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He began his artistic studies at the age of 13 with a local artist, José Lusán, who had trained in Naples and who taught Goya to draw, to copy engravings and to paint in oils. In 1763 and 1766, he competed unsuccessfully for a scholarship of the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, probably working in the studio of the Court Painter Francisco Bayeu, who was also from Saragossa. To continue his studies he went to Rome at his own expense. In April of 1771 he participated in a competition held by the Academy of Parma introducing himself as a pupil of Francisco Bayeu. By the end of 1771, Goya was back in Saragossa, where he received his first official commission, the frescoes in the Cathedral of El Pilar.
In 1773 Goya married Josefa Bayeu, sister of Francisco Bayeu. In 1774, the German artist Anton Raphael Mengs summoned Goya to Madrid to paint cartoons for tapestries for the Royal Factory of Santa Barbara. It is possible that Goya first met Mengs in Rome, since many years later he wrote that it was Mengs who made him return to Spain. In any event, it was Mengs who started him on his career at court. Under the direction first of Mengs, and later of Francisco Bayeu and Mariano Maella, Goya executed over 60 tapestry cartoons between 1775 and 1792, see e.g. Fight at the Cock Inn, The Parasol, La Cometa.
In 1780, Goya was elected a member of the Royal Academy of San Fernando. In 1780-81, he worked on the frescoes of El Pilar in Saragossa. On his return to Madrid he received the royal invitation to paint one of seven large altarpieces for the newly built church of San Francisco el Grande. The King’s opinion of his work must have been favorable, because in 1785, a year after the paintings were first shown to the public, Goya was appointed Deputy Director of Painting in the Academy. In 1786, he became a court painter.
Among Goya’s early admirers and most important patrons during a period of 20 years were the Duke and Duchess of Osuna, who commissioned not only portraits of themselves and a family group but also a number of paintings to decorate their country residence near Madrid, the Alameda Palace, known as El Capricho. Among other paintings for the Duke of Osuna are two altarpieces, commissioned in 1788 for the chapel of his ancestors, St. Francis Borgia, in Valencia Cathedral.
In 1783-85, Goya painted a number of portraits of the influential persons of his time: the portrait of the Chief Minister of State, the Count of Floridablanca, in which Goya himself appears; the family portrait of the Infante Don Luis, the King’s brother, with himself again in the picture; the court architect, Ventura Rodriguez. In 1785, he was commissioned for a series of portraits of offices of the Banco Nacional de San Carlos. In these early official portraits, Goya adopted conventional XVIII century poses. His portrait of Charles III in Hunting Costume is based directly on Velasquez’s paintings of royal huntsmen.
The death of Charles III in 1788, and the outbreak of the French Revolution, brought to an end the period of comparative prosperity and enlightenment in Spain during which Goya had reached maturity. Under the rule of the weak Charles IV and his unscrupulous Queen, María Luisa, Spain fell into political and social corruption, which ended with the Napoleonic invasion of Spain. Under the new regime Goya reached the height of his career as the most fashionable and successful artist in Spain. The new King raised him to the rank of Court Painter in 1789.
During a visit to Andalusia towards the end of 1792, Goya was struck down by a long and serious illness of which the effect, as he wrote even a year later, made him, ‘At times rage with so ill a humor that he could not tolerate himself’. The nature of the illness is not known for certain but it caused temporary paralysis and partial blindness and left him permanently deaf, so that henceforth he could only communicate by writing and sign language. He returned to Madrid in the summer of 1793.
After the death of Francisco Bayeu in 1795, Goya succeeded his former teacher as Director of Painting in the Academy (but resigned for reasons of health two years later), and in 1799 was appointed First Court Painter. In 1799, Goya published the series of 80 etchings called Los Caprichos, bitter caricatures of life. Despite the veiled language of Los Caprichos they were withdrawn from sale after a few days.
From the time of their ascension until 1800, Charles IV and
María
Luisa sat for him on many occasions, and many replicas were made of his
portraits of them. He painted them in various costumes and poses,
ranging
from the early decorative portraits in full regalia in the tradition of
Mengs to the simpler and more natural compositions in the manner of
Velázquez.
Goya was 62 years old when the Napoleonic invasion of Spain started
in 1808, and Spain was subjected to six years of war and revolution.
Goya
was in Madrid during the tragic events of 2 and 3 May 1808 when the
population
rose against the French and the uprising was savagely repressed. He
later,
in 1814, recorded the events in two of the most famous of his paintings
The
Second of May, 1808: The Charge of Mamelukes. and The
Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid.
Meanwhile, with thousands of other heads of families, Goya swore
allegiance
to the French King, Joseph Bonaparte. During the war he was occupied
with
portraits of family groups and private citizens. At the time he made
his
personal record of the war in expressive and fearful drawings Desastres
de la Guerra, which were later used for a series of 82
etchings,
which were published only in 1863.
In August 1812, when the British entered Madrid, Goya accepted a commission for an equestrian portrait of the Duke of Wellington and, soon afterwards, painted one other portrait of his only recorded English sitter. On the restoration of Ferdinand VII in 1814, Goya resumed his office as First Court Painter. The portraits of Ferdinand were Goya’s last royal portraits, he went out of favor and fashion. From now on Goya was chiefly occupied with paintings for private patrons, for friends and for himself. He continued to record his observations and ideas in drawings. During this period Goya received two important ecclesiastical commissions for St. Justa and St. Rufina, painted in 1817 for the Seville Cathedral, and for The Last Communion of St. Joseph of Calasanz, painted in 1819 for the church of the Escuelas Pías de San Antón in Madrid.
As a result of the revolution of 1820 Ferdinand VII was forced to recognize a constitution, but already in 1823 the French army restored the Spanish king to absolute power, and the persecution of the liberals was renewed with greater violence than ever before. Goya, who had made his last appearance at the Academy on 4 April 1820 to swear allegiance to the Constitution, went into hiding early in 1824. After the declaration of amnesty Goya left Spain. Except for two short visits to Madrid in 1826 and 1827, the painter remained in France, mainly in Bordeaux, for the rest of his life. He died in Bordeaux on 16 April, 1828.
Pedro Romero, Goya’s friend, a
great
torero of his time, belonged to the family of the Romeros, creators of
the modern form of the bullfight; at least two portraits of Pedro, the
most famous in the family, are known.
See: Francisco de Goya. Pedro Romero. Portrait of the Bullfighter Pedro Romero.
Dona Isabel de Porcel was
the spouse of Don Antonio de Porcel, member of the council of Castile.
She wears a dress of an Andalusian, a region of Spain, from which she
came.
Goya's portrait of her husband, Don Antonio de Porcel, dated 1806, was
formerly kept in the Jockey Club, Buenos Aires.
See: Francisco de Goya. Dona Isabel de Porcel.
José
Moñino, the Count of Floridablanca (1728-1808), Spanish
statesman,
the First Secretary of State of Charles III, patron of arts and Goya.
He
was appointed member of the Council of Castille by Charles III, and
played
a significant part in the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain (1767).
In
1772, he was appointed Ambassador to the Holy See. In 1773, he was
nominated
Count of Floridablanca. In 1777, Charles III made him Prime Minister.
His
government favored the infrastrucutre, the arts, the sciences and the
economy,
and adopted shrewd financial policies; in relations with foreign
countries
it strove to distance itself from the policies of France. In Madrid he
initiated the construction of the astronomical observatory and the
Cabinet
of Natural History. He supported the foundation of the Bank of San
Carlos,
the institution of the Real Compañía de Filipinas and the
development of the Real Armada. In 1792, as a result of the
intrigues
of Manuel Godoy and the Count of Aranda, he had to resign and was
submitted
to a trial, on charges of embezzlement, which ended in 1795 with his
full
acquittal. In 1808, at the age of 80, he was appointed head of the
Junta
Central raised to fight the French.
See: Francisco de Goya. The Count of Floridablanca and Goya.
Gaspar Melchor de
Jovellanos
(1744-1811)
Spanish liberal statesman and author, born at Gijon, Asturias. First he
studied theology, but his uncle, the Duke of Losada, dissuaded him from
an ecclesiastical career, and advised to practise law. Gaspar followed
the advice. In time he was made a judge in the criminal court of
Seville,
and later took higher places on the bench. While at Seville, he got
interested
in mechanics, agriculture and economy, and undertook certain actions to
improve the conditions of the working people. At the same time he
commenced
his literary career, he is the author of a number of plays and lyric
verses.
In 1778, Charles III summoned him to Madrid. In 1788 Charles III died,
and in 1790 Gaspar had to leave Madrid and go into exile. Then, to his
great surprise, he was appointed minister of justice. He held the post
in 1797-99, but with the fall of Godoy he lost his office and had to
return
to his native Gijon. There, in 1801, he was arrested and kept a
prisoner
in Majorca until 1808. On coming back to the mainland, he was notified
that Joseph Bonaparte had appointed him his minister. He refused,
accepting
instead a place on the national Junta Central, as the representative of
Asturias. The following political events made him again to flee before
the advance of the French, to his native province. During this journey
he died of pneumonia at Puerto de Vega.
See: Francisco de Goya. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos.
Leandro
Fernández
de Moratin (1760-1828), Spanish playwright and poet, born in
Madrid,
son of the Spanish writer Nicholas Fernandez de Moratín. His
plays,
satiric and psychologically acute, include El sí de las
niñas
(The
Maidens’ Consent) (1806), for which he was denounced by the
Inquisition.
He was subsequently compelled to give up playwriting. Died in Paris in
1828.
See: Francisco de Goya. Leandro Fernández de Moratin.
Don
José Alvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga, the Duke of Alba (?
-1796),
husband of Maria del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva y Alvarez de
Toledo,
better known as the Duchess of Alba (1762-1802). She was
‘outstanding
for her beauty, popularity, charm, richness and rank’, she had many
love
affairs, with Goya among others. When Goya painted the duke, the latter
had just returned from England. Maybe this fact prompted the artist to
execute an English-style portrait. Much attention is paid to the
objects
decorating the room to define the character and tastes of the duke, an
educated reserved man, passionate collector and a music lover. Goya
painted
the duchess on many occasions, there are also pencil drawings of her.
See: Francisco de Goya. Duke of Alba. Portrait of the Dutchess of Alba. Portrait of the
Dutchess of Alba.
Isidro Máiquez was a very
popular actor of his time, his liberal ideas resulted in his
imprisonment
and exile.
See: Francisco de Goya. Portrait of the Actor Isidro Máiquez.
The Bookseller's Wife. Traditionally,
the painting has been viewed as the portrait of the wife of bookseller
Antonio Bailó, whose store was in the Calle de las Carretas No.
4 near the Puerta del Sol and to whom Goya had friendly ties prior to
the
war. After the restoration of Ferdinand VII in 1814, the Purification
Trials
took place in Spain; during Goya’s trial Bailó testified in
favor
of Goya.
See: Francisco de Goya. The Bookseller's Wife.
The
second
of May 1808 at the Puerta del Sol: The Charge of the Mamelukes and
The
Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid. The
people
of Madrid attacked a group of the mounted Egyptian soldiers (Mamelukes)
of the French army. The participants and probably the witnesses of the
attack were savagely punished by arrests and executions continuing
throughout
the night and the following morning of 3 May.
See: Francisco de Goya. The Second of May, 1808 at the Puerta del Sol. The Third of May,
1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid.
Juan Martin Diaz,
El
Empecinado (1775-1825), Spanish patriot and guerrilla; when Madrid
was liberated in 1812, El Empecinado was celebrated as a symbol of the
heroic Spanish resistance to the French invaders alongside the Duke of
Wellington. His liberal ideas brought about his shameful death in 1825
at the time of the counter-revolutionary terror. He was hanged.
See: Francisco de Goya. Juan Martin Diaz,
El Empecinado.
The Burial of the Sardine, a
popular Spanish masked festival, marks the end of Carnival and
beginning
of Lent; it still takes place in some parts of Spain.
See: Francisco de Goya. The Burial of the Sardine.
José Pio de Molina, a
close friend of Goya’s, was the first mayor of Madrid during the
constitutional
epoch, he emigrated in 1823. This portrait is probably the last one
Goya
painted in Bordeaux. Molina signed Goya’s death certificate as a
witness.
See: Francisco de Goya. José Pio de Molina.
Mariano Goya, (1806-1874) the
artist’s
only grandson, was born on 11 July 1806 in Madrid, son of Francisco
Javier
Goya and Gumersinda Goicoechea. There are three known portraits of
Mariano
by Goya, full-length portrait aged four, head and shoulders at the age
of six-eight years old, and head and shoulders portrait as a young man.
See: Francisco de Goya. Portrait of Mariano Goya, the Artist's Grandson.
Mariano Goya, the Artist's Grandson.
Francisco Bayeu (1734-1795)
Spanish
artist, he came from Aragon, as did Goya. He was summoned by Mengs in
1763
to help with the decoration of the new Palacio Real. Soon he was the
leader
of the young Spanish painting school of the second half of the 18th
century.
Prior to his departure to Italy, Goya was Bayeu’s pupil and he
married
his sister Josefa Bayeu upon his return; this introduced him into the
powerful
family league of the Bayeu, which included – under the leadership of
Francisco
– Ramon, Goya’s competitor in the manufacture of tapestries and of the
same age as he, and Fray Manuel, a painter as well.
See: Francisco de Goya. Portrait of Francisco Bayeu.
Andrés del Peral was a
doctor of law, and financial representative of the Spanish government
in
Paris at the end of the eighteenth century. He was a collector and was
recorded as having formed a large collection of small paintings by Goya.
See: Francisco de Goya. Portrait of Andrés del Peral.
Manuel Godoy, Duke
of
Alcudia, (1767-1851) Spanish stateman, born in Badajoz. A member
of
Charles IV’s bodyguard, he became the royal favorite, lover of the
queen,
and was made prime minister in 1792, ennobled with the title of "Prince
of the Peace". He led Spain into a series of disasters, which
culminated
in the French invasion of 1808, when the king was obliged to imprison
him
to protect him from the people’s fury. He subsequently intrigued with
Napoleon
and spent the rest of his life in exile in Rome and Paris, where he
died.
Godoy was an important patron of Goya. His palace was decorated with
paintings by Goya, he sat for the artist on more than one occasion, and
he owned versions of Goya’s portraits of the King and Queen. The famous
Naked
Maja (La Maja Desnuda) and
The
Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestifa) are first recorded in
Godoy’s
collection, and the importance of his position suggests the possibility
that they were painted for him. Both the origin of the Majas and the
identity
of the model are still a mystery. Goya was summoned by the Inquisition
in 1815 to explain when and for whom they had been executed, but his
explanation
has never been brought to light.
Godoy was married to a niece of Charles III's, María
Teresa de Borbón y Vallabriga (1780-1828), later Countess
of Chinchón, daughter of the Infante
Luis de Borbón. This marriage was very humiliating for the
countess,
it was arranged by the Queen Maria Luisa for her own duplicitous
purposes.
There are four known portraits of María Teresa by Goya; he
maintained
a lifelong sympathetic relationship with her.
See: Francisco de Goya. Manuel Godoy, Duke of Alcudia, "Prince of the Peace".
Victor Guye was the nephew of one
of
the most important French generals in Spain, Nicolas Guye. The boy is
wearing
the uniform of the Order of Pages to Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's
brother
who had been appointed king of Spain. At six or seven years of age,
Victor
was probably too young to act as a court page. Even so, he might have
been
permitted to wear the prestigious uniform through his uncle's
influence.
See: Francisco de
Goya. Portrait of Victor Guye.
Arthur
Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, nicknamed ‘Iron Duke’,
born
in Dublin in 1769, entered the British army in 1787. He served in
Europe
and in 1797 his regiment was sent to India, where he saw active service
until he returned home in 1805. He sat as an MP for Rye between 1806
and
1809, becoming Irish Secretary in 1807. In 1807, General Wellesley was
given command of a division in an expedition to force the Danes to give
up their fleet to the British before it was seized by the French. The
expedition
was a success. In 1808, Lieutenant General Wellesley was sent to the
aid
of the Portuguese against the French. In 1809, he assumed the chief
command
in the Peninsula. Wellington gained military distinction in the
Peninsular
Campaigns during the Napoleonic Wars, culminating in the victory at
Waterloo.
He was raised to the peerage as the Duke of Wellington in recognition
of
his achievements and he sat in the House of Lords for the rest of his
life.
Wellington died in 1852 and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. His
London home at Apsley House, Piccadilly, is now the Wellington Museum.
See: Francisco de Goya. Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. Francisco
de Goya? The Duke of Wellington.
Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The First of May. The
Duke of Wellington Presenting a Casket on Prince Arthur's Birthday.
Juan Antonio Cuervo, a
Spanish
architect, was appointed Director of the Royal Academy of San Fernando
in 1815.
See: Francisco de Goya. Portrait of Juan Antonio Cuervo.
Don Pedro de
Alcàntara,
ninth Duke of Osuna, was one of Goya’s main patrons. An
educated
man, interested in scientific and cultural innovations, the duke is the
embodiment of the late eighteenth century illuminated aristocrat, who
tried
to modernize Spanish society. In 1771 he married Maria Josefa
Alonso
Pimentel, Countess of Benavente, and they had many
children.
The duchess, a woman of keen intelligence also played an important role
in Spanish society and did great charitable works.
See: Francisco de Goya. The Family of the Duke of Osuna. Don Pedro, Duke
of Osuna.
Doña María Ana de
Pontejos
y Sandoval, the Marquesa de Pontejos, is holding a pink
carnation,
an emblem of love and brides. In 1786, at age twenty-four, she married
the brother of the Count of Floridablanca, Charles III's
progressive
Prime Minister. At that time, her husband served as Spain's ambassador
to Portugal.
See: Francisco de Goya. The Marquesa de Pontejos.
Don Antonio Noriega
Bermúdez,
Spanish official, the General Treasurer under Charles IV. Don Antonio
was
knighted on 23 July 1801, and Goya's portrait may commemorate that
event:
the blue and white ribbon of the Order of Charles III appears
prominently
on his jacket. His administration was disastrously inefficient, nearly
doubling the national debt. While fleeing from the Napoleonic invaders
in 1808, Don Antonio was assassinated by Spaniards who, mistakenly,
thought
he had collaborated with the French army.
See: Francisco de Goya. Don Antonio Noriega.
Dona Teresa Sureda was the
wife
of Don Bartolomé Sureda y Miserol, a painter, one of the
first Spanish lithographers, an authority on the manufacture of glass,
porcelain factory of the Buen Retiro in Madrid, where he introduced the
production of Sèvres porcelain. He was also Goya’s friend.
See: Francisco de Goya. Dona Teresa Sureda. Don
Bartolomé Sureda.
Antonia Zárate
(1775-1811)
“a celebrated actress, daughter of a famous actor, wife of a singer,
and
sister to a poet and playwright” Gil y Zárate.
See: Francisco de Goya. Portrait of Antonia Zárate. Portrait of
Antonia Zárate.
Bibliography:
Goya by I. Levina. Moscow-Leningrad. 1958.
Goya. by T. Sedova. Moscow. 1973.
Goya and Romanticism. by V. Prokofyev. Moscow. 1986.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
Francisco
Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828 by Janis Tomlinson. Phaidon
Press
Inc., 1999.
Goya:
Man Among Kings by Anthony H. Hull. Madison Books, 1993.
Goya by
ROBERT HUGHES. Knopf, 2003.
The Black Paintings of
Goya by Juan Jose Junquera. Scala Publishers, 2003.
I, Goya by
Dagmar Feghelm, Goya, Ishbel Flett, Christopher Wynne. Prestel
Publishing, 2004.
Goya by Fred
Licht. Abbeville Press, 2001.
Goya by
Werner Hofmann, Francisco Goya. Thames & Hudson, 2003.
Goya: Drawings from His
Private Albums by Juliet Wilson Bareau, Juliet
Wilson-Bareau, Francisco Goya. Lund Humphries Publishers, 2001.
Goya: The Complete
Etchings and Lithographs by Alfonso E. Perez Sanchez, Julian
Gallego, Jenifer Wakelyn. Prestel, 1995.
Goya's Caprichos :
Aesthetics, Perception, and the Body by Andrew Schulz.
Cambridge University Press, 2005.