Great Masters

Nationality:	Spanish
Activity:	Painter, Engraver, Miniaturist
Average price rate:	Between US $ 200,000 and 9 million

Portrait of the actress Antonia Zarate (circa 1811)

Francisco Goya was certainly the greatest Spanish painter of the 18th Century despite the fact that he had a somewhat crazy and tormented life.

At 12, he was already extremely talented and his father, a gilder who was himself frequenting many artists and had no difficulty in helping him to become the apprentice of a painter.

Goya thus studied drawing in Saragossa with an artist named Jose Luzan and quickly envied his pupil Francisco Bayeu, who had become the assistant of the court painter Raphael Mengs.

However, often inclined to look for quarrels, Goya soon got involved in many disputes opposing various groups of artists and went on to face problems with the Inquisition.

Still, he managed to enjoy the protection of Florido Blanca, a minister to the King, but spent many months away from his studio preferring instead to lead a dissolute existence, playing the guitar, dancing and courting women and one morning he was found in a dark alley seriously wounded, a knife stuck between his shoulders.

He managed to survive, thanks to his strong nature, but as he had shown blasphemous manners vis-à-vis religious matters, the Inquisition was on his back again. Florido Blanca did not intervene in his favour and in order to escape from the grips of the Inquisition, Goya reportedly did not have any other choice than to become the assistant of a bull fighter who was on his way to Italy.

Taking advantage of his new occupation, Goya produced some striking studies for the engravings on bull fighting that he was to publish some years later.

During his stay in Italy between 1770 and 1771, he reportedly met some success in Parma, where he notably received a prize from the Academy.

Little is known about what he did really in Italy though admittedly he admired the engravings of Piranesi and the works of Magnasco and Luca Giordano. It is also commonly believed that he studied some great old masters in Rome and that he met there his friend Bayeu and Jacques-Louis David, the French painter.

He received an offer to work for the court of Russia but the course of his destiny changed as he was said to have fallen in love with a nun with whom he tried to elope. As a result of this scandal, he faced a possible death penalty but thanks to the intervention of the Spanish ambassador and against his promise to leave Italy immediately he managed to save his head.

On his return to Saragossa, he was asked in 1771 to decorate the choir of the Del Pilar cathedral and then the Carthusian monastery of the Aula Dei, the Sobredial Palace and the church of Remolinos. This works helped him to demonstrate his skills as a painter of frescoes, which he probably learned to produce during his sojourn in Italy.

Under such circumstances, Goya then quarrelled with his brother-in-law who had despised him for his conduct. Meanwhile, he continued to produce academic or baroque works under the protection of Mengs.

He also continued to work for the manufacture of Santa Barbara between 1775 and 1780, then between 1786 and 1788 and lastly from 1791 to 1792. During all these years he improved his style in producing works that heralded the rather stormy paintings he was going to execute at the turn of the 19th Century.

His first tapestries created in 1775 for the dining room of the princes at the Escorial Palace represented classical hunting scenes, in which it is now however difficult to see his hand. Those produced afterward such as the “Ball of the Florida” (1777) or the “Umbrella” (1778) exhaled at last a sure talent as a painter then much attracted by the gaiety of life. Still, already in 1779, as seen in his “China Merchant”, in which he represented the face of an old woman with young girls seated next to her, as well as in his series of “Seasons” made for the King's bedroom, he overtly changed his style in showing his concern for poor people.

In his last series of tapestries made in 1791, Goya was already a more mature virtuoso. One must say that he had been much impressed by Velasquez' works in 1778 when he produced some engravings after his works and that he had also admired the paintings of some famous old masters, such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck or Tinterotto in the royal palace. He thus probably understood that his style was a bit too conventional and felt that he had to fill the gap that separated him from what he believed was true painting.

Still, he had been conscious that in order to become a court painter he had to be academic at first to please the King and noble patrons before letting his genius go free. Appointed painter to the King in 1786, he went on to produce religious scenes in 1788 for the chapel of the dukes of Osuna and the cathedral of Valencia in which he mixed daily life themes with legendary biblical events. He also painted many portraits, notably of members of the court, and children shown with much tenderness.

In these portraits, painted in a seemingly simple manner, Goya heralded the art of Manet, who was later much inspired by his works. During almost twenty years he gradually developed his style freely and exhaled his happiness until he suffered a terrible fit in 1792. Two years earlier, he had been much affected by the persecutions against his liberal friends who were professing revolutionary ideas that had spread in Spain following the French revolution of 1789.

After staying at a friend's house in Cadiz, Goya was on his way back to the Spanish capital in 1792 when he suffered several fits of faintness that made him lose his balance and endure a series of physical disorders. Beside having hallucinations he became deaf and almost mad.

Forced to return to Cadiz, he thought he would die but finally recovered though he remained deaf for good.

His terrifying deafness then led him to live in a different world and to meditate about his existence. After depicting the joys of life, he suddenly expressed his sufferings caused by his hallucinations.

In 1793, he started what he called “cabinet” paintings, in which he gave a priority to observation, a factor left aside in his previous works. Freeing himself from all conventional commandments, he painted extraordinary pieces relating to bull-fights, madness, burials and the Inquisition. At the same time, his style became more vigorous and more expressive while he adopted a sombre palette.

His caustic style blossomed in his etchings produced from 1796, notably in his “Capriccios”, in which he denounced the stupidity and the vices of his time. After ridiculing the Inquisition, he again faced problems but managed to offer his series of etchings for the collection of the King in exchange for an annual grant in favour of his son Xavier.

In 1794, he painted the “Triana”, a famous singer, a work that enhanced his success as a master. Between 1793 and 1797 he painted portraits with silver-grey tones brilliantly executed, such as that of Francisco Bayeu in 1795, the year his brother-in-law died.

In this work the fiery looks of Bayeu as well as his sufferings were sensed to the utmost by Goya. The same year, he painted the portrait of the Duchess of Alba before a landscape, shown with neutral tones in order to enhance the beauty of this woman wearing a vaporous grey-white dress heightenedby the red colours of her necklace and belt.

It seems that Goya showed more than a pictorial interest for the Duchess who was also attracted by him. His deafness was perhaps one of the factors for such interest as this woman had expressed the wish to debase herself to expiate some fault. She also protected all sorts of handicapped people and following the death of her husband in 1796, she went to Andalusia, where Goya probably joined her.

In 1798, he painted an altar piece titled the “Treason of Judas”, a work however weak compared with San Santonio frescoes suggesting that the painter was not always at his peak though it is believed that the resurrection of Saint Anthony was to him a more inspiring theme exhaling the virtues of the Spanish people.

Between 1797 and 1800, he painted witchcraft scenes and portraits of the royal family. In 1800 he managed to gather on the same canvas the family of Charles IV, which he painted with some incredible ferocity except for the children, shown in a natural way.

Back in Madrid in 1797, Goya was again appointed painter to the court two years later but in 1802, the death of the Duchess of Alba deeply affected him. He then reduced his production and did not manage in 1804 to obtain the post of director of the San Fernando Academy.

He then produced etchings on bull-fights and the misfortunes of war after Joseph Bonaparte succeeded King Charles 4th in 1808.

He managed to retain his position as painter to the court though his patriotic feelings were hurt as a result of the behaviour of Napoleonic troops in Spain and could not prevent himself from depicting the horrors of war.

Working for himself mainly, he produced some extraordinary and striking works showing in a pathetic way executions, pillages and other terrifying events of the war, all works that were to impress many artists of the 19th Century who held Goya as one the greatest masters in the history of art.

His situation at the court remained unchanged but he started to face the hostility of reactionary circles. Feeling isolated, he bought a house in Carabanchel, near Madrid, called the “Quinta del Sordo” (The farm of the deaf).

His situation at the court however soon became unbearable as he was constantly held as a suspect to such a point that King Ferdinand had him interrogated by the Inquisition while many liberals were being persecuted.

In 1823, he requested to go on leave to Bordeaux and despite his age he went to Paris where he met some Spanish exiles. Totally deaf and being a complete stranger to the French language, he limited himself to visiting monuments, fairs and circuses and returned to Bordeaux after a short stay in Madrid.

Goya died in Bordeaux and his remains were ultimately transferred to Madrid, where his tomb is now in the middle of the Ermita of San Antonio de la Florida, which he had himself decorated.

What made Goya a great master was his ability to develop his style throughout his career and not to remain a talented painter confined in a limited spectrum. He certainly learned from Mengs and Bayeu but rapidly showed his concern for daily life and the sufferings of the Spanish people thus switching from academic painting to reality, like did Caravaggio and Rembrandt before him.

His severe illness suffered in 1792 marked a complete change in his life and conduct and made him exhale his real genius. Observing was his motto while his hallucinations led him to produce his most striking works. All the more, his production was rather phenomenal and his portraits often were pitiless, the funny fact about that being that his sitters, notably Queen Maria-Luisa, were somewhat enchanted by their renderings. In these portraits, Goya proved to be a magician in distracting the eye of the spectator with the addition of some artefacts on the canvas, such as sumptuous clothes and fittings that counterbalanced the rather tough and stupid looks of his sitters.

His style became more violent between 1810 and 1814 and his depiction of the horrors of war were far more powerful than any other work produced before in the history of painting.

It seems probable that Goya's deafness and hallucinations caused him more than once to be on the verge of madness as many of his incredible works tend to suggest.

His paintings titled “Dos de Mayo” and “Tres de Mayo” of 1814, which related to events that took place in 1808, seemed to have been executed on the spot whereas they were represented from memory.

The “Dos de Mayo” work represents a charge by the Mameluks fighting with Napoleonic troops against insurgents at the Puerta del Sol while “Tres de Mayo” shows an execution with people waiting for their turn to be shot. Still, at the same time, the artist's expressed his ambiguous ambivalence as he continued to produce official portraits.

It is therefore difficult to explain the intricacy of Goya's mind during the time he was depicting the horrors of war and the gaiety of life as the “Majas (women) on the balcony” painted between 1810 and 1814 or “Woman reading a letter” and “The Youths”, works that exhaled happiness while “Time, the old ladies in front of a mirror”, was rather caustic and pitiful.

Deprived of official orders in 1816, Goya then painted popular scenes while his self-portrait of 1815 expressed his bitterness at being an old man. Most remarkable were his etched representations of bull-fights between 1816 and 1820, in which he delved into the passion of his people for such ritual (killing the bull).

At the end of his life, Goya became quite mystical and painted religious scenes. He also produced his “black paintings” on the walls of his farm (1818-1823), that resulted from his hallucinations and in which black colours expressing fear and mystery were pierced by slashes of white, red and yellow tones.

While in Bordeaux, his works executed there marked a return to what appeared a certain calmness beside prefiguring Impressionism.

In fact Goya had two careers, one dedicated to his court activity and the other to himself but his greatest accomplishment was that he traced a historical border line between academism and modernity in a masterly manner.

Above all, Goya was human, sometimes pitiful himself in the course of facing contradictions, torn between his desire to remain a court painter and his liberal ideas, showing a great appetite for life, breaking the rules to look for his independence but refraining from doing so completely for fear of losing an enviable position. Still, he had a great influence over many painters, in Spain and in France. Eugène Delacroix once said that he decided to become a painter after seeing one of Goya's works while Edouard Manet often referred to his paintings such as in his“Olympia”, “The Balcony” and the “Execution of Maximilian”.