His Early Days

Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, (1746-1828), popularly known as Francisco Goya, was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. His paintings, drawings and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th and – 20th-century painters. Goya was born into a middle-class family in 1746 in Fuendetodos in Aragon, Spain.

He Became The First Court Painter

Goya fell ill in the autumn of 1792 when he was 46 years old and he was bedridden with a mysterious illness. It took him nearly two years to recover and when he did recover, he had become deaf for the rest of his life. Goya married the daughter of the Spanish court artist. In 1774 he received his first royal commission, ie, painting decorative scenes of daily life to be woven into tapestries. In 1799, Goya was appointed first court painter, the highest artistic position attainable in Spain at the time. Goya’s earlier paintings reflect the airy landscape settings and shimmering pastel colours of his tapestry designs. As he matured, and particularly after he lost his hearing due to a serious illness in 1792, he increasingly sought psychological characterization of his sitters.

His Illness, Agony and Black Paintings

Most of Goya’s well-known paintings have political and patriotic backgrounds. His paintings ‘The Second of May 1808’ and ‘The Third of May 1808’ are two examples of Goya’s depiction of Napoleonic aggression by the Franch on Spain and the bloody aftermath. In 1819, Goya purchased a house named ‘Quinta del Sordo’ (Villa of the Deaf Man), on the banks of the Manzanares near Madrid. It had been named after the previous owner of the house who was deaf. Thereafter, Goya also happened to be functionally deaf as a result of a serious illness. Goya had survived two life-threatening illnesses and was deeply concerned with his own mortality. In addition to that, he was increasingly embittered by the conflicts that had engulfed Spain and the developing civil strife. During this period, Goya completed the plates that forced his series ‘The Disasters of War’. He overpainted the initial decorative paintings on the walls of his house with intense haunting pictures that came to be called ‘Black Paintings, which were never meant for public display. When Goya went into self-exile in France in 1823, he passed his house ‘Quinta del Sordo’ to his grandson. After several changes in ownership of the house, the new owner of the house had the 70-year-old murals transferred to canvas.

‘Charles IV of Spain and His Familly‘

Goya’s famous paintings include the portrait of Charles IV of Spain and his family. He began work on the painting in 1800, shortly after becoming the first Chamer Painter to the royal family, the highest position available to a Spanish artist. Another famous painter Diego Velazquez previously occupied the position. Goya completed the painting in the summer of 1801. The painting is a portrait of the life-sized depiction of Charles IV of Spain and his family. The members of the royal family include Charles IV, his wife, Maria Luisa of Parma and their children and relatives. The sitters are dressed in the most fashionable clothing of the contemporary era and are adorned with jewellery and the slashes of the order of Charles. The painting is said to be modelled after Diego Velazques’s ‘Las Meninas’. Goya has painted himself standing on the left in the background of the painting.

‘The Third of May 1808‘

Francisco Goya completed the painting ‘The Third of May 1808’ in 1814. Goya sought to commemorate Spanish resistance to Napoleon’s armies during the occupation of 1808 in the Peninsular war. The painting shows a long trail of Spanish rebels lining up to be executed by French troops. On May 2, 1808, hundreds of Spaniards rebelled against the French occupation. Goya sought ‘to perpetuate, with a paintbrush the most notable and heroic actions or scenes of the glorious uprising against the tyrant of Europe‘. The painting is also the portrayal of the popular riot of 2 May 1808, when the people of Madrid attacked the ‘Mamelukes’ or the Turkish soldiers in Napolean’s French army, who were taking away the yonder children of Carlos IV and Maria Luisa to France. (This was said to be the beginning of the War for Independence.) On May 3, these Spanish freedom fighters were rounded up and massacred by the French. Their blood literally ran through the streets of Madrid.

‘Witches’ Sabbath (The Great He-Goat)’

Witches’ Sabbath is one of the haunting ‘Black paintings’ that Goya created during the later yers of his life. By then, Goya was nearly deaf and suffering from profound depression and had retreated into the isolation of his studio and covered his walls with these macabre masterpieces. This painting is deeply disturbing and has the power to shock, even though it is centuries old. Experts say that the goat, which Goya named ‘Gran Cabron’, symbolically represents the figure of the devil and that the crones are actually a sabbath of witches. This masterpiece is thought to be a satirical criticism of what Goya saw as the ugly and depravity of post-Napoleonic war society that surrounded him.’

His famous paintings: ‘Dog’, ‘Head of Dog’, ‘TheBuried Dog’, ‘The Half-Drowned Dog’, ‘TheHalf-Submerged Dog’.

Goya’s series of ‘Dog’ paintings are a part of his Black Paintings, which he painted directly into the walls of his house between 1819 and 1823 when he was in his mid-70s. At the time he was living alone and suffering from acute mental physical distress. In the painting, only the head of the dog is shown looking upwards at the sky and the rest of its body is covered by an unidentifiable mass. The ‘Dog’ appears to be in distress and, probably, drowning. But for the head of the dog at the bottom of the painting, the rest of the painting is empty. Reportedly, Goya did not intend the painting for public exhibition and these paintings were not removed until 50 years after Goya was gone. It is not known what name Goya called the painting, however, after his death, this painting is often identified by variations of the common title: ‘A Dog’, ‘Head of a Dog’, ‘The Buried Dog’, ”The Hald-Drowned Dog’, ‘The Half-Submerged Dog’, etc.