FRANCISCO DE GOYA FUN(-ISH) FACTS: FAME LESSON 3

As a young child Goya showed early interest in art and was encouraged by his father. When

he was an apprentice he learned technique by copying the work of other artists and how to

depict the human form by copying statues.

Although Goya failed to receive a single vote from the selection committee for the Art

Academy in Madrid when he was seventeen, he persevered in his art by painting portraits for

the nobility. Eventually he was appointed Painter to the Royal Court and at age forty-three

was the most successful artist in Spain.

Goya's introduction to the royal workshops, a relationship that lasted the rest of his life and

spanned four ruling monarchies, began in 1774. The German painter Anton Raphael Mengs

asked Goya to work on tapestry cartoons, or preliminary paintings, for the Royal Tapestry

Factory at Santa Bárbara. Goya painted sixty-three cartoons for two royal palaces which

illustrate leisure activities of the rich, poor, young, and old in a playful Rococo manner. One

of his illustrations, The Blind Guitarist, was rejected and returned to Goya as the tapestry

weavers were frustrated by its complex composition. However, before simplifying it, Goya

preserved the original design in a copperplate etching, the largest print he ever made.

A serious illness in 1792 left Goya permanently and profoundly deaf. Able to hear only

buzzing sounds reverberating in his head, he was nearly driven mad. Isolated by his

deafness, he became increasingly occupied with the fantasies and inventions of his

imagination and with critical and satirical observations of mankind. He found that drawing

gave him more freedom than did painting in oils and evolved a bold, free new style close to

caricature. In 1799, he completed and published a suite of eighty allegorical etchings

including the Caprichos; Out Hunting for Teeth and The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. They

introduce a world of witches, ghosts, and fantastic creatures that invade the mind,

particularly during dreams, nightmarish visions symbolizing a world against reason.

To reach a larger audience, he began making etchings on copper plates (similar to

lithography) and producing hundreds of prints from them. He was one of the first major

artists to use this process. He continued to paint portraits of nobility and royalty but they

were more realistic and less flattering than The Maja Clothed.

Goya’s subject matter became increasingly dark as political upheaval in Spain and his

isolation worked its way into his art (he produced terrifying images such as The Black

Paintings—meant for his eyes only). He continued to work as an artist (self exiled in France),

however, which kept him from complete madness until his death in 1828.

Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art Link on Goya: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/goya/hd_goya.htm

for images of works mentioned above available on FAME website: smithfame.webs.com