madrid, to design cartoons for the royal manufactory of tapestries at Santa Barbara intermittently until 1791. There were 92 in all, woven on high and low warp looms from 45 cartoons, which are still preserved along with the tapestries in the Escorial and Prado. The subjects are characteristic pictures of contemporary Spanish life, such as "Child Riding a Sheep," the "Washerwoman," the "Seesaw," the "Reapers." About 1780–81 he frescoed a chapel of the church of Santa María del Pilar at Saragossa, and between 1787 and 1798 he painted the decoration of the palace of Alameda near Madrid. Goya’s most monumental work is the cupola frescoes of the church of San Antonio de la Florida, near Manzanares, finished in 1798, a series of religious pictures from the life of St. Anthony, showing the influence of Tiepolo. This is the period of his greatest success. In 1788 he was made member by merit of the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, and in the same year painter of the chamber to the new King, Charles IV. Ten years later he was made chief painter of the chamber. He was created lieutenant director of the Academy of San Fernando in the place of Andreas Calleja in 1793.

The insurrection of March 19, 1808, which ended the reign of Charles IV, interrupted the career of Goya. He endeavored to associate himself with the Bonapartes, even serving on the commission to select 50 of the best Spanish pictures for the Louvre. After a time, however, the French occupation exasperated him. After the return of the Bourbon King Ferdinand VII in 1813, Goya was reinstated as painter of the chamber. His political views forced him to leave Spain, and in 1822 he visited Paris for the first time. With the exception of a short visit to Madrid in 1827, when his portrait was painted by his successor, Vicente López, he passed the rest of his life at Bordeaux, where he died April 16, 1828.

The chief interest of Goya was with the lower classes. He loved a vagabond life, and even at the summit of his success was most often to be found in the resorts of the common people. From them were taken the motives and subjects for the immense mass of drawings, etchings, water colors, genre pictures, and portraits which he left. Using a very simple palette, he painted directly, without glazes. His brilliant style was unique, but his technical qualities were founded upon a profound study of the great technicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Goya was quite celebrated as a portrait painter, but his portraits were only good when the subject pleased him. Among his best portraits are those of himself, one in the Academy of San Fernando; a group of Charles IV and his family, in the Prado; equestrian portraits of Charles IV and his Queen, Maria Louisa, in the Prado; the Duke of Ossuna, his wife and family. He appears at his best in the marvelous double portrait of "La Maya," in the Academy of San Fernando, representing the same beautiful young girl nude and lightly draped. While his paintings can only be studied at Madrid, he is represented also in other public collections, Berlin, London, and Paris, especially in the Louvre. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, has his portrait of Don Sebastian Martinez and "Jewess of Tangier"; and the Hispanic Society, New York, the admirable portraits of the Duchess of Alba (whose name scandal linked with the artist's and whom he painted many times) and General Forastera, besides many drawings. Mention should also be made of his genre subjects, street fights from the insurrection of 1808 (Prado) and other folk scenes, bullfights (Berlin) and other popular amusements.

Goya ranks as one of the world's greatest etchers. No one has ever used the needle with greater vivacity, freedom, and strength than he. He was the first master to realize the possibilities of the aquatint (q.v.). His technical means are very simple-the broad massing of sharply contrasted light and shade; he possesses a wonderful narrative and selective power. Among his earliest plates were a series of 16 after important paintings by Velazquez. His most celebrated series are: "Los caprichos" (Caprices), a bitter satire upon government, religion, and society; "Los desastres de la guerra" (Disasters of War), the testament of a Liberal; and the "Tauromaquia" (Bullfight). In his last years he took up the newly invented art of lithography, achieving great success in such prints as the series "Los toros de Bordeos" (Bulls of Bordeaux).

As a designer of tapestries, he stood first among Spanish painters, and the reputation of the Santa Barbara factory, Madrid, which is still in operation, rests mainly on his designs. Goya's place in art is unique-the greatest Modernist of his day, the first of the nineteenth century to break the shackles of classicism and to solve the problems of light and movement. His influence on the leaders of modern painting, such as Delacroix and especially Manet, was very great.

Bibliography. The traditional view of Goya's wild life and eccentric character is based upon the biography by Zapater (Saragossa, 1868) . This exaggerated point of view was spread by the biography of Yriarte (Paris, 1867). The most scholarly and critical life of Goya is by Von Loga (Berlin, 1903); the best English work by Calvert (London, 1908). Others are by Brunet (Paris, 1865); Lefort (ib., 1877); Lafond (ib., 1909); Oertel (Bielefeld, 1907); Stokes (New York, 1914).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. X (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920)