Francisco de Goya: Life and Works - Essay Example

Francisco de Goya “Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.” - Francisco de Goya (Goya) Goya is one of the oldest and most talented artists of Spain. He is also called The First Modernist in the field of arts (Castro). He was born in Fuendetodos, Spain, on March 30, 1746. He was assigned the post of court painter in 1789. From 1795 to 1797 he was appointed as the director of paintings in the Royal Academy of San Fernando (Castro). In 1810 he started his famous series of war paintings. The first war painting that he created was Los Desastres de la Guerra -The disaster of wars (Castro). Goya produced some of the most disturbing paintings during his last five years. Goya had an ambitious personality (Castro). He was known to be proud and arrogant person. He was a genius artist and over the years the progress in his art can be seen in his works (Castro). By studying Goya work in a chronological order, it is very noticeable, that over the years his worked not only improved but also got stranger. It is said that in the beginning, Goya drew very pessimistic paintings which showed youth and happiness. Goya showed optimism in his initial works. For example, in his paintings ‘The Flower Girls’ and ‘The Little Giants’ he portrays youth and uses a broad color schemes that gives the paintings a certain bliss. These early paintings use bright colors that give an aura of joy to them. However, in 1972, Goya suffered from a serious illness and the age of 47 he had a medical condition due to which he experienced loss of balance, had difficulty in walking with partial blindness and deafness (Emery). Some say that this was caused by a viral disease called Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada syndrome (Emery). Over the years though he recovered from this disease but he became permanently deaf (Emery). This traumatic illness greatly affected the work he produced in later years of his life. The works after this illness shows great pessimism. For example, his painting ‘The Execution on the Third of May’ shows darkness. He has used warm colors like brown, red and yellow and has a very bleak illustration. His work began to show the visions of his minds, visions that were contained the fantastic and ironic images of the world around him. During the period of 1803 – 1805 he painted his two majas ; La maja vestida La and maja desnuda (Castro). The former one shows a clothed women and the later one has the same women but nude. This was another addition to the collection of his peculiar paintings that even got him banned by the Catholic Church and made him face an inquisition (Castro). In1808, when Spain got invaded by Napoleon, Goya became the French court artist (Castro). In 1814 Goya painted his two of his most well known paintings; “The second of May in 1808” and “The Third of May in 1808”. These paintings showed the horror of war through which Spain went at the time when Napoleon invaded it. The Spanish civil were dragged and killed due to this invasion and the same has been shown in the paintings. In a way we can say that Goya portrayed reality in his war paintings. These paintings give a strong and brave image of the artist. These paintings also mark the start of the “19th century realism” (Duthel). The last five years of his life, Goya lived in isolation and during that period he created the most bizarre work of his life called Las Pinturas Negras -the dark paintings. These are fourteen paintings that he painted on the wall of his house (Castro). According to the critics these painting were so shocking that they were “only meant for his eyes” (Castro). Out of these fourteen paintings the most disturbing and most famous one was Saturn devouring His Child. In this painting Goya has shown Saturn eating one of his son. Many say that Goya painted these paintings on his house’s wall because he did not want the world to see them. When the Spanish government failed to restore, Goya went on a voluntary exile in France and died in Bordeaux on April 16, 1828 (Castro). The dark tones of colors used by Goya in his last years show that he was suffering from some emotional set back and some kind of depression. The works of Francisco Goya has known to be influenced by two artists. The size of the canvas is the same as used by Raphael Meng and also the way in which Goya paints the eyes is similar to that of Meng (Mayor). This resemblance of Meng in Goyas work could have come because of the fact that Goya and Meng worked together in the Royal academy. The second artist that inspired Goya is Diego Velazquez. Goya first saw his work in the royal palaces (Duthel) and hence the portraits that Goya painted had an attribute that is also present in Velazquez’s paintings (Mayor). Goyas work was impulsive and unconventional. He did not follow the rules and his paintings show modernism and the freedom of expression due to which he had to face a lot of criticism. According to Viardot (Tomlinson), Goya did not have a very high style. As said by Viardot, most of Goyas paintings had the typical setting of village, cantors at the lectern, bullfight scenes etc (Tomlinson). But it can be seen that Viardot had ignored Goya’s paintings that are in the Spanish Gallery and therefore his criticism is limited to only some of Goya’s work. On another occasion Viardot also describes Goya’s style as “talent incorrect, sauvage” (Tomlinson). Even beside the criticism, Goya has known to be an inspiration for artists like Monet and Picasso. Presently, the works of Francisco Goya are displayed in Museo del Prado which is the national Arts museum of Spain along with the works of Monet and Picasso. Goya did not have any proper training initially but he still managed to learn from practice knowledge and observation (Mayor). Over the years it can be seen that Goya work did not have consistency which could be due to lack of training (Mayor). Goya work ranges from oil paints to etchings to drawings. Goya was not only a court painter but also a satirist (Hind). In a way, we can say that he painted what he wanted to paint and what his heart felt like painting instead of painting only what was considered to be politically correct in his time. He was a keen observer of human behavior and whatever he saw happening around him, he did not hesitate to show it in his work It can be said that Goya was a powerful artist. He was brave and he did not show any sign of weakness or fear. His artwork did not show any compromise in technique or context. His compositions show powerful emotions. While other artists of his time made tidy and simple landscapes, Goya went for more bold topics to portray in his paintings (Ivins). These topics were controversial and untraditional. He created something that most artists of his time dared not to. He actually created what was the reality of his time and his drawings were loud enough to make that reality heard by everyone. The reason for giving more importance to the satirical work of Goya is perhaps because of the fact that these paintings strike the viewer with a certain power and force. He had a fantastic imagery that can be seen in his overall paintings and etchings. In short, Goya as an artist can be best described as, said by many; “The last of the Old Masters, and the First of the Moderns.” Works Cited Castro, Ivan A. 100 Hispanics You Should Know. United States of America: Libraries Unlimited, 2007. Duthel, Heinz. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. IAC society, 2011. Emery, Alan E. H. „The Madhouse by Francisco Goya.“ Practical Neurology (2003): 178-183. Goya, Francisco de. „BrainyQuote.com.“ Xplore Inc, 2012. 27. June 2012 . Hind, Arthur Mayger. Goya, Francisco, 1746-1828. New York, Stokes, 1911. Ivins, William Mills. „Goya.“ Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (1945): 235-237. Mayor, A. Hyatt. „Goyas Creativeness.“ Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (1946). Tomlinson, Janis A. „Evolving Concepts: Spain, Painting, and Authentic Goyas in Nineteenth-Century France.“ Metropolitan Museum Journal (1996): Vol. 31. Read More