GOYA Y LUCIENTES, FRANCISCO Spanish painter, was born on March 3o, 1746, at Fuendetodos, near Saragossa. He began his art studies in the studio of Jose Luzan Martinez at Saragossa, where he made the acquaintance of Francisco Bayeu, the future court painter, and of Zapater, his life-long friend and correspondent. Goya was a true son of Aragon ; he took part in street scuffles between the youths of rival parishes; after one of these fights, in which three combatants were killed, he was compelled, at the age of 19, to flee to Madrid.
In consequence of his riotous and dissolute life he found it convenient to leave Madrid also, and he made his way to the coast as one of a travelling troupe of bull-fighters, and finally reached Rome, broken in health and destitute. Here he continued his studies. In 1771 he was awarded the second prize in a com petition initiated by the academy of Parma. He returned to Saragossa in the autumn of the same year. There he painted frescoes in the famous cathedral El Pilar, and in the Carthusian church Aula Dei. The influence of Tiepolo is evident. He married Bayeu's sister and returned to Madrid in The Court Painter.—Raphael Mengs was at that time decorat ing the royal palace with classicist pictures of Olympian gods, and Bayeu, who was working under Mengs, may have put in a good word for his brother-in-law. Goya was commissioned to paint cartoons for tapestries in the Pardo, the crown prince's residence. He was free to choose his own subjects, and between 1776 and 1780 he supplied some 20 cartoons to the factory of Santa Barbara representing genre scenes from the life of the fields, the village and the street. These cartoons opened a new chapter in the history of decorative art. His originality was recognized by Mengs ; and royal favour naturally followed. He was director of the Academy of Arts in 1785, and a court painter in 1786. His work now became intimately connected with the court life. He painted the portraits of four successive sovereigns of Spain and their families. The "Family of Charles IV.," the "Queen in a Mantilla," the "King in Uniform," and the great equestrian portraits of the king and queen are among his best work in the Prado. These portraits, with their searching and sometimes cruel analysis of character, reveal him as a cynical onlooker at a decadent court. He disdained flattery, and his interpretation was lifelike, brilliant and strong.
He viewed the world as a drama—almost as a farce; and he expressed now in grim satire, now in delightful simplicity, the contemporary life of Spain at the time of the French Revolution. He was versatile and his facility was marvellous; it often took him but one or two hours to paint a portrait, and he left a gallery of the most famous men and women of his age and country. The Duchess of Osuna favoured him with commissions. The splendid portrait of the Duchess of Alva, with the dedica tion "by her friend Goya," is dated 1795. The portrait of Guille mardet, then ambassador of the Directory and later one of Napoleon's prefects, belongs to the same time. "No portrait suc ceeded with me better," wrote Goya. It is a triumph of realism. Of a later date are his portraits of the duke of Wellington, one in the possession of the present duke, the other in the Haver meyer collection at New York. The British Museum has a sketch of the duke in red chalk. Among Goya's religious paintings are the "Crucifixion" for Francisco el Grande, and the decoration of the cupola of San Antonio de la Florida, painted in With the French invasion, Goya joined the Josefinos and worked for Joseph Bonaparte. He had to hide for three months from the fury of the people, when the French fled from Madrid. That his feelings were for his own people all the time is shown in his painfully realistic picture of the massacre of the "Dos de Mayo" (1808), and by his set of etchings, "Disasters of the War," a record of French atrocities, drawn while he was King Joseph's court painter, and, perhaps, not meant for publication. Of this time are the weird and terrifying paintings which deco rated the walls of his home, and which are now in the Prado.
Most of Goya's paintings are in Spain, in the Prado, in the Academia de San Fernando and in private collections ; until the Osuna sale of 1896, very few of his pictures were to be seen outside his own country. The National Gallery, London, has two fine portraits. Goya was also an etcher and a lithographer. The set of etchings known as "Los Caprichos" (c. 1797) exposed the vices of degraded society with savage satire; "Los Proverbios" (18o5) were executed in the same vein. Then followed the ter rible "Los Desastres de la Guerra" (181o) mentioned above, and the "Tauromaquia" (1815) with scenes of the bull-fight. Of great interest are his etchings after pictures by Velasquez. At Bordeaux, in 1825, he executed four lithographs. Of the four sets of etchings only the first was issued in his life-time; the others were not published until the middle of the last century. Although Goya founded no school and had no direct followers, his strongly personal and spontaneous art greatly influenced the development of modern painting. Delacroix and the French ro manticists admired him. He was studied by Manet, by Daumier, and more recently by Sargent and by Zuloaga.
The most important documents for the Life of Goya are contained in his correspondence with his friend, Martin Zapater. Of these letters 135 were published in 1868. Monographs on Goya were written by Ch. Yriarte (1867) ; Paul Lefort (1877) ; W. Rothenstein (190o) ; P.
Lafond (1902) ; Val von Loja (1903) ; A. F. Calvert (s co8) ; Hugh Stokes (1914) ; J. Tild (192o) ; A. L. Mayer (1923) ; R. Gomez de la Serina (1928) . Three separate books on Goya, the portraitist, the painter, and the engraver were written by A. de Beruete y Moret. The first of these was translated into English by S. Brinton. For Goya's centenary these three books were condensed into one volume by San chez Canton. See also Cruzado Villaarnil, Los Tapices de Goya (187o).
(I. A. R.)