Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (Fuendetodos, Zaragoza, 1746 - Bordeaux, France, 1828).
"Los desastres de la guerra", 2nd Edition, 1892.
Etching engravings (x80).
Publisher: Calcografía Nacional Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.
Measurements: 12.7 x 19.5 cm (engravings, x80); 24.5 x 36 x 4 cm (book).
"Los desastres de la guerra" was a collection of engravings created by Goya between 1810 and 1815, but the complete work was not published during his lifetime; the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando published the first edition in 1863. During the War of Independence, Goya's stay in Saragossa had a profound impact on his work, confronting him directly with the violence and devastating consequences of the conflict, which lasted for five years and became one of the most atrocious massacres in European history. This experience marked a remarkable turn in his graphic production, particularly in the series The Disasters of War, where the artist's approach differs radically from that adopted in Los Caprichos.
One of the most outstanding painters in the history of universal art, Francisco de Goya received his first drawing and painting lessons from José Luzán Martínez, who taught at his home and also at the Academy of Drawing founded in Zaragoza in 1754. After three years of studies with this teacher, Goya applied for a pension from the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1763, at the age of seventeen. It seems that by then he was already a student of Francisco Bayeu, who had returned from court. However, Goya did not manage to enter the Academy, nor when he tried again in 1766. Around 1770 he undertook a trip to Italy to broaden his training and improve his possibilities. There he would leave evidence of his early taste for the grotesque and the satirical. He returned to Zaragoza the following year, and soon after received his first important commission, the painting of the vault of the choir of the Basilica del Pilar. Since then he received several commissions from Aragonese aristocrats, and it was one of them, the series of murals on the life of the Virgin for the Carthusian monastery of Aula Dei, which increased his fame in 1774. Some time later he will be called by Anton Raphael Mengs, first painter of Carlos III, to paint tapestry cartoons for the Royal Factory of Santa Barbara. Goya settled in Madrid in 1775, and during this time he carried out other important commissions. In 1780 he entered the Academy of San Fernando and, after beginning to paint portraits, in 1783 he painted the entire family of Charles III's younger brother, the Infante Don Luis. This work, and his contacts with the aristocracy, finally opened the doors of the court. Charles IV reached the throne in 1788, and only a few months later, in 1789, he named Francisco de Goya his Pintor de Cámara, which was to be the definitive triumph of the Aragonese artist. However, in 1792 Goya fell ill, and he suffered the consequences for the rest of his life. The illness soured his character, but on the other hand, it enlivened his genius. The soft and flattering style with which he had pleased the court will give way to a new way of working, although his position will not be harmed: in 1795 he is appointed director of painting at the Academy of San Fernando, and that same year he begins his relationship with the Dukes of Alba. He made the series of "Los Caprichos", undertook the frescoes of San Antonio de la Florida and in 1800 he painted "La familia de Carlos IV". During the first years of the 19th century he continued to work as a portraitist for the most prominent aristocratic figures, until the outbreak of the War of Independence, which meant a serious inner conflict for the painter, who was caught between his liberal ideology, which brought him closer to the French, and his patriotism, which attracted him to those who were fighting against the French. His work then becomes blacker, sadder, as shown for example in the series of engravings "The Disasters of War". At the same time, his style became looser and more impastoed. Once the war was over, as Pintor de Cámara he had to portray Ferdinand VII who, in the end, prevented the process initiated by the Inquisition against the painter, for having signed immoral works, from culminating. However, the relationship between the monarch and the painter is not smooth, and the taste of the court has changed, leaning towards a detail and meticulousness that contrasts with the loose brushstrokes and impasto of Goya. Goya was finally replaced as Pintor de Cámara by Vicente López, and was plunged into a period of isolation, bitterness and illness that led him to seclude himself in the Quinta del Sordo, on the outskirts of Madrid, where he produced his supreme work: the Pinturas Negras (Black Paintings). Fed up with the absolutism imposed by Ferdinand VII in Spain, Goya finally left for France in 1824, where he met with exiled liberal friends. There he spent his last years and produced his final work, "The Milkmaid of Bordeaux", in which he anticipated impressionism. Today his work is part of the most important art galleries in the world, from the Prado Museum to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Louvre in Paris or the National Gallery in London.