Francisco Goya

Francisco de Goya is an innovative Spanish Romanticism painter. Francisco de Goya is one of the greatest masters that Spain has ever produced and is considered the “Father of Modern Art”. His works, which are world known, changed the way artists would interpret the world. His works, paintings and drawings, spread on a span of 60 years covering from about the last half of the 18th century to the first quarter of the 19th century, and portray a celebration of life and a realistic view of the world.

Goya was born in the province of Zaragoza. When he was a teenager, he entered the service of a local artist. Later on, he travels to Madrid, where he is greatly influenced by the last of the great Venetian painters. After several failed attempts to enroll in the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Goya travels to Rome. Returning to Spain in the decade of the 1770s, Goya paints frescoes in several churches of his native province.

In 1792, Goya had a near fatal illness that left him totally deaf. During his recovery, isolated from society, he began to paint demons of his inner fantasy world and thus, his preoccupation with bizarre creatures began such as Saturn devouring one of his Children. In this painting, Goya had fearing that his children would supplant him, ate each one upon their birth. It is one of the series of black paintings that Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823. After Goya's death the work was transfered to canvas, and now resides in the Museo Del Prado in Madrid.

With gory precision, he reduces war scenes of barbarous torture to their horrifying basics. After a few years, Goya became obsessed with depicting the suffering caused by the political intrigue and decadence o the Spanish court and church. He disguised his repulsion with satire; however, such as in the disturbing "black paintings" he did on the walls of his villa. The fourteen large murals in dark tones present appalling monsters engaged in sinister acts.

With his wedding, Goya begins his ascension, working under Mengs, he finally enrolls in the royal academy and later on is named the King Charles III’s painter. By 1799, Goya becomes the official Chamber painter of King Charles IV.

Together with the critiques to his works, Goya undergoes a time of wild imagination, in which sordid images of a surreal world begin to appear. Unable to present his works to his old clientele, he is forced, under the threat of the Inquisition, to withdraw his works. Meanwhile he continued with his services as crown painter; and by 1800, he creates La Família de Carlos IV (The Family of Charles IV).

Los Caprichos, GOYA

The eighty etchings that make up Goya’s most important series of prints, Los Caprichos (1799), have long been recognized as one of the supreme monuments of European art. The Caprichos are one of the most influential graphic series in the history of Western art and continue to inspire contemporary artists. The works continue to be as current today as they were two hundred years ago, perhaps because Goya lived in times of deep transformation and his work expresses contradictions not too different from those of our own times. The entire set of some 80 prints cover subjects of prostitution, child sexual abuse, witchcraft, numerous specific superstitions, and satiric critiques of doctors, politicians, and clergy, among others. Nearly half of the imagery concerns itself with witchcraft, often in a mocking tone that shows that Goya's use of this particular subject was meant to have more than just one single understanding for the viewer.

Goya in his life went through 3 different phases:

1- Tapestry

It is very colorful pretty much in a style of Rococo. Like Family the Carlos the 4^th and does not seem political.

2- His political style

The subject matter is more somber; the colors of his paintings are more grayish. Subjects are more political. The Third of May is a good example.

3-Black paintings

They are incredibly dramatic. There are 14 paintings. He lost his hearing and was deaf completely during this time. He was morbid that why he started to created those monsters paintings.

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