Francisco Goya

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) worked as a romantic painter and printmaker in Spain. He is widely seen as the country’s most significant artist from the late 1700s and early 1800s. His output—paintings, drawings, and engravings—captured the political and social turmoil of his era and shaped later painters in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many critics call Goya the final Old Master and the first modern artist, and he ranks among the most powerful figures in Western art history.

Goya came into the world in Fuendetodos, Aragon, to a middle-class household. At age fourteen he began studying painting under José Luzán y Martínez, then moved to Madrid to train with Anton Raphael Mengs. In 1773 he married Josefa Bayeu. By 1786 he had become a court painter for the Spanish Crown, and his early work features portraits of aristocrats and royalty, along with Rococo-style tapestry cartoons made for the royal palace.

Although Goya left behind letters and writings, scholars know little of his private thoughts. A severe illness in 1793—never properly diagnosed—left him deaf. After that, his art grew steadily darker and more pessimistic. His later easel paintings, murals, prints, and drawings seem to express a bleak view of personal, social, and political matters, standing in sharp contrast to his earlier social climbing. In 1795 he was appointed Director of the Royal Academy; that same year, Manuel Godoy signed an unfavorable treaty with France. By 1799 Goya had risen to Primer Pintor de Cámara (Prime Court Painter), the top rank for a Spanish court artist. Around the late 1790s, Godoy commissioned him to paint *La maja desnuda*, a remarkably bold nude for its time and clearly inspired by Diego Velázquez. Between 1800 and 1801 he painted *Charles IV of Spain and His Family*, another work influenced by Velázquez.

In 1807 Napoleon’s army invaded Spain, sparking the Peninsular War. Goya stayed in Madrid throughout the conflict, which appears to have shaken him deeply. He never spoke his views publicly, but his feelings can be read in the *Disasters of War* print series—though it was not published until thirty-five years after his death—and in his 1814 paintings *The Second of May 1808* and *The Third of May 1808*. Other works from this middle period include the *Caprichos* and *Los Disparates* etching series, plus a broad range of paintings dealing with madness, asylums, witches, fantastical creatures, and religious and political corruption. These pieces suggest he feared for his country’s future and for his own mental and physical health.

His late period culminates in the *Black Paintings* (1819–1823), executed in oil on the plaster walls of his home, the Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man). By then, disillusioned by Spain’s political and social direction, he lived in near isolation. In 1824 Goya left Spain for good, retiring to the French city of Bordeaux with his much younger maid and companion, Leocadia Weiss, who may have been his lover. There he finished the *La Tauromaquia* series and several other works. After a stroke paralyzed his right side, Goya died on 16 April 1828 at age eighty-two and was buried.

**Early years (1746–1771)**

Francisco de Goya was born on 30 March 1746 in Fuendetodos, Aragon, Spain, to José Benito de Goya y Franque and Gracia de Lucientes y Salvador. That year the family had moved from Zaragoza, though no record explains why; likely José had been commissioned to work there. They belonged to the lower middle class. José, the son of a notary and of Basque ancestry (his forebears came from Zerain), earned his living as a gilder, specializing 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), Zaragoza’s main cathedral. Francisco was the fourth child, after sister Rita (b. 1737), brother Tomás (b. 1739)—who later followed their father’s trade—and second sister Jacinta (b. 1743). Two younger sons followed: Mariano (b. 1750) and Camilo (b. 1753).

His mother’s family claimed noble status, and the house—a modest brick cottage—was owned by her family and, perhaps fancifully, displayed their crest. Around 1749 José and Gracia bought a home in Zaragoza and returned to live there. Although no records survive, Goya may have attended the Escuelas Pías de San Antón, which offered free schooling. His education seems adequate but not inspiring; he learned reading, writing, and arithmetic, and had 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.” At school he formed a close, lifelong friendship with fellow student Martín Zapater; the 131 letters Goya wrote to him from 1775 until Zapater’s death in 1803 offer valuable insight into Goya’s early years at the Madrid court.

**Visit to Italy**

At age fourteen Goya studied under painter José Luzán, copying prints for four years until he decided to work on his own, later writing that he wanted to “paint from my invention.” He moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs, a painter popular with Spanish royalty. He clashed with his master, and his examinations were unsatisfactory. Goya submitted entries for the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1763 and 1766 but was denied admission.

Rome was then Europe’s cultural capital, holding all the prototypes of classical antiquity, while Spain lacked a coherent artistic direction, with all its significant visual achievements in the past. Having failed to earn a scholarship, Goya relocated at his own expense.