Barrie-Lee Zucker

Drawing/Christoph Fields
March 25, 2010

Goya

Francisco Jose de Goya Y Lucientes is known for outstanding

achievement in printmaking, paintings, drawings, he a radical, ahead
of his time, a bad boy artist, satirist of political, social and religious
abuses. As the 18th century’s foremost painter and etcher of Spanish
culture, he left hundreds of paintings, drawings, etchings that are
haunting and at times, disturbing. They seem timeless in their anti war
sentiment. The record he left on his patrons and society has been
called “ruthlessly penetrating.”
Born in Fuendetodes, Zaragoza, Spain, Goya lived from 1746 –1828
during a time of upheaval in Spain that included war with France, the
Inquisition and the rule of Napoleon’s brother, Joseph.

Goya was a very political dude, very much ahead of his time.
Ironically, but probably due to his genius as an artist, he somehow
managed to be reinstalled at the Royal Court painter after seemingly
allying himself with the temporary stand in King Charles III. Though his
work spoke of his extreme repulsion for the ruling class, he was
welcomed in the court. His work is always political and offensive, but
always powerful. In 1793 Goya went deaf due to illness. It is said that
perhaps this added strife spurred his compulsion to depict human
misery in a particularly satiric and sometimes nightmarish fashion.

He had no immediate followers of note, any would be followers

may have heard that he had to face The Inquisition in 1815 for
eroticism in his painting Naked Maja. Still, he is known as the Father of
Modern Art. His works, such as 82 images known as Disasters of War
(etched when Napoleon invaded Spain) greatly influenced 19th and
20th centuries great artists, especially Picasso whose works also record
the absurdities of war and the human condition. Picasso, as with Goya,
is also was known for realistic scenes of battles, bullfights and human
corruption.

Que Valor! What Courage! Is “one of the few times in the

“Disasters”