Explore Francisco Goya’s Life and Artwork

Francisco Goya (1746–1828) was a Spanish painter, printmaker, and portraitist during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Goya served as a court painter to King Charles III and King Charles IV.

Goya was one of the preeminent artists of his time, and his unique style influenced artists like Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, and Vincent van Gogh.

• Early beginnings: Goya was born in Fuendetodos, Spain, in 1746. He began his long career at age 14, studying painting under José Luzán before furthering his artistic studies in Madrid and Rome.
• Personal life: After returning to Spain, he married Josefa Bayeu in 1773. The couple had seven children together, but only one child, their son Francisco Javier de Goya, survived past infancy and entered adulthood.
• Career at court: In 1786, Goya became a court painter to the Spanish royal family, prompting him to spend the next phase of his career painting numerous portraits and tapestry cartoons commissioned by King Charles III and King Charles IV, including the portrait Charles IV of Spain and His Family.
• Illness: In 1793, an undiagnosed illness left Goya deaf, which may have contributed to the grim shift in the tone of his art. In 1808, when Napoleonic France occupied Spain during the Peninsular War, Goya stayed in Spain and expressed his anti-war beliefs through etchings and paintings such as Los Desastres de La Guerra (The Disasters of War), The Second of May 1808, and The Third of May 1808. In this stage of his career, Goya also produced a series of dark and dreary prints about political issues called Los Disparates (The Follies) and a series of prints portraying bullfighting scenes called La Tauromaquia (Bullfighting).
• Later years: One of Goya's most notable final projects was the Black Paintings, a series of 14 paintings depicting themes of insanity and a bleak perspective on humanity. Following the completion of the Black Paintings, Goya retired to Bordeaux, France, in 1824 with his young maid and rumored lover, Leocadia Weiss. Failing eyesight and a stroke prevented Goya from his artistic pursuits, and he died on April 16, 1828, at age 82.

The following are some of the defining elements of Francisco Goya’s body of work:

1. 1. Aquatint etchings: Goya was a master of the aquatint etching technique, which gave his etchings a similar appearance to watercolor drawings. Aquatint tonal effects made his Los Caprichos etching portfolio a crowning achievement in engraving history.
2. 2. Versatility: Goya used various methods and materials, including fresco, oil on canvas, and cardboard for tapestries. His work spanned many styles and contained elements of Romanticism, Realism, and Neoclassicism.
3. 3. Topical content: Goya's art directly responded to events occurring in the world surrounding him. His etching portfolios—Los Caprichos, The Disasters of War, Proverbios, and La Tauromaquia in particular—were manifestations of his beliefs about the political, social, and religious affairs of his time and featured whimsical and unnatural imagery. Even Goya's more formal court paintings of the Spanish royal family seemed to contain hidden satirical criticisms of his subjects.
4. 4. Psychological traits: Goya's later works take a noticeable shift towards hopelessness, evil, doom, and gloom. His Black Paintings were a reflection of his pessimistic mindset and mental decline. His compositional style emphasized emotional experience over physical reality, and it presaged the Expressionism movement.

Many of Goya’s most notable works are at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, which boasts a collection of more than 140 of his paintings.

1. 1. La Maja Desnuda (1797–1800): Translating to The Naked Maja, this daring piece depicted a nude woman reclining on a bed of pillows. The female subject was speculated to be the Duchess of Alba, with whom Goya was rumored to be having an affair.
2. 2. La Maja Vestida (1800–1805): This companion piece to La Maja Desnuda is a clothed portrayal of the same woman.
3. 3. Charles IV of Spain and His Family (1800-1801): Goya modeled this portrait of Charles IV and his family after Diego Velázquez’s 1656 royal family portrait, Las Meninas. Like Velázquez, Goya also depicted his royal subjects in a naturalistic environment and included himself next to an easel in the portrait’s background.
4. 4. The Second of May 1808 (1814): This painting portrays one of the people’s rebellions against the French occupation of Spain that led to the Peninsular War and was a reflection on Goya’s anti-war beliefs.
5. 5. The Third of May 1808 (1814): Completed within two months of its companion piece, The Second of May 1808, the painting depicts a group of French soldiers executing unarmed Spaniards out of retaliation for their rebellion one day earlier. This revolutionary piece breaks away from the traditional depictions of war, and art historians regard it as one of the first modern war paintings.

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