Dear friends,
I am so glad to feature this time one of the most emblematic Spanish artists ever: Francisco José de Paula de Goya y Lucientes (Goya for short), the genius admired and cherished by kings and nobles of his time, and even today one of the world's best known masters of painting ever to exist.
In effect, is there anyone in the world who has never seen a reproduction, I mean a photo, of The Nude Maja? Or of the Third of May 1808? Well it was Goya of course who painted them, who in addition was the creator of many other outstanding paintings, and the extraordinary artist who would be known to posterity as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.
Initially trained in the then-current Rococo style, Goya gradually developed his own characteristic style, showing the influence of Velazquez and Rembrandt. Those were happy days for him. In time, however, his work would become somber in mood, from his satirical caricatures to the so-called “Black Paintings.” Plus there is an abyss of difference between the young Goya of La Cometa, of 1777-78, or even The Swing of 1787, and the old Goya of Saturn Devouring His Sons of 1821-23.
And while these assertions cannot be refuted - what with the troubled life Goya still had to endure, including his becoming deaf after a cruel disease in 1796 - he still was showing in 1827, one year before his death, bright sparks of optimism, so much so that he would still paint between 1825-1827, i.e. several years after he produced his Saturn, his unassuming but most wonderful Milkmaid - a triumph of man over adversity, and the work I have chosen to feature in this thread.
Thank you,
Luis Miguel Goitizolo
GREAT MASTERS OF PAINTING -
FRANCISCO DE GOYA
(click on image to enlarge)
The Milkmaid (1)
By Francisco de Goya y Lucientes
(born March 30, 1746, Fuendetodos, Spain
died April 16, 1828, Burdeaux, France)
Technical data (2)
The Milkmaid
Oil on canvas
1825-1827
74 x 68 cm
(29.13" x 23.77")
Museo del Prado - Madrid, Spain
Profile (3)
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was court painter to the Spanish Crown; throughout the Peninsular War he remained in Madrid, where he painted the portrait of Joseph Bonaparte, pretender to the Spanish throne, and documented the war in the masterpiece of studied ambiguity known as the Desastres de la Guerra.[1] Through his works he was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era. The subversive imaginative element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint,
provided a model for the work of artists of later generations,
notably Manet, Picasso and Francis Bacon.
(born March 30, 1746, Fuendetodos, Spain died April 16, 1828, Bordeaux, France) Spanish painter and printmaker. He came to maturity in 1775 with the first of some 60 cartoons for the royal tapestry factory of Santa Barbara, painted through 1792.
In 1780 he was elected to the Royal Academy in Madrid and in 1786 was appointed painter to Charles III. By 1799, under the patronage of Charles IV, he had become the most successful and fashionable artist in Spain; his famous The Family of Charles IV was painted at this time (1800). Though he welcomed his honours and success, the record he left of his patrons and their society is ruthlessly penetrating. The eroticism of his famous Naked Maja and Clothed Maja( 1800-05) caused him to be summoned before the Inquisition in 1815.
After an illness left him permanently deaf in the 1790s, his work took on an exaggerated realism that borders on caricature. His 80 Caprichos (Caprices; publ. 1799), satirical prints attacking political, social, and religious abuses, marked an outstanding achievement in the history of printmaking. When Napoleon invaded Spain (1808-15), Goya produced the 82-etching series The Disasters of War (181020). He settled in Bordeaux, France, in 1824, resigned as court painter in 1826, and began working in lithography. He had no immediate followers, but his work profoundly influenced 19th-century European art.
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