Monday 7 October 2024

Francisco de Goya - Part 1

c1790 Self-Portrait in a Cocked Hat
pen and brown (iron gall?) ink on paper
9.8 x 8.8 cm

Francisco de Goya was a Spanish artist widely considered one of the most important painters of the Romantic period. The artist took on a wide array of subject matter, including self-portraiture, fantasy scenes, landscapes, and still lifes. “Painting, like poetry, selects in the universe whatever she deems most appropriate to her ends,” he once explained. Born Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes in the town of Fuendetodos, Spain on March 30, 1746, he began studying art under the painter Jose Luzán at the age of 14. During the 1770s, Goya produced works such as The Parasol (1777), which meld the unlikely pairing of cheery Rococo aesthetics with the moody works of Diego Velázquez. 

The artist became the court painter of Charles III of Spain in 1786, and continued painting for the Spanish court until Napoleons invasion of Spain in 1808. During the Napoleonic wars, Goya’s palette significantly darkened as he produced some of his most famous works. Among these paintings are the The Second of May 1808 (1814) and The Third of May 1808 (1814), which show the terrors of war. Three years before he left his native country, Goya produced 14 paintings directly onto the plaster walls of his farmhouse. These works, collectively known as The Black Paintings (1821), depicted terrifying supernatural themes and heinous violence. 

Living in exile in Bordeaux, France, the artist died on April 16, 1828. His works went on to have a profound influence on both Édouard Manet and Pablo Picasso. Today, Goya’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Prado Museum in Madrid, and the Louvre Museum in Paris, among others.


This is part 1 of a 10-part series on the works of Francisco de Goya:


1770-71 The Victorious Hannibal seeing Italy from the Alps for the first Time
 oil on canvas 88.3 x 133 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1771-72 Angel's head
sanguine, heightened with white, on brown paper
 46.6 x 34.8 cm
 Louvre, Paris

c1771Academia, figure seated on a section of fluted shaft holding a scroll in his hands
black pencil. pen, iron gall ink on laid paper 18.7 x 13 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

c1771 Cain killing Abel
18.7 x 13 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1772 Saint Barbara 

Saint Barbara was a third-century Christian martyr imprisoned in a tower and later decapitated by her father, Dioscoro, as punishment for not wanting to marry and refusing to profess paganism. Goya depicts the saint with her various symbols, with a monstrance in her right hand and the palm frond of martyrdom in the left. She wears a crown as she was a princess. The tower is behind her, and a representation of her martyrdom appears at the right edge of the composition. Goya painted this work shortly after his visit to Italy, and it reveals his inspiration by both classical statuary and seventeenth-century classicist Italian painting. This is documented in his Italian notebook, where he studied both the head and the composition.


1772 Saint Barbara
oil on canvas 97.2 x 78.5 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 An Avenue in Andalusia, or The Maja and the
 Cloaked Men
oil on canvas 275 x 190 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid


1775 Cartoons foe tapestries on "countryside" subjects, 1st series:


1775 A Hunter with his Hounds
oil on canvas 268 x 67.5 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 Hunter loading his Rifle
oil on canvas 292 x 50 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 Hunting Dogs
oil on canvas 112 x 174 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 Hunting Party
 oil on canvas 290 x 226 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 Hunting with a decoy
oil on canvas 112 x 179 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 The Angler
oil on canvas 289 x 110 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 The boar hunt
oil on canvas 249 x 173 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1777 A Fight at the Venta Nueva
oil on canvas 275 x 414 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1777-78 Children blowing up a bladder
oil on canvas 116 x 124 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1777-78 The Kite

In Goya´s own words, the scene depicts some young people who have “gone out to the country to fly a kite.” The couples that appear behind the main group show that this subject is a pretext allowing the painter to represent the flirting and gallantry inherent in Majo society. The background building has been interpreted as an astronomical observatory, which was a much discussed project during Charles III’s reign.This was a customary argument in other series by Goya, such as the etchings from his Caprichos. This is one of ten cartoons for a series of tapestries on everyday subjects intended to hang in the dining room of the Prince and Princess of Asturias (the future CarlosIV and his wife (the future Maria Luisa de Parma) at El Escorial’ Access to the series of ten tapestry cartoons destined for the dining room of the Prince and Princess of Asturias at the palace of El Pardo.


1777-78 The Kite
oil on canvas 269 x 285 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1777-80 The Woodcutters
oil on canvas 141 x 114 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1778-79 The Pottery Vendor
oil on canvas 259 x 220 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1779 A Fair in Madrid
oil on canvas 258 x 218 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1779 Boys playing at Soldiers
oil on canvas 146 x 94 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1779 Majo with a Guitar
oil on canvas 137 x 112 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1779 The game of Pelota
oil on canvas 261 x 470 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1779 The Haw Seller
oil on canvas 259 x 100 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1779 The Military Man and the Lady
oil on canvas 259 x 100 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1779 The Swing
oil on canvas 126 x 165 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1780 Amateur Bullfight
 oil on canvas 259 x 136 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1780 Boy with Tree
oil on canvas 262 x 40 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1780 The Rendezvous
oil on canvas 100 x 151 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1780 The Tobacco Guards
oil on canvas 262 x 137 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1780 The Washerwomen
oil on canvas 257.5 x 166 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1786 Cats fighting
oil on canvas 56.5 x 196.5 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1786 The Flower Girls or Spring
 oil on canvas 277 x 192 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid 

1786 The Grape Harvest or Autumn
oil on canvas 267.5 x 190.5 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1786-87 Boy on a Ram
oil on canvas 127 x 112.1 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1786-87 Boys with Mastiffs
oil on canvas 112 x 145 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1786-87 The Snowstorm or Winter
oil on canvas 275 x 293 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1786-87 Woman with two Boys at a Fountain
(“Poor People at the Fountain”)
oil on canvas 277 x 115 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

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1775 Dogs on a Leash
oil on canvas 112 x 174 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 Hunter loading his Rifle
oil on canvas 292 x 50 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1775 The Angler
oil on canvas 289 x 110 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1776-78  Cartoons for tapestries on “Countryside” subjects 2nd series:

1775-80 The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist
oil on canvas 200 x 148 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1776 Picnic on the banks of the Manzanares River
 oil on canvas 271 x 295 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1776-77 Dance on the Banks of the Manzanares
oil on canvas 272 x 295 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1777 A Walk through Andalusia
oil on canvas 275 x 190 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1777 The Drinker
oil on canvas 107 x 151 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1777 The Maja and the Cloaked Men
oil on canvas 275 x 190 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1777 The Parasol
oil on canvas 104 x 152 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

1777-78 Card Players
oil on canvas 270 x 167 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1778 Boys picking fruit
oil on canvas 119 x 122 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1778 Children inflating a bladder
 oil on canvas 116 x 124 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid