Art Gallery

Goya y Lucientes, Francisco José de (1746-1828), Spanish painter and etcher; one of the triumvirate—the others being El Greco and Diego Velázquez—of great Spanish masters. He was born in Fuendetodos. His formal artistic education began at age 14, when he was apprenticed to a local master. In 1763 Goya went to Madrid and made the acquaintance of Francisco Bayeu, who was influential in forming Goya's early style and responsible for his participation in the fresco decoration (1771, 1780-1782) of the Church of the Virgin in El Pilar in Saragossa. In 1771 Goya went to Italy.

Returning to Spain about 1773, Goya began to do prints modeled on paintings by Velázquez, who would remain one of his greatest sources of inspiration. By 1786 Goya was working in an official capacity for King Charles III. His tapestry cartoons executed in the late 1780s and early 1790s were highly praised for their revolutionary, candid views of everyday Spanish life.

In 1792 Goya contracted a serious disease that left him totally deaf and marked a turning point in his career. Between 1797 and 1799 he began the first of his great print series Los caprichos (The Caprices), which satirically mocks social mores and superstitions of the time. Later series, such as Desastres de la guerra (Disasters of War, 1810), present more caustic commentaries on the ills and follies of humanity. Horrors of warfare were of great concern to Goya, who observed firsthand the bloody years of the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. Works of this period were generally painted in thick, bold strokes of dark color punctuated by brilliant yellow and red highlights. After leaving Spain for France in 1824, Goya took up lithography, producing a renowned series of bullfight scenes.