Francisco de Goya

Francisco was their fourth child, following his sister Rita (b. 1737), Brother Tomás (b. 1739) (who was to follow in his father's trade) and second sister Jacinta (b. 1743).

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker.

Goya was born to a 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.

Francisco de Goya was born in Fuendetodos, Aragón, Spain, on 30 March 1746 to José Benito de Goya y Franque and Gracia de Lucientes y Salvador.

The family had moved that year from the city of Zaragoza, but there is no record why; likely José was commissioned to work there.

They were lower middle-class.

José was the son of a notary and of Basque origin, his ancestors being from Zerain, earning his living as a gilder, specialising in religious and decorative craftwork.

He oversaw the gilding and most of the ornamentation during the rebuilding of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar (Santa Maria del Pilar), the principal cathedral of Zaragoza.

About 1749 José and Gracia bought a home in Zaragoza and were able to return to live in the city.

Although there are no surviving records, it is thought that Goya may have attended the Escuelas Pías de San Antón, which offered free schooling.

His education seems to have been adequate but not enlightening; he had reading, writing and numeracy, and some knowledge of the classics.

According to Robert Hughes the artist "seems to have taken no more interest than a carpenter in philosophical or theological matters, and his views on painting ... were very down to earth: Goya was no theoretician."

There were two younger sons, Mariano (b. 1750) and Camilo (b. 1753).

His mother's family had pretensions of nobility and the house, a modest brick cottage, was owned by her family and, perhaps fancifully, bore their crest.

Goya submitted entries for the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1763 and 1766 but was denied entrance into the academia.

He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773.

At school he formed a close and lifelong friendship with fellow pupil Martín Zapater; the 131 letters Goya wrote to him from 1775 until Zapater's death in 1803 give valuable insight into Goya's early years at the court in Madrid.

At age 14 Goya studied under the painter José Luzán, where he copied stamps for 4 years until he decided to work on his own, as he wrote later on "paint from my invention".

He moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs, a popular painter with Spanish royalty.

He clashed with his master, and his examinations were unsatisfactory.

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.

Although Goya's letters and writings survive, little is known about his thoughts.

In the late 1790s, commissioned by Godoy, he completed his La maja desnuda, a remarkably daring nude for the time and clearly indebted to Diego Velázquez.

He had a severe and undiagnosed illness in 1793 that left him deaf, after which his work became progressively darker and pessimistic.

His later easel and mural paintings, prints and drawings appear to reflect a bleak outlook on personal, social and political levels, and contrast with his social climbing.

He was appointed Director of the Royal Academy in 1795, the year Manuel Godoy made an unfavorable treaty with France.

In 1799, Goya became Primer Pintor de Cámara (Prime Court Painter), the highest rank for a Spanish court painter.

In 1800–01, he painted Charles IV of Spain and His Family, also influenced by Velázquez.

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 speak 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.

His late period culminates with the Black Paintings of 1819–1823, applied on oil on the plaster walls of his house the Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man) where, disillusioned by political and social developments in Spain, he lived in near isolation.

Goya eventually abandoned Spain in 1824 to retire to the French city of Bordeaux, accompanied by his much younger maid and companion, Leocadia Weiss, who may have been his lover.

There he completed his La Tauromaquia series and a number of other works.

Following a stroke that left him paralyzed on his right side, Goya died and was buried on 16 April 1828 aged 82.

He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters.

Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.