Francisco Goya

Born in Fuendetodos, Aragon, Goya trained in Zaragoza before traveling to Italy in 1770, where he studied the Old Masters. Returning to Spain, he secured commissions for the Royal Tapestry Factory, designing cartoons that depicted everyday Spanish life with a fresh naturalism. In 1786 he became court painter to Charles III, and under Charles IV he rose to First Court Painter in 1799. His portraits of the royal family, notably The Family of Charles IV (1800–01), are celebrated for their unflinching realism, subtly exposing the subjects' vanity and mediocrity.¹

The Peninsular War (1808–1814) transformed Goya's art. His series The Disasters of War (1810–1820) comprises 82 etchings depicting the brutality of conflict, including scenes of famine and execution, with a starkness unprecedented in Western art. After the war, Goya retreated to his villa, the Quinta del Sordo, where he painted the Black Paintings (c. 1819–1823) directly onto the walls. These fourteen murals, including Saturn Devouring His Son and Witches' Sabbath, reflect a profound pessimism and existential dread, anticipating Expressionism by a century.²

Goya was a pioneering printmaker, producing four major series: Los Caprichos (1799), Los Desastres de la Guerra, La Tauromaquia (1816), and Los Disparates (c. 1815–1823). His etchings combined aquatint and etching to achieve dramatic tonal contrasts, influencing later artists like Édouard Manet and Pablo Picasso. In 1824, fearing reprisals after the restoration of absolutism, Goya went into self-imposed exile in Bordeaux, France, where he continued to work until his death in 1828. His late paintings, such as The Milkmaid of Bordeaux, show a looser, more luminous style.³

Beyond his famous works, Goya's career includes lesser-known facets: he was a skilled miniaturist and produced a series of small ivory miniatures in his old age. His Album drawings, numbering over 500, offer intimate glimpses of his thoughts and social commentary. Goya also suffered a severe illness in 1792 that left him permanently deaf, profoundly shaping his introspective later art. He was an early practitioner of lithography in Spain, and his bullfighting series La Tauromaquia documents the spectacle with ethnographic precision. Additionally, Goya's political sympathies were complex; he served both the Bourbon monarchy and the French occupation, yet his art often critiqued both.⁴

Aquatint

An intaglio printmaking technique that produces tonal effects by using rosin to create a textured ground.

Black Paintings

Fourteen murals painted by Goya on the walls of his villa, characterized by dark, haunting imagery.

Quinta del Sordo

Goya's country house near Madrid, where he painted the Black Paintings.