1746 – 1828
Francisco Goya
He looked at power, war, and madness until politeness became impossible.
Where They Stand
In Romanticism, Goya made art a witness to cruelty and the dark rooms of the mind.
Biography
The Life
Goya began as a court painter and ended as something darker, freer, and more modern. He painted kings, duchesses, festivals, children, witches, executions, madness, and war. He lived through illness that left him deaf, political violence that broke Spain, and a long disillusionment with power.
His art changed with him. The bright tapestry designs of his youth gave way to biting prints and haunted late paintings. Goya did not trust appearances. Beneath ceremony he found vanity. Beneath reason he found monsters. Beneath patriotism he found bodies in the dirt.
He is one of the first modern witnesses: not comforting, not polite, but necessary.
The Work Remembers
His images do not console. They testify.
The Works
The Works
His works move from courtly surface to nightmare, satire, execution, and the naked fact of fear.
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Lines of Influence
From Manet to Picasso and modern antiwar art, Goya taught artists how to accuse history without looking away.