francesco goya

Goya’s early success seems to have come relatively easily, and he was involved with his in-laws in an ambitious set of new decorations for the cathedral of Zaragoza. Although he failed in his first attempts to win competitions at the newly founded Royal Academy in Madrid, by 1775 he was in the employment of the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara in Madrid, designing series of tapestries that were the factory’s principal productions over the next fifteen years. During this same time, Goya received his first commission to paint religious works and portraits, the latter from an increasingly more elevated group of patrons. By 1786 he was made Painter to the King, and, in I799, Principal Court Painter, a level beyond which an artist could not succeed unless he was elevated to the nobility, like Diego Velazquez, who preceded him in this post. Goya kept company with the most liberal aristocrats of the court, many determined to reform Spanish civil and religious life; these men and women became his patrons and often, true friends. There is no evidence that Goya himself was active politically or even held strong political views.
Today, along with Caravaggio, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Johannes Vermeer, Francisco Goya is regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. The subversive imaginative element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of later generations of artists, notably Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne Edgar Degas, and and through them Goya influenced some of the greatest artists of the 20th Century, such as Pablo Picasso.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker, and the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Immensely successful in his lifetime, he is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. He was also one of the great portraitists of his time. [1]
The following is an incomplete list of Francisco Goya’s works.

Goya was born to a lower-middle-class family in 1746, in Fuendetodos in Aragon. He studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773; their life was characterised by an almost constant series of pregnancies and miscarriages, and only one child, a son, survived into adulthood. Goya became a court painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786 and this early portion of his career is marked by portraits of the Spanish aristocracy and royalty, and Rococo style tapestry cartoons designed for the royal palace.
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 of aquatinted etchings, published in 1799 as the Caprichos—completed in parallel with the more official commissions of portraits and religious paintings. In 1799 Goya published 80 Caprichos 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”. [29] 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, particularly evident in etchings such as Hunting for Teeth.

Francisco Goya’s most famous paintings included The Naked Maja, The Clothed Maja, The Family of Charles IV, The Third of May 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid, and Saturn Eating His Children. His etchings included the series Los Caprichos and The Disasters of War.
The death of Charles III in 1788, a few months before the outbreak of the French Revolution, brought to an end the period of comparative prosperity and enlightenment in which Goya reached maturity. The rule of reaction and political and social corruption that followed—under the weak and stupid Charles IV and his clever, unscrupulous queen, Maria Luisa—ended with the Napoleonic invasion of Spain. It was under the patronage of the new king, who raised him at once to the rank of court painter, that Goya became the most successful and fashionable artist in Spain; he was made director of the Academy in 1795 (but resigned two years later for reasons of health) and first court painter in 1799. Though he welcomed official honours and worldly success with undisguised enthusiasm, the record that he left of his patrons and of the society in which he lived is ruthlessly penetrating. After an illness in 1792 that left him permanently deaf, his art began to take on a new character, which gave free expression to the observations of his searching eye and critical mind and to his newly developed faculty of imagination. During his convalescence he painted a set of cabinet pictures said to represent “national diversions,” which he submitted to the Vice Protector of the Academy with a covering letter (1794), saying, “I have succeeded in making observations for which there is normally no opportunity in commissioned works, which give no scope for fantasy and invention.” The set was completed by The Madhouse in 1794, a scene that Goya had witnessed in Zaragoza, painted in a broad, sketchy manner, with an effect of exaggerated realism that borders on caricature. For his more purposeful and serious satires, however, he now began to use the more intimate mediums of drawing and engraving. In Los caprichos, a series of 80 etchings published in 1799, he attacked political, social, and religious abuses, adopting the popular imagery of caricature, which he enriched with highly original qualities of invention. Goya’s masterly use of the recently developed technique of aquatint for tonal effects gives Los caprichos astonishing dramatic vitality and makes them a major achievement in the history of engraving. Despite the veiled language of designs and captions and Goya’s announcement that his themes were from the “extravagances and follies common to all society,” they were probably recognized as references to well-known persons and were withdrawn from sale after a few days. A few months later, however, Goya was made first court painter. Later he was apparently threatened by the Inquisition, and in 1803 he presented the plates of Los caprichos to the king in return for a pension for his son.

A famed painter in his own lifetime, Francisco de Goya was born on March 30, 1746, in Fuendetodos, Spain. He began his art studies as a teenager and even spent time in Rome, Italy, to advance his skills. In 1770s, Goya began to work for Spanish royal court. In addition to his commissioned portraits of the nobility, he created works that criticized the social and political problems of his era.
Despite the personal risks, Goya expressed his dissatisfaction with the Ferdinand’s rule in a series of etchings called “Los disparates.” These works featured a carnival theme and explored folly, lust, old age, suffering and death among other issues. With his grotesque imagery, Goya seemed to illustrate the absurdity of the times.

In 1807 Napoleon led the French army into the Peninsular War against Spain. Goya remained in Madrid during the war which seems to have affected him deeply. Although he did not vocalise his thoughts in public, they can be inferred from his Disasters of War series of prints (although published 35 years after his death) and his 1814 paintings The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808. Other works from his mid period include the Caprichos and Los Disparates etching series, and a wide variety of paintings concerned with insanity, mental asylums, witches, fantastical creatures and religious and political corruption, all of which suggest that he feared for both his country’s fate and his own mental and physical health.
He was born to a modest family in 1746 in the village of Fuendetodos in Aragon. He studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773; their life was characterised by an almost constant series of pregnancies and miscarriages, and only one child, a son, survived into adulthood. Goya became a court painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786 and this early portion of his career is marked by portraits of the Spanish aristocracy and royalty, and Rococo style tapestry cartoons designed for the royal palace.

The tempestuous works of Francisco de Goya distinguish him as the most important Spanish painter of his time. Among his contemporaries, he was best known for his lighthearted tapestry cartoons of leisure activities, subtle satirical etchings of the bourgeoisie, and penetratingly psychological portraits of the aristocracy. Having survived an unknown illness that left him deaf and witnessed the atrocities committed during Napoleon’s occupation, which are hauntingly portrayed in the mass execution of Spanish civilians in The Third of May 1808, Goya went on to create some of his most somber, chilling images with his late “Black Paintings,” which were painted directly onto the walls of his home. Now recognized as a harbinger of modern art, Goya influenced numerous artists, including Pablo Picasso in the creation of his masterpiece Guernica (1937).
The tempestuous works of Francisco de Goya distinguish him as the most important Spanish painter of his time. Among his contemporaries, he was best known for his lighthearted tapestry cartoons of leisure activities, subtle satirical etchings of the bourgeoisie, and penetratingly psychological portraits of the aristocracy. Having survived an unknown illness that left him deaf and witnessed the atrocities committed during Napoleon’s occupation, which are hauntingly portrayed in the mass execution of Spanish civilians in The Third of May 1808, Goya went on to create some of his most somber, chilling images with his late “Black Paintings,” which were painted directly onto the walls of his home. Now recognized as a harbinger of modern art, Goya influenced numerous artists, including Pablo Picasso in the creation of his masterpiece Guernica (1937).

References:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Francisco_Goya
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Goya
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Francisco-Goya
http://www.biography.com/artist/francisco-de-goya
http://www.wikiart.org/en/francisco-goya
http://www.artsy.net/artist/francisco-de-goya
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Francisco-Goya