Francisco de Goya - part 4

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 4 of a 10-part series on the works of Francisco de Goya:

c1795-97 They cut the old woman
scraper, brush and Indian ink wash, on white laid paper
20.8 x 12.4 cm
Louvre, Paris

1795-1800 The Naked Maja
oil on canvas 97 x 190 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

c1795 A Picador
oil on canvas (size not given)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

c1795 José Álvarez de Toledo, the 11th Marquis of Villafranca
oil on canvas 195 x 126 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

c1795 María Antonia Gonzaga, Dowager Marchioness of Villafranca
 oil on canvas 87 x 72 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

1796-97 It's his Feast Day
brush, Indian ink wash, traces of black chalk, on white laid paper 19.5 x 12 cm
Louvre, Paris

1796-97 Cruel Masks
 brush and black ink and gray wash with scraping on laid paper 23.7 x 15 cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1796-97 He lists him as a hermaphrodite
scraper, brush, Indian ink wash, on white laid paper
 20.8 x 12.4 cm
Louvre, Paris

1796-97 Witches preparing to fly
brush and black ink and grey wash on laid paper 23.7 x 15 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

c1796-97 Aunt Chorriones stokes the fire
sepia wash 23 x 14 cm
Louvre, Paris

c1796-97 Caricature of the carracas?
brush, gray and black Indian ink wash, traces of black chalk, on white laid paper 19.5 x 12 cm
Louvre, Paris

c1796-97 The wife calls the husband to account
sepia wash 23 x 14 cm
Louvre, Paris

1797-99 Los Caprichos

Hovering between the grotesque and the comical, Francisco de Goya’s series Los caprichos (Whims or Fantasies) consists of 80 etchings satirizing Spanish society during the late 18th century. 

Plate 43: For this iconic image, which may have been intended as the title page of the series, Goya represented himself as an artist who has fallen asleep at his drawing table. In the background are his nightmares, the macabre tormenters that pervade the rest of these prints.

Plate 1 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Painter
etching and aquatint on cream laid paper 21.5 x 15 cm

Plate 2 They Say ‘Yes’ and Give Their Hand to the First Comer
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.5 x 15.3 cm (plate)

Plate 3 Here Comes the Bogeyman
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.7 x 15.3 cm (plate)

Plate 4 Nanny’s boy
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 20.8 x 15.2 cm (plate)

Plate 5 Two of a Kind
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 19.9 x 15 cm (plate)

Plate 6 Nobody knows himself
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.8 x 15.2 cm

Plate 7 Even Thus he Cannot Make Her Out
 etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 19.8 x 15 cm (plate)

Plate 8 They Carried Her Off!
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.6 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 9 Tantalus
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 20.8 x 15 cm (plate)

Plate 10 Love and Death
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.7 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 11 Lads Making Ready
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.8 x 15.3 cm (plate)

Plate 12 Out Hunting for Teeth
etching, burnished aquatint and burin on ivory laid paper
22 x 15.2 cm (plate)

Plate 13 They are Hot
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.9 x 15.3 cm (plate)

Plate 14 What a Sacrifice!
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 20.1 x 15 cm (plate)

Plate 15 Pretty Teachings
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper
21.8 x 15.2 cm (plate)

Plate 16 For Heaven’s Sake: and it was Her Mother
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 20 x 15 cm (plate)

Plate 17 It is Nicely Stretched
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.6 x 15.2 cm (plate)

Plate 18 And his house is on fire
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.8 x 15.3 cm (plate)

Plate 19 All Will Fall
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.7 x 14.5 cm (plate)

Plate 20 There They Go Plucked (i.e. Fleeced)
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.8 x 15.2 cm (plate)

Plate 21 How they Pluck Her
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.9 x 14.9 cm (plate)

Plate 22 Poor Little Girls!
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.9 x 15.3 cm (plate)

Plate 23 Those specks of dust
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.9 x 14.9 cm (plate)

Plate 24 Nothing Could Be Done about it
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.6 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 25 Yes, He Broke the Pot
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 20.6 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 26 They’ve Already Got a Seat (i.e. bottom)
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.5 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 27 Which of Them is the More Overcome?
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 19.5 x 14.9 cm (plate) 

Plate 28 Hush
etching, aquatint and burin on ivory laid paper
18 x 13 cm (image)

Plate 29 That certainly is being able to read
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.5 x 14.7 cm (plate)

Plate 30 Why Hide Them?
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.5 x 15.2 cm (plate)

Plate 31 She Prays for Her
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 20.6 x 15 cm (plate)

Plate 32 Because She Was Susceptible
aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.5 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 33 To the Count Palatine or Count of the Palate
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.6 x 15 cm (plate)

plate 34 Sleep Overcomes Them
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.6 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 35 She Fleeces him
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.6 x 15.3 cm (plate)

Plate 36 A Bad Night
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.6 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 37 Might not the Pupil Know More?
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.5 x 15.2 cm (plate)

Plate 38 Bravo!
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.6 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 39 And So Was His Grandfather
aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.5 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 40 Of what ill will he die?
etching and aquatint in brown on ivory laid paper
 21.5 x 15 cm (plate)

Plate 41 Neither more nor less
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 19.8 x 14.9 cm

Plate 42 Thou Who Canst Not
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.5 x 15.1 cm (plate)

Plate 43 The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper 21.2 x 15 cm (plate)

Note: Los Caprichos continues in part 5.