Francisco Goya, the son of a master gilder, was born on the 30th of March, 1746 in Fuendetodos, a small village in the barren Spanish province of Aragon. When Goya was a boy, the family moved to the busy commercial center of Saragossa, the capital of Aragon.
Dancing by the River Manzanares
1777
oil on canvas, 272 × 295 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Goya went to school at a religious foundation, the Escuelas Pias de San Antón. Here he met Martin Zapater, who would become a faithful friend. Aged fourteen, Goya took lessons in drawing and painting from José Luzán y Martinez, a local religious painter, who introduced his pupils to the works of the Old Masters through engravings he made them copy.
The Parasol
1777
oil on canvas, 104 × 152 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Among Luzán’s other pupils were three gifted brothers, Francisco, Manuel and Ramon Bayeu, who were to become his brothers-in-law.
In 1763, Goya submitted a drawing to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid in the hope of gaining a place, but his entry gained not a single vote from the academic judges. Three years later, he tried again – and failed.
Prince Balthasar Carlos
1778
etching after Velázquez, 32 × 23 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
In 1770, Goya went to Italy, probably travelling to Rome and Naples and in April 1771 he received special mention for a painting he submitted to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Parma.
By June of the same year, he had returned to Saragossa where he received his first important commission, the decoration of the ceiling of the coreto, or choir, of the Basilica of El Pilar, the city’s great cathedral.
In July 1773, he married Josefa Bayeu, the sister of his three fellow pupils.
The Crucifixion
1780
oil on canvas, 253 × 153 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Francisco Bayeu was, by this time, employed in decorating the new Royal Palace in Madrid under Anton Mengs, a leading exponent of the neo-classical style, and Goya hoped, no doubt, to further his career by marrying the sister of a prominent painter. The couple had seven children, although only one son, Mariano, survived to adulthood. In the winter of 1774, Goya and Josefa settled in Madrid.
La Novillada
1780
oil on canvas, 259 × 136 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
The capital city had been transformed during the eighteenth century by the Spanish Bourbon kings, who widened streets, opened piazzas and constructed numerous religious and civic buildings. They also expanded the five Habsburg palaces and created three new royal residences, requiring a team of designers to decorate their interiors.
In 1775, Anton Mengs (1728–79), first court painter to Charles III, returned to Madrid and was given the responsibility of overseeing the execution of numerous tapestry drawings.
Mary, Queen of Martyrs
1780–1781
fresco on the church’s dome
El Pilar, Saragossa
The Goyas move came in response to his first royal commission, to design a series of drawings for tapestries to hang in the personal dining room of the future King Charles IV, in the Escorial Palace. Goya was given the commission at the suggestion of Mengs, who had earlier commissioned Francisco Bayeu to work on the new royal palaces. For several years, Goya was gainfully employed painting further series of drawings for the Royal Tapestry Factory.
St Bernardino of Siena Preaching before Alonso V of Aragon
1781–1783
oil on canvas, 480 × 300 cm
San Francisco el Grande, Madrid
During the 1780s, Goya’s career prospered. Finally elected to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1780, he became its Assistant Director of Painting in 1785. In June 1786, he was named an official court painter at a salary of 15,000 reales per year (equivalent to about £150 at that time), and in 1789 was promoted to Court Painter, as a result of which he began to mix with a glittering array of royalty, aristocracy and statesmen, and became a celebrated portrait painter.
Maria Teresa de Bourbon
1783
oil on canvas, 132.3 × 116.7 cm
Mellon Bruce collection, Washington
However, the son of humble parents and born far from the splendours of the court, Goya never became a courtier in spite of his official position. He painted not only members of the fashionable elite, but also artisans, labourers and the victims of poverty. He sympathized with the Spanish Enlightenment, whose members disagreed in principle with all that the court stood for.
Portrait of the Count of Floridablanca and Goya
1784
oil on canvas, 262 × 166 cm
Bank of Spain, Madrid
Disturbed by the social inequalities of the day, the Enlightenment felt that the monarchy, through blindness and neglect, had done little to bring Spain out of the Middle Ages. Goya became a proficient etcher and recorded his personal observations in this medium.
In these, and in the numerous drawings he made in private sketchbooks, he ridiculed the vulgarity and follies of humanity. His critical vision appears to have been intensified by the deafness with which he was inflicted after an infection in 1792.
The Family of the Infante Don Luis
1784
oil on canvas, 248 × 330 cm
Corte di Mamiano, Parma
The early years of the nineteenth century were disastrous for Spain. On 21 October 1805, the Spanish fleet was destroyed by the British at Trafalgar, cutting Spain off from its colonies. In 1806, Spain agreed to help Napoleon in the conquest of Portugal. Thousands of French troops poured into Spain. In 1808 King Charles IV abdicated in favour of his dim-witted son, Ferdinand VII, and the old king fled to Bayonne in France with Queen Maria Luisa and Manuel Godoy, his Prime Minister.
Countess-Duchess of Benavente
1785
oil on canvas, 104 × 80 cm
Bartolomé