GOYA Y LUCIENTES, FRANCISCO JOSÉ

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, FRANCISCO JOSÉ. – Spanish painter, b. at Fuendetodos near Saragossa on 30 March 1746 and d. at Bordeaux on 16 April 1828.

He was a pupil in Saragossa of José Luzán y Martínez, who had also studied in Italy, especially in Naples, where he had been a fellow student of Solimena. He remained in Saragossa from 1760 to 1765, when he went to Madrid, that is, into an environment in which Mengs and G. B. Tiepolo had already been active for several years.

But in Madrid the impetuous Spaniard thought less of painting than of living his life intensely, even entering the arena as a bullfighter, until in 1769, perhaps on Mengs’s own advice, he went to Rome, from where, however, he had to be repatriated because of the adventurous life he was leading there. On his return to Saragossa in ’72 he received important commissions, and it may be said that only from this moment did his effective artistic career begin. On the vault of the small choir of the cathedral of Nuestra Señora del Pilar he painted the Gloria del Cielo (1772), a cold imitation of Tiepolo, as are also the paintings for the monastery of Aula Dei. More personal—and therefore considered by some critics to have been executed earlier—are the mural paintings now in the Museum of Saragossa, originating from the Palace of Sabradial. Around ’75 he married the sister of the painter F. Bayeu, with whom he collaborated in Madrid on the preparation of the cartoons for the tapestries of the royal manufactory of S. Barbara. It was largely to these cartoons—which G. painted at intervals until 1791—that the painter owed his popularity, which also brought him commissions for portraits. In 1780 he was appointed a member of the «Academy of Painting of S. Fernando», submitting as his admission piece the Crucifix, now in the Prado, which, despite its academic conception, nevertheless reveals in its vigorous brushstrokes the mark of his rebellious spirit. It is this same spirit that, also in the cartoons for the tapestries—true interpretations of the Spanish life of the time—leads him to free himself from imitation of French tapestries (to which he had yielded in his earliest efforts) and to arrive at a more personal interpretation, with strong contrasts of light (Maja and the Man with the Cloak, The Drinker, The Umbrella, etc.). Related to the popular characterizations of the cartoons are the religious figures painted at this time in one of the domes of the church of El Pilar in Saragossa (1781–82); dating from 1781–84 is the large composition with S. Bernardino da Siena Preaching to Alfonso of Aragon for the church of S. Francisco el Grande. A few years later (ca. 1785) are the Annunciation (Duchess of Osuna, Madrid) and S. Gregorio e s. Isidoro (Romantic Museum of Madrid). Among the most famous portraits of these years, mention should be made of that of the architect Ventura Rodriguez (1781), of Cornelio van der Gotten (1872, Prado), of the family of the Infante Don Luis (1783), of his patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Osuna with their four children (Prado), of King Charles IV in hunting costume and of the Queen, now in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, and of his brother-in-law Bayeu. In the cartoons for tapestries of these years, moreover, he abandons the harsh contrasts of light, immersing the compositions in a warm golden light. In 1785 he became president of the Academy; in 1788 he was appointed court painter by Charles IV, and a year later he painted for the chapel of the cathedral of Valencia the Transit of S. Francesco Borgia and S. Francesco Comforting a Dying Man. In 1792 a serious illness left him deaf, and the optimism that had sustained him until then faded. The painter withdrew into isolation, but his prodigious activity did not diminish, and, besides the portraits, mention should be made of the mural paintings in S. Antonio della Floridia (near

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, FRANCISCO JOSÉ - Self-portrait - Madrid, Prado Gallery.

Madrid, 1798), the Rembrandtesque Betrayal of Judas in the cathedral of Toledo, and the publication (1797) of the Caprichos, the famous engravings that reveal him as an attentive and caustic observer, a merciless critic of false traditions, superstitions, and fanaticism. The portrait of the family of Carlo IV (Prado), the two Maja, and the portrait of his new powerful protector, the prime minister Godoy, may be attributed to the early years of the nineteenth century; perhaps the six paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago depicting the Capture of the bandit Margato by the friar Pedro de Zaldivia should also be assigned to this period. In 1808, after the abdication of Carlo IV in favor of Ferdinando VII, the painter entered the service of the new sovereign and painted his equestrian portrait. Then the Napoleonic invasion threw Spain into turmoil; G. was at first among the sympathizers of the revolutionary movement, but his enthusiasm soon faded and he instead became one of the most tenacious opponents of the foreign master; from his embittered spirit arose the engravings of the Désastres de la guerre (published posthumously in 1863), a merciless indictment of French domination. After the French departed in 1814, with the intention of celebrating Spanish resistance he executed the equestrian portrait of General Palafox (Prado) and the famous 2 May and 3 May. In 1815 he published the series of engravings of the Tauromaquia, followed by that of the Proverbs, Disparates, many of which have an obscure meaning. Two of his most notable religious paintings date from 1819: the Communion of s. Giuseppe Calasanzio and the Agony in the Garden (Escuelas Pias, Madrid). Following the establishment of the absolutism of Ferdinando VII (1823), the artist preferred to leave Spain and in 1824, at the age of 78, moved to France, settling in Bordeaux, where he continued to draw and paint. Belonging to this final period are The Milkmaid of Bordeaux (Count of Muguiro, Madrid), S. Pietro (Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington, 1827), and S. Paolo (Lilienfeld Galleries, New York, 1827).

G.’s art is truly, and not only for Spain, the announcement of a new age. The Spanish painter breaks away from the conformism of official and courtly art in order to realize fantastic yet profoundly human visions and therefore, in a certain sense, religious ones. For G. expresses his religious feeling—as L. Venturi noted—“not when he must represent a religious scene, but when he finds the motive of his own religion, the religion of independence, freedom, and humanity.” He was therefore not a skeptical Voltairian, as some have defined him, but a man sustained by a profound moral sense that led him to rebel against every form of corruption, hypocrisy, and abuse. His art, too, consequently appears in a new form, with an impressionistic technique based on contrasts of color.

From the outset, the designs for tapestries offered him the possibility of using a more spontaneous technique, because it was less finished and therefore less academic; and his vision was certainly profoundly influenced by the discovery of the art of Velásquez—of whom G. engraved several paintings in 1777–78—and later by the influence of Tiepolo, which at a certain point was replaced by that of Rembrandt. This was certainly his happiest period: it was the moment of the “Capricci,” an expression of feelings that came violently from the depths and demanded equally violent realization. A dynamism of form, which also determines, for example, the commemorative painting of the Executions of 3 May, one of the greatest masterpieces of G.’s art. As for his properly religious works, however, the artist succeeded in creating deeply felt works of art only toward the end of his life, as in the Communion of s. Giuseppe Calasanzio or the Prayer in the Garden (1819). In the works executed in France during his final years, his technique evolved further toward a more powerful synthetism, based on the elimination of contours and the darkening of colors: a vision in masses that represents the ultimate achievement of his agitated artistic imagination. - Vedi tav. LXXIII.