Francisco Goya

Francisco Jose de Goya there Lucientes , born with Fuendetodos, close to Saragossa, on March 30th, 1746 and died in Bordeaux April 16th 1828, is a painter and Spanish engraver .

Biography

Formation and first orders (years 1760-1775)

Francisco Goya was the son of Gracia Lucientes († 1785) and of Jose Goya († 1781), main gilder in Saragossa, where it was employed by the canons of the famous basilica of the Pilar, then in restoration and embellissement.
Raise Jose Luzán in Saragossa in the Années 1760, the Francisco young person also lived with Madrid, where it failed several times, between 1763 and 1766 with the contest of the academy San Fernando, founded in 1752.

Years 1766-1771 correspond to one badly known period of the life of the painter, where Goya probably remained in Madrid to perfect its formation under the aegis of Francisco Bayeu (1734-1795), another artist of Saragossa protected by Raphaël Mengs and become " painter of Chambre" in 1767. In spite of the youthful indiscretions evoked in its later correspondence, Goya has especially to make profitable its presence in the capital to impregnate masterpieces contained in the royal collections, and in particular the vigorous and luminous frescos of Tiepolo to the Palate royal.
After a stay with Rome and Parma (where it took part in vain in the contest of the academy but where its " let us tons heurtés" he are reproached) in 1771, it returned to Saragossa, where it accepted its first orders. Entered, following the example his father, with the service of the canons of Pilar, he was preferred with the famous fresquist Antonio González Velázquez to decorate the ceiling with a vault. Finished in July 1772, this fresco opened the way with other orders of the same kind.

He married, in July 1773, the sister of Francisco Bayeu, Josefa Bayeu, 26 years old. He had several children with her but all died in low age, besides one of them: the second, Francisco-Javier, born the December 2nd 1784.

With the service of the Bourbon of Spain (1775-1785)

In 1775, Goya is established in Madrid (where he lived, between 1779 and 1819, in the street of Desengaño) and obtained there, probably by the mediation of Bayeu, its first important order: paperboards (model of tapestry) for the Royal Manufacture of Santa Barbara. These tapestries, intended to decorate the dining rooms of the prince of Asturies (future Charles IV) to the palates of the Escorial and the Pardo, occupied Goya until in 1778 and were followed, between 1778 and 1780, by a new ordering of the same type intended to provide tapestries for the room to sleep and the anteroom of this same prince in Pardo. Having obtained the authorization to engrave works of Diego Velázquez, Goya carried out aquatintes noticed soon by Charles III. This study of the tables of the large Master of the Century of Gold exerted a decisive influence on the work of protected from Bayeu.

Entered thus into the service of the royal family, Goya was integrated into the circles of the ilustrados , these " intellectuels" progressists influenced by the ideas of the Lights. It met thus the lawyer Jovellanos, related on Pedro de Campomanes and the count of Floridablanca (whose Goya carried out a full-length portrait in 1783), the Sepulveda engraver or the Basque financier François Cabarrus.
Again solicited by the canons of Pilar to paint a cupola of the basilica, it ran up against the increasing jealousy of Bayeu which, after having required in vain corrections with work of his/her brother-in-law, had gone to denounce with the silent partners the recalcitrant attitude of Goya, which was then obliged to be carried out (1780 - 1781). This disappointment was to durably move away it from Saragossa like powerful sound brother-in-law.

It is in 1783 that it entered to the service of gift Luis, a brother of the king, carrying out for him several portraits of family including one Famille of gift Luis (1784), a portrait of group bathed of an clearly-obscure intimist inspired of Rembrandt. Don Luis died the following year, but Goya found a patron in the person of the marquis de Peñafiel, future Duc of Osuna, which will employ it on several occasions. Extremely of these high protections, it became, on May 4th 1785, assistant editor of painting to the Académie of San Fernando (it will submit for example a report on the teaching of art in October 1792).

The painter of the king (1786-1808)

The June 25th 1786, it is named painter of King d' Espagne before receiving a new ordering of paperboards of tapestries for the dining room royal and the room to lay down infantes of Pardo. This task, which occupied it until 1792, gave the opportunity to him to introduce certain features of social satire (obvious in the Puppet or the Marriage ) which already strongly slice with the gallant or obliging scenes of the paperboards built in the years 1770. In 1788, the come to power of Charles IV and his wife Marie-Louise (for whom the painter worked since 1775) reinforced the position of Goya at the Court, making it reach under painter of the Room as of the following year. However, royal concern with respect to the French revolution of 1789 (whose Goya and its friends shared certain ideas) caused the disgrace of the Ilustrados in 1790: Cabarrus was stopped, constrained Jovellanos with the exile, and Goya temporarily held far away from the Court.

In November 1792 it fell seriously sick at the time of a voyage to Cadiz (it was perhaps about a form of Méningite). After several months of disease which left it temporarily and partially paralyzed, there remained physically weak and definitively deaf person. After the death of Bayeu, in 1795, Goya requested the title of first painter of the Room carried by his/her late brother-in-law. It did not obtain satisfaction but, at the same time, it was elected director of painting with San Fernando, station which it gave up two years later because of his health issues. The same year, it met the duchess of Alba from which it carried out several portraits and of which it was, says one (while basing itself on a stay common of the painter and the duchess to Sanlúcar, in Andalusia), the lover.

It is with the turning of the century that Goya carried out its more famous masterpieces. Among those, it is necessary to include several royal orders, such as the cupola of the royal vault of San Antonio of Florida, in Madrid (1798) or portrait of group of celebrates it the family of Charles IV (1800), where the painter pays homage to the Ménines of Velázquez. It is then with the apogee of its career and the title of First painter of the Room finally comes to reward its efforts. He also worked for the ambitious Godoy, of which it immortalisa the mistress under the features of sulfurous the naked Maja (about 1799-1800). But this culminating point of the career of Goya is also marked by a great disappointment: its Whims ( Los Caprichos ), a collection of etchings and to the aquatinte published in February 1799, are censured under the pressure of the Inquisition. The artist had indeed slipped there, among sinister and enigmatic images mixing popular rattan with fantastic preromantic, of violent attacks against the archaism of a Spanish company where the Church still exerted a liberticide influence at the dawn of the XIXe century.

Black years (1808-1828)

The French invasion of 1808 played a crucial role in the life of the artist. Favorable to the liberal ideas brought by the French but wounded in his patriotism, Goya hesitated indeed during a certain time between the resistance incarnated by the central Junta of Seville and the ideas of 1789 ranges by the king Joseph, brother of Napoleon i. The year 1810, during which it started to engrave the Disasters of the war , a wild indictment against the French exactions, while carrying out the portrait of Joseph Ier, watch well the tugging which it felt then and which was worth to him, a few years later, a reputation of afrancesado .
In June 1812, Josefa Bayeu, his wife, died at the 65 years age. Two months later, Wellington made its entry in Madrid. Goya then carried out the portrait of that which had overcome the French, thus expressing his rejection of the French occupant and his rallying with the legitimacy national (and, especially, liberal) incarnated by the Cortes and the Council of regency of Cadiz. Thus, when these last institutions decided to organize a contest to commemorate the insurrection inhabitant of Madrid of May 2nd, 1808, Goya hastened to propose “ to perpetuate by the means of the brush most notable and heroic actions of our glorious insurrection against the tyrant of Europe ”. Thus the artist painted famous the Dos and Tres of Mayo (1814).

The return of exile of Ferdinand VII was going however to ring the knell of the projects of constitutional monarchy and liberal to which Goya adhered. If it preserved its place of First painter of the Room , Goya was alarmed at the reaction absolutist which still developed after the crushing of the liberals by the task force French in 1823. Worried by the Enquiry to have painted the naked Maja of Godoy, struck again by the disease, nauseated by the policy reactionary of its sovereign of Master, Goya fixed his anguishes and its disillusions in famous the " black Paintings " it decorated the walls with the " house of the sourd" (located in the surroundings of Madrid and bought by the painter in 1819).

This dark context explains why Goya, pretexting a voyage of health, left Spain the June 24th 1824 to settle with Bordeaux, place of exile of others afrancesados liberal. It was joined soon there by his partner Leocadia Weiss and the girl of this one, Rosario (which was probably the proper girl of Goya, this last having lived with Leocadia since 1813). It is in this French exile (punctuated of some stays in Spain) that it carried out a collection of lithographies on the topic of the bullfighting entitled the Bulls of Bordeaux (1825) and making following the prints of the Tauromachie published in 1816.

82 years old, Goya died in Bordeaux in the night of the 15 with the April 16th 1828.

Works

the sunshade , 1777, (Museum of Prado), tapestry, paintings
Glory , 1771, (church of chartreuse of Aula Dei)
Manual Gift Osorio de Zuniga , 1788, (New York, Metropolitan Museum off Arts)
the Marchioness of Solana , 1793, (Museum of Louvre)
Self-portrait , 1794 (Castrate, Musée Goya)
the duchess of Alba with the little girl black whom it had adopted , drawing 1796-1797, (Museum of Prado)
the duchess of Osuna , 1888
Ferdinand Guillemardet , 1798, (Museum of Louvre)
the Miracle of the Saint , 1798, fresco of the Cupola of the church of San Antonio of Florida.
Courageous Rendon pricking a bull , series Bullfighting, (Museum off Fine Arts, Boston)
the Family of Charles IV , 1801, (Museum of Prado)
the woman with the range, 1805-1810, (Museum of Louvre)
Gave Isabel Cobos de Porcel ; 1806, (Londre National Gallery)
Senora Sabasa there Garcia, 1808, (Washington, National Gallery)

Majas With the Balcony , 1810, (New York, Metropolitan Museum off Arts)

the Colossus , 1808, (Museum of Prado)

Woman reading a letter , 1814-1818, (Museum of the fine arts of Lille)

Maja Desnuda , 1800, (Museum of Prado)

Maja Vestida , (1797-1799)

Back of Mayo , or (on May 2nd, 1808, in Madrid) 1814, (Museum of Prado)

Very of Mayo , or (on May 3rd, 1808, in Madrid) 1814, (Museum of Prado)

Fantastic Vision (black painting), (1819), (Museum of Prado)

Sabbath of the Witches (black painting), 1820, (Museum of Prado)

the Dairy one of Bordeaux , 1827, (Museum of Prado)

the Countess of Chinchon , 1800

43 Royal tapestries manufactured with the manufacture of Santa Barbara (1775 to 1792), (Museum of Prado)

Engravings & Drawings
Disaster of the War , 1810
the Colossus , 1815, Paris National library
the Swing , 1798, drawing (New York, Metropolitan Museum off Arts)
the Sleep of the reason generates monsters , series the Whims, (Museum off Fine Arts, Boston)
Jolis the Councils , series the Whims, 1793-1798

Influence and posterity

The Spanish cinema is rewarded by the Prix Goya, a statuette with the effigy of the painter.

A fictionalized film telling the life of Goya and its relation with one of its models appeared in 2007 pennies the name the phantoms of Goya. Goya is especially pretext in a table of Spain of then, on bottom of enquiry and French invasion.

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