FRANCISCO DE GOYA FUN(-ISH) FACTS: FAME LESSON 3
 As a young child Goya showed early interest in art and was encouraged by his father. When
he was an apprentice he learned technique by copying the work of other artists and how to
depict the human form by copying statues.
 Although Goya failed to receive a single vote from the selection committee for the Art
Academy in Madrid when he was seventeen, he persevered in his art by painting portraits for
the nobility. Eventually he was appointed Painter to the Royal Court and at age forty-three
was the most successful artist in Spain.
 Goya's introduction to the royal workshops, a relationship that lasted the rest of his life and
spanned four ruling monarchies, began in 1774. The German painter Anton Raphael Mengs
asked Goya to work on tapestry cartoons, or preliminary paintings, for the Royal Tapestry
Factory at Santa Bárbara. Goya painted sixty-three cartoons for two royal palaces which
illustrate leisure activities of the rich, poor, young, and old in a playful Rococo manner. One
of his illustrations, The Blind Guitarist, was rejected and returned to Goya as the tapestry
weavers were frustrated by its complex composition. However, before simplifying it, Goya
preserved the original design in a copperplate etching, the largest print he ever made.
 A serious illness in 1792 left Goya permanently and profoundly deaf. Able to hear only
buzzing sounds reverberating in his head, he was nearly driven mad. Isolated by his
deafness, he became increasingly occupied with the fantasies and inventions of his
imagination and with critical and satirical observations of mankind. He found that drawing
gave him more freedom than did painting in oils and evolved a bold, free new style close to
caricature. In 1799, he completed and published a suite of eighty allegorical etchings
including the Caprichos; Out Hunting for Teeth and The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. They
introduce a world of witches, ghosts, and fantastic creatures that invade the mind,
particularly during dreams, nightmarish visions symbolizing a world against reason.
 To reach a larger audience, he began making etchings on copper plates (similar to
lithography) and producing hundreds of prints from them. He was one of the first major
artists to use this process. He continued to paint portraits of nobility and royalty but they
were more realistic and less flattering than The Maja Clothed.

Goya’s subject matter became increasingly dark as political upheaval in Spain and his
isolation worked its way into his art (he produced terrifying images such as The Black
Paintings—meant for his eyes only). He continued to work as an artist (self exiled in France),
however, which kept him from complete madness until his death in 1828.
Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art Link on Goya: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/goya/hd_goya.htm
for images of works mentioned above available on FAME website: smithfame.webs.com