Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

1746-1828
Goya created

• About 500 oil paintings

• 280 lithographs and etchings (and he used
the most modern methods)
• Nearly a thousand drawings
His life can be divided into four stages:

• Until 1793 – slow rise to maturity

• 1793 – illness that left him deaf and
released pent up creative forces within him
• 1808 – Napoleonic invasion and Goya’s
responses to the war.
• 1819 – a second illness, he retires to the
Quinta del Sordo, the Black Paintings
First Stage: Tapestry Cartoons
• Produced for the Royal
Tapestry Factory (Charles III)
• Rococo tendencies in nature
and pose of figures
• Girl seems to stare at spectator,
giving a sense of realism
• Clothing implies social class
• Relationship between the two?
• Parasol?
• General impression?
Blind Man´s Bluff --1789
Etchings after Velázquez

Las meninas 1773

Saint Francis of Borgia at the Deathbed of an
Impenitent -- 1788

• “The most sharply accurate

vision of the collapse of the
great religious and monarchic
traditions of the West”
• Turning point: first use of the
fantastic
• Emphasis on sinner’s naked
body, expression
• Restless agony vs. pious zeal
• Rejection of idealized concept
of expression (Neoclassicism)
• Emphasis on extremes
 Portraits

• Rich clothing
• All the insignias of
royalty, powdered
wig
• Face? Impression?
• Critique?

Charles IV -- 1789
 Queen María Luisa -- 1789
• Rich royal clothing
• Royal insignias
• Hair and hat?
• Face?
• Personality?
• Attitude of Goya
towards her?
The Straw Mannequin -- 1791
Second Stage, after losing his
hearing
• Yard of lunatics – 1793
• Images of madness
• Enclosure
• Continuation of tendency
begun with Saint Francis
of Borgia
• Alienation and despair
• Movement
• Use of light
• Chaotic jumble of bodies
The Caprichos (Caprices) 1799
• Series of 82 etchings
• Satirizing all aspects of
society:
– Aristocracy
– Church
– Greed
– Prostitution
– Marriage
– Folly
– Cruelty
– Etc.
Descendant of donkeys
Love and Death
 Caprice 43

•Marks a change in the

series
•The Sleep/Dream of
Reason Produces Monsters
•Neoclassical or
Romantic?
•The sublime
•Nightmare visions
1808 – 1814 Napoleon and the
War of Independence

The 3rd of May, 1808

 The 3rd of May, 1808
• Conformity of soldiers,
power conveyed by
abstract shape
• Victims cover their eyes,
pray
• Center: man with
outstretched arms =
crucifixion
• Concentration of light,
color on man
The disasters of the war

•Set of 82 etchings
•Realities of war:
•Violence
•Savagery
•Rape
•murder
The Colossus – between
1808-1812
• Ambiguity of giant
– Ignorant, arrogant prince?
(Ferdinand VII)
• Mountains= the powerful
• Donkey=nobility
– Hercules who rises up
against Napoleon?
– Buried to above the knees
– Back to spectator
– Closed eyes
 Ferdinand VII
• El deseado (1814)
• Period of absolutism
(1814-1820), persecution
of liberals
• 1820-1823 constitutional
monarchy (Intervention of
100,000 Sons of Saint
Louis)
• 1823-1833 Ominous
Decade
 Disparates or Proverbs
(1816-1823)
• Not published until
1864
• Last great series of
etchings
• Gives himself up to the
irrational, nocturnal,
fantastic, grotesque
and terrifying
Disparate del miedo [fear}
Los ensacados [In sacks]
The Inquisition -- 1816
Black Paintings– 1820-1823

The witches’ Sabbath

 Dog on a leash or
Dog fighting against
the current
 Fight with Cudgels

Stephen Mark
The Milkmaid from Bordeaux
• Goya in exile in
Bordeaux
• Girl has a melancholy,
dreamy, far away gaze
• Color: greens and
blues
• Influence on
Impressionists