The Genius of Goya: A Journey Through His Art and Evolution
1. The Uniqueness of the Genius of Goya
In Spain, the figure of Goya stands above all others. His work incorporates different artistic currents from the late 18th to the early 19th century, and his personal pictorial language anticipates new avenues of artistic expression.
Spain during Goya’s lifetime (1746-1828) suffered the first major collapse that marked its contemporary history. From the Ancien Régime, through the brief moment of false hope represented by enlightened reforms, to the tragedy of the Napoleonic invasion and the War of Independence, the failed liberal movement, and the terror of the restoration of the disastrously absolutist Ferdinand VII, extending Spain’s backwardness in relation to its European neighbors. Goya was an exceptional witness to these events, leaving a critical, scathing, and profound perspective.
Goya was a contemporary of the greatest representatives of Neoclassicism, such as David and Canova. However, this does not mean that the Aragonese artist identified with the neoclassical aesthetic.
Goya was a singular artist whose genius surpassed his European contemporaries and led him through new and original paths, assuming all the risks involved in not ascribing to any specific movement or aesthetic model.
The evolution of his painting style was not linear; it moved simultaneously in several directions.
2. His Pictorial Evolution: Rococo and Neoclassical Influences
Francisco de Goya was born in Fuendetodos (Zaragoza) in 1746. He trained in the workshop of José Luzán in Zaragoza. We know that he traveled to Italy, where he participated in the contest of the Academy of Fine Arts in Parma, presenting a painting with the theme Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1771). It appears that he undertook some projects within neoclassical assumptions, such as the Sacrifice to Vesta (1771).
However, Goya was more concerned with color than with the purity of line. The neoclassical concept of beauty was not the main objective of Goya’s art.
Sacrifice to Vesta
Hannibal Crossing the Alps
By 1775, he settled in Madrid, where, commissioned by Mengs, he began to draw cartoons for tapestries to decorate the rooms of the royal family. These cartoons masterfully capture the Rococo charm, in many respects recalling the work of Watteau. In scenes such as The Parasol (1777) or The Blind Man’s Bluff (1778), the painter acquired his full training in the profession, both in the mastery of color and composition.
At the same time, in other works such as the frescoes in the Cupola del Pilar de Zaragoza (1780-1781), the influence of Baroque compositions is present.
During this time, he also painted ‘Rococo’ portraits such as The Marquise de Pontejos (1786) and The Family of the Duke of Osuna (1788).
In his later years, the work Saint Francis Borgia Assisting a Dying Man (1788) caught attention. Within a Baroque composition and setting, Goya introduces us to a painting where we anticipate two key aspects of his future work and contemporary art: Expressionism and the theme of the imagined representation of monstrous figures.
Fullness
From 1780, he was named Academic of Fine Arts, and in 1786, he became painter to Charles III, later becoming court painter to King Charles IV.
At the beginning of the 1790s, he suffered an illness that brought him to the brink of death, but he recovered, although the consequence was lifelong deafness. This led to a change in the artist; his work reached the highest levels of originality and fullness that would accompany him until his death.
In this period, some of his paintings reflected Romantic themes that can also be found in Turner and Géricault.
3. The Portraits
Goya portrayed characters from the nobility, the royal family, intellectuals, and artists. His portraits reflect the deep personality of the human being, regardless of social status and appearance.
Among the portraits, we can highlight that of The Duchess of Alba or the Portrait of Jovellanos.
In The Family of Charles IV (1800-1801), the royal family is portrayed as if it were a snapshot.
Behind the scenes, Goya portrays himself painting the picture, as if it were a homage to Velázquez in Las Meninas.
Without sacrificing the fidelity of the physical features of the models, Goya delves into the psychological traits of the characters.
4. The Engravings
It is in his engravings (Los Caprichos, The Disasters of War, La Tauromaquia, and Los Disparates) where Goya shows us his particular vision of the society of his time.
In these series, he criticizes social ills and offers a high moral sense.
5. The Paintings of the 2nd and 3rd of May
In 1814, he painted two of his most revolutionary works: The Second of May 1808 in Madrid: The Charge of the Mamelukes and The Third of May 1808 in Madrid: The Executions on Príncipe Pío Hill.
In them, Goya introduces for the first time the subject of a vicious act of war as if it were a news story.
6. The Black Paintings
Between 1820 and 1823, in the so-called Quinta del Sordo, a property Goya had acquired on the banks of the Manzanares River, he painted on its walls one of the most astonishing series in the history of painting, which breaks with previous pictorial tradition.
A grotesque, absurd, and mysterious world is executed with a technique that seems aggressive and breaks outright before us, leaving us in awe. With these paintings, he gives us a deeply pessimistic view of the world and humanity. Scenes of violent struggles in which the figures and faces are distorted: the expressionism of the 20th century appears on the walls of this house.
Two Old Men Eating Soup
Saturn Devouring His Son
7. Latest Works
A year before his death, in Bordeaux, he painted The Milkmaid of Bordeaux (1827), a painting in which he recovers color and the effect of light that vibrates in the atmosphere, full of small brushstrokes. Due to its characteristics, this painting foreshadows Impressionism.