School encyclopedia. The best paintings by Francisco Goya - the love and pain of a great soul
Presenting his works, the young man hopes to study at the Royal Academy of Arts in San Fernando.
Unfortunately, the film did not pass the selection. And Goya decided to go to study and work in Italy. Having reached Rome, the artist studies the paintings of the great Italian masters. But the adventurous nature makes itself felt here too. The young man decided to kidnap his beloved, who was in a nunnery, but was caught right at the crime scene. Therefore, he had to hastily flee Rome.
Becoming
The ambitious artist went to Madrid in 1773, where he settled with his friend Francisco Bayeu, who at that time held the position of court artist for Queen Maria Louise and King Charles IV. Goya works mainly in the Bayeu workshop. A friend introduces the artist to Sister Josepha. The impressionable Goya fell in love and seduced the beauty. In 1775, he had to marry her, because the lady of his heart was already five months pregnant. The couple soon had a son, Eusebio, who did not live long.
Josefa bore Goya five children, although some sources say there were more. Unfortunately, only one son lived to adulthood - Francisco Javier Pedro. He followed in his father's footsteps, although he did not achieve such fame, but still became an artist.
The adventurous genius quickly became fed up with his wife, and as soon as he was surrounded by court aristocrats, he stopped being interested in her. In his entire life, he painted only one portrait of his wife.
Fame
In 1780, the artist managed to achieve reception at court. Thanks to the successful portrait of King Charles III and the painting “The Crucifixion,” Goya was accepted into the Royal Academy. In 1785 he became vice-director, in 1795 - director of the painting department.In 1786, the long-awaited position of court artist was achieved, which remained with the master even after the death of Charles III in 1799. Charles IV left this place for Goya.
In 1791, the artist’s fateful acquaintance with the Duchess of Alba took place. She's on for many years becomes his patron and muse.
In 1792-1793, Goya became seriously ill. This disease takes away the artist's hearing. During the recovery process, work began on the Caprichos etchings, which were completed only in 1799. The entire series was satirical, exposing the shortcomings of social, political and religious orders.
In 1796, the Duke of Alba, the patron and husband of the artist's muse, died. Goya accompanies his beloved to Andalusia, where she mourns the loss of her husband. Around this time, the famous painting "Macha Nude", dating from 1797, appears.
Charles IV in 1798 gave the task to the court artist to paint the dome in the church of San Antonio de la Florida, located outside the city.
In 1802, “Maja Dressed” was created, which can be seen in the Prado. In the same year, the Duchess of Alba died and bequeathed an annuity of 3,500 reais annually to her lover's son, Javier Goya. In memory of the muse, the artist wrote “Mahu on the Balcony” in 1816.
Later years
 |
When the son got married and began to live separately with his wife, the elderly Goya was left alone. For several difficult years he lived in the “Quinta del Sordo” - “House of the Deaf” outside the city. In the period from 1820 to 1823, the artist painted the walls with oils. Today these paintings can be seen in the Prado.
Loneliness ended with the acquaintance of Leocadia de Weiss. Because of the artist, she divorces her entrepreneur husband Isidro Weiss. From Goya, Leocadia gave birth to a daughter, Rosarita.
To avoid persecution by the new Spanish government, the artist's family moved to France in 1824. Goya lived there until his death on April 16, 1828.
Here in Bordeaux he masters lithography and paints portraits of new emigrant friends. Particularly famous from the French period are the 1826 series “The Bulls of Bordeaux” and the canvas “The Milkwoman of Bordeaux”, written in 1827-1828. The influence of Francisco José de Goya on European artistic art cannot be overstated.
While traveling in Spain in 1824, Eugene Delacroix wrote in his diary, “Goya trembled around me.” Goya is not only the most national artist of Spain, the formation of modern art is associated with his name.
Works of Goya, contemporary french revolution, Spain's national liberation war with Napoleonic France, the rapid rise of social forces and brutal reaction, occurred during one of the most dramatic periods spanish history. It combined the advanced thought of the era and echoes of sustainable folk ideas, latitude public positions and the strongest imprint of his subjective experiences, fiery temperament, impulsive nature, boundless imagination. Goya's art exudes exciting power; it is truly inexhaustible and not subject to cold analysis. His artistic language sharply exposed, mercilessly sharp and at the same time complicated, encrypted, changeably mobile, sometimes difficult to explain.
Goya was born in the village of Fuendestodos near Zaragoza in the family of an artisan gilder. He studied in Zaragoza with J. Luzan Martinez, then in Madrid with F. Bayeu, whose daughter, Josefa, he married in 1773. Goya's stormy, adventurous youth is little known. He visited Italy, where he participated in the Parma Academy competition and received second prize. From 1773 he lived and worked in Madrid, and in 1786 he was appointed court painter.
Goya emerged as a major artist relatively late. His first significant success was brought to him by two series (1776-1791) of numerous panels (cardboards for carpets) for the Royal Manufactory of Santa Barbara in Madrid, which depict walks, picnics, dances, feasts of urban youth, scenes in markets, washerwomen on the banks of the Manzanares, the poor at the well, blind guitarist, village wedding. Decorative painting Goya enriched the composition with innovations, enlargement of figures, colorful coloristic findings, and most importantly - a direct feeling national life, perceived by him not from the gaze of an outside observer, but as if from within; this environment was familiar to him from his youth.
The Umbrella (Madrid, Prado), written in 1777, does not have a developed plot. Fashionable at that time genre painting The motif inspired him to create a captivating picturesque image in which the girl’s face and part of her figure, shaded by a green umbrella from the sun’s rays, are full of light colorful reflections. Here you can see how much Goya owes to Velazquez, whom, along with nature and Rembrandt, he considered his teacher.
Goya became a fashionable portrait painter, inundated with orders. It is difficult to find another great portrait painter who would so decisively show his personal attitude towards the people he depicts. He remained completely indifferent to some of them, and then his commissioned portraits seem strangely lifeless, numb. An artist who has an impeccable command of plastic form becomes unexpectedly helpless and allows negligence in drawing and composition. It is no coincidence that in a letter to Goya’s friend, the director of the Royal Academy of History asks to influence the artist to paint his portrait “as he can, when he wants.”
Goya's portraits represent the society of that time in its entire breadth. Its scope is amazing creative evolution from ceremonial portraits in the traditions of the 18th century to works that anticipate the most daring conquests art of the 19th century centuries. Goya's proximity to advanced people Spain filled his art with a new sense of life. Among his friends are writers, poets, politicians, and actors. He treats their portraits with special careful attention (portraits of the artist F. Bayeu, Doctor Peral, public figure Jovellanos, poet L. Moratin). At the beginning of the 19th century portrait images Goya, full of energy and self-confidence, displays features close to the ideals of the Romantic era. In the celebrated portrait of Isabel Cobos de Porcel (1806, London, National Gallery) the appearance of a young blooming woman with a fiery gaze and black Spanish lace is marked by acute national character.
By the end of the century, Goya's court career, which reached its zenith in 1799, when he became the king's first painter, brought him a lot of bitterness and disappointment.
At the end of the 1790s, perceiving the dark and ugly sides of life around him more and more clearly and sharply, Goya experienced a mental crisis, aggravated by hearing loss as a result of a serious illness. The artist endured his deafness with rare courage, trying to find a means of communication with the outside world.
Powerful impulses of creative inspiration ruled over Goya's contradictory nature. End XVIII century marked in his work by high artistic achievements. He completed work on a series of etchings called Caprichos, which included him among the largest masters of world graphic art. In this unsurpassed example of tragic grotesque, Goya exposed the ulcers of feudal-Catholic Spain.
In 1798, Goya created frescoes for the Madrid church of San Antonio de la Florida. A bright, life-affirming principle triumphs in them. The dome's painting depicts a medieval legend about the miraculous resurrection in Lisbon of a murdered man by Saint Anthony of Padua, who named the name of his real killer. The miracle was transferred by the artist to the environment of contemporary life, taking place against the backdrop of free Castilian nature, under open air, in the presence of a discordant crowd. Church paintings - a grandiose conquest of Goya as a master monumental painting. They were received with delight and enthusiasm; one of his biographers wrote that two miracles took place in Madrid, one performed by Anthony of Padua, the other by the artist Goya.
In June 1800, Goya began “Portrait of the Family of King Charles IV” (Madrid, Prado), which united fourteen figures. The frozen persons of the royal house, lined up in one of the palace chambers of Aranjuez, fill the canvas from edge to edge. Everything is at the mercy of the prevailing tension and mutual hostility. The portrait shimmers with a magical radiance of colors; it seems to be composed of precious stones. From this royal splendor emerge numb figures, but the faces are especially naked and sharply painted - insignificant, swollen, self-satisfied. Famous work Goya has no analogues in world painting. It breaks the tradition of ceremonial official images. It would be an extreme simplification to see it as a caricature, because everything here is the cruelest truth. Those who ordered it, elevated to the pinnacle of power, were not given the opportunity to understand its revealing power. I liked the portrait and was favorably received. The same thing happened in 1803, when Goya, fearing the Inquisition, decided to take a bold step and respectfully presented the Caprichos etching boards to the king.
A special place among his works early XIX century is occupied by the image of a young woman, captured twice - dressed and naked. It does not strictly belong to portrait genre. The national-characteristic type of sensualism that attracted the artist is embodied here. female beauty, infinitely far from academic canons. The irregularity of the delicate pale golden and seemingly tangibly alive naked body lies in its exciting appeal. Flowing and smooth painting is plastic and flawless. To this day, much remains unclear: the circumstances of the order of the two paintings, their exact dating and final title, the question of who this woman was, so boldly depicted naked by the artist in violation of the Inquisitorial ban. Usually double paintings are called “Maja dressed” and “Maja naked” (both - ca. 1800, Madrid, Prado), but the word “Maja” itself - “city dandy” - appeared in relation to them only in 1831, and in old inventories it was about the Gypsy, Venus. The assumption that his beloved Duchess Cayetana Alba posed for Goya was rejected due to the physical and age differences between the Duchess and the unknown girl who served as the artist’s model. The Inquisition became interested in these paintings, and in 1815 the artist was summoned to the Madrid Tribunal, where he had to identify them and explain for whom and for what purpose they were created. But the interrogation protocol was not preserved. Both Machs are among the most famous works Goya, surrounded by a romantic aura and various speculations.
The country was raging bloody war against those whom Goya and his “Frenchized” friends so recently considered to be the bearers of long-awaited freedom. A Spanish patriot, he suffered deeply and was indignant. IN small picture"Colossus" (1810-1812, Madrid, Prado) appears a spectacle of general chaos generated unexpected appearance a colossal figure of a naked giant, which looms eeriely beyond the outlines of the mountains and touches the clouds. Fantastic image has been interpreted differently. Probably the colossus, clenching its fist menacingly and turning its back to the valley, where people and animals scatter in wild confusion, horsemen and carts fall, personifies the merciless forces of war, bringing general ruin, panic and death. What Goya - a witness to the Napoleonic invasion - experienced in occupied Madrid, in long-suffering Zaragoza, destroyed by French sieges, which he visited in the fall of 1808, gave a new powerful impetus to his work both in painting and in graphics, leading to the creation of works of tragic and heroic sound. The power of drama contained in his work reached its highest intensity.
The large canvases in the Prado, which form a historical diptych and depict “The Uprising of the Puerta del Sol on May 2, 1808” and “The Execution of the Rebels on the Night of May 3,” remain forever in the memory. The composition of the first painting is tied in one elastic knot. Goya watched the battle between the Madrid people and the French cavalry on the Puerta del Sol from his son’s house. The second picture is world famous. Over Madrid and the bare hills surrounding it there is a dull and seemingly eternal night. Under the black sky lurked the enslaved and trampled Madrid. From there, like a dark river, a crowd of victims moves along the hills towards the place of execution. There was one last moment left before the salvo. The ominous yellow light of a lantern pulls out of the darkness a group of rebels pressed against the hillside, at whom the raised guns of a faceless line of French soldiers are aimed. The inexorability of impending doom is sharply opposed by force human feelings. The artist simply, harshly, nakedly and at the same time deeply humanly conveys a feeling of doom, fear bordering on madness, strong-willed composure, and withering hatred of the enemy.
Goya's inherent ability to respond with all the passion of his temperament to the events of our time found its clearest expression in a series of etchings known as “The Disasters of War,” given to her by the Academy of San Fernando when published in 1863. National tragedy shown here in all its mercilessness. These are mountains of corpses, executions of partisans, fierce battles, outrages of marauders, pangs of hunger, punitive expeditions, disgraced women, orphaned children.
Later creativity Goya coincides with years of violent reaction after the defeat of two Spanish bourgeois revolutions. In a state of mental confusion and gloomy despair, he settled in a new house known as “Quinta del Sordo” (“House of the Deaf”). Goya covered the walls of the two-story house with fourteen dark, fantastic oil paintings. Full of allegories, allusions, and associations, they are completely unique in their figurative structure and powerful artistic impact. The "Black Paintings" - as they are commonly called - were in danger of disappearing completely when the Quinta del Sordo was demolished in 1910. Fortunately, Goya's painting was transferred to canvas, restored and is located in the Prado.
The paintings are dominated by a devilish, frightening, unnatural principle; an ominous image appears as if in a nightmare. Toothless vixens or elders with bare skulls - the likeness of Death itself - greedily slurp the stew, a screaming frenzied crowd of freaks marches to the source of San Isidro, the devil in the form of a huge black Goat in a monastic robe leads a gathering of vile witches. The set of colors is harsh, stingy, almost monochrome - black, white, reddish-reddish, ocher, the colors seem to have absorbed the shades of the Spanish land burned by the sun, rust rocks, the smoldering flame of the red soils, the strokes are sweeping and swift. A graphic parallel to Kinta's paintings was the series "Disparates" ("Proverbs", 1820-1823) with even more complex encrypted images.
In 1824, during the years of reaction, Goya was forced to emigrate to France, to the city of Bordeaux, where he died. An inexhaustible thirst for creativity did not leave him until recent years life. Completely deaf and going blind, the artist continued to create paintings, portraits, miniatures, and lithographs. “...Only will supports me,” he wrote to friends.
In the most later works Goya returns to the image of triumphant youth (The Milkmaid of Bordeaux, 1826, Madrid, Prado).
The life of Goya is dedicated literary works, fictionalized biographies and films. His art had a tremendous impact on Spanish artistic culture XIX-XX centuries, not only on painting and graphics, but also literature, drama, theater, cinema. Many masters of world culture turned to Goya, from Delacroix to Picasso, from Edouard Manet to Mexican masters of folk graphics. And today Goya remains unfadingly modern.
Tatiana Kaptereva
Francisco Goya, who later became famous portrait painter era of Spanish romanticism, was born in 1746 in the mountain village of Fuendetodos, where he passed his early childhood. Francisco did not receive sufficient education; he learned the basics of literacy at a church school and always wrote with errors.
Because of this, he was very successful in the artistic field, leaving imperishable creations for his descendants. Thanks to his truly magical brush, everyone can plunge into the life of Spanish society of the late XVII - early XVIII centuries, see the faces beautiful ladies and noble grandees, members of the royal family, as well as incomparable scenes from the life of ordinary people.
The artist's creative path was long and thorny. From the age of fourteen, Francisco studied painting in the studio of Luzana y Martinez in Zaragoza. Then circumstances forced the aspiring artist to leave his homeland and move to the capital of the country, Madrid. Here he tried to enter the academy twice, in 1764 and 1766. fine arts, but the attempts were unsuccessful. The teachers were unable to discern the emerging talent and appreciate the level of artistic skill of the young provincial from Zaragoza. In Madrid, Francisco had to earn his living by washing dishes in the Botin tavern.
After the failure, Goya went to Rome for new impressions and returned to his homeland only in 1771. For two years, from 1772 to 1774, he worked in the Aula Den monastery, painting the monastery church with paintings from the life of the Virgin Mary.
At the age of 27, Francisco enters into a very profitable marriage for himself - he marries Josefa Bayeu, the sister of the court artist Bayeu. Thanks to the patronage of his brother-in-law, he receives an order from the royal tapestry manufactory, which he fulfills with pleasure, drawing beautiful Spanish girls with gentlemen, mischievous children, and dressed-up villagers. Goya lived with his wife for 39 years and during this time he painted only one portrait of her. Of the children born in this family union, only one boy survived, who, like his great father, chose the path of an artist. Francisco Goya was not distinguished by marital fidelity; he had many affairs with both aristocrats and commoners. But main love his life was the Duchess of Alba, with whom he forgot about the existence of all other women.
Coming from a family of artisans and an impoverished aristocrat, Francisco Goya, thanks to his talent and hard work, managed to make a dizzying career and become the court artist first of King Charles III, and after his death in 1788 - Charles IV. His painting “The Family of Charles IV” is widely known, where the composition contains a self-portrait of the artist himself.
During the liberation struggle of the Spaniards against the French enslavers, Francisco Goya puts aside his brush and picks up his chisel in order to reflect all the horrors inherent in war through etchings of “The Disasters of War”.
A dark spot in Goya's creative collection is the Black Paintings. The background to the appearance of the paintings is as follows. In 1819, the artist purchased a two-story house near Madrid, known as the “House of the Deaf.” The previous owner, like Goya, was deaf (the artist lost his hearing after a serious illness and miraculously survived). Goya painted 14 very unusual and ominous paintings right on the walls of the house, the most terrible of which is “Saturn Devouring His Son.”
In 1824, the artist, who had lost the favor of King Ferdinand, left Spain and lived in French city Bordeaux. Goya's old age was brightened up by Leocadia de Weiss, who left her husband for the sake of the deaf elderly artist. At the age of 82, Francisco Goya, in whose mind both dark and light worlds are intertwined, passes into eternity, leaving us with his contradictory, but very talented works. The most famous of them are the double canvas “Maja Dressed,” with “Naked Macha” hidden underneath it, a series of etchings “Caprichos,” portraits of his beloved Cayetana Alba.
More than a dozen biographers, historians, art historians and doctors tried to unravel the secret of the great Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746-1828), author of magnificent portraits, paintings, tapestries, wall paintings, and the graphic series “Caprichos” and “Disasters of War.”
Maha dressed, 1798 - 1805
Dilermando Reis - Romance de Amor
Some believed that the artist’s talent and genius were so great that they could not exist within the realm of possibility and helped the artist reach such heights. Others argued that a serious illness and complete mental disorder contributed to him creating his greatest masterpieces.
But there were also those - by the way, there were many of them - who were deeply convinced that it was a woman who made Goya a great artist - the mysterious and enigmatic Duchess of Alba (1762-1802).
Duchess of Alba in black, 1797
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746 in a small village near Zaragoza. His father was a master gilder, his mother came from a famous, but long-impoverished noble family. While studying at school, the boy had difficulty mastering arithmetic and literacy, but from childhood he showed great skill in drawing. brilliant abilities. When Francisco was seventeen years old, his father, who wanted to help his son in his quest to become a painter, sent the young man to Madrid.
Portrait of Maria Teresa de Vallabrig on horseback, 1783
Simultaneously with his training as a painter in the capital, Goya managed to pay considerable attention to women, for whom he had passionate and unbridled feelings from his youth. Rich aristocrats, simple peasant women, and well-known beauties from brothels in the city became his mistresses. They even said that once in the village, noticing a beautiful nun, the temperamental artist climbed into her cell and kidnapped her, after which he provoked a brutal fight with the village peasants, in which he was almost killed. Whether this fact took place or not is not known for certain, but with very strange circumstances Goya fled to Italy, joining the street vagabonds
Portrait of Doña Narcisa Baranian de Goicoechea, 1810
Three years later, in 1773, the artist returned to Madrid, where he met his longtime friend Francisco Bayeu. He introduced Goya to his sister, the beautiful Josephine. Ardent and passionate love soon led to the fact that the girl became pregnant, and Goya, who did not think about marriage, was forced to seal his relationship with his beloved with seminal ties. In total, the wife gave the painter five children, but only Javier grew up - the other children died in infancy.
Portrait of the Countess of Chinchon, 1800
In 1792, Goya became seriously ill. The illness that broke the artist still causes endless debate among biographers and doctors studying his illness. Some believe that it was a venereal disease, presumably syphilis. Others believe that the cause of paralysis and hearing loss could be manic-depressive syndrome and schizophrenia. Contemporaries noted that the artist had observed panic fear persecution, extreme intemperance and even hysteria, craving for loneliness and some other oddities in behavior.
For about two months, Goya lay motionless, then his vision was restored, and for the first time in many weeks of suffering he was able to get to his feet and walk. However, his hearing was lost forever.
Young lady in mantilla and basquin, 1805-08
Nevertheless, the artist returned to his old life again. Marital fidelity was not a virtue of the great master. Countless novels continued: there were so many of them that sometimes the artist did not even remember the name of the mistress with whom he spent the night. He won the hearts of noble ladies and poor simpletons, beauties and ordinary, inconspicuous women. It seemed to give him complete, incomparable pleasure.
Thrush from Bordeaux. 1827
This continued until the twenty-year-old Duchess of Alba appeared in the life of the unsurpassed lover, who became the most desirable woman in the artist’s life and the most fatal muse in his fate. He was introduced to Caetanya Alba by court aristocrats who were close friends of the master. Wanting to see the “extraordinary Goya” with her own eyes, Alba came to his workshop. She was arrogant, beautiful, feminine and sensual. After her visit, in the summer of 1795, the artist, without holding back his feelings, told a friend about his meeting with a new acquaintance and exclaimed: “Oh, finally now I know what it means to live!”
Blind Man's Bluff. 1788
Their passionate romance lasted seven years. For all these years, Francisco Goya forgot about other women, and only one - the most beautiful woman Spain of that time - Caetanya Maria del Pilar, Duchess of Alba - remained his muse, inspiring the artist to create great masterpieces.
The Duchess could not be called a decent and modest lady - society knew about her numerous vicious relationships, however, Alba did not even think about hiding them. Among her lovers were called the most noble and influential men countries.
Portrait of the Duchess of Alba
Her marriage at the age of thirteen to the already middle-aged Duke, a representative of one of the most powerful aristocratic families in Europe, did not bring Caetanya peace of mind. The young heart wished passionate feelings, and the body sought to experience all the pleasures and caresses. Possessed by passion, giving herself over to every feeling, the young duchess at the age of twenty became an experienced, knowledgeable, and insidious seductress. Contemporaries recalled that all men in Spain desired her. “When she walked down the street,” wrote one French traveler, “everyone looked out of the windows, even children abandoned their games to look at her. Every hair on her body evoked desire.”
Portrait of the Marquise von Villafranco, 1804
The Duke of Alba chose to ignore love affairs his temperamental wife, and in 1796 he died from a long and serious illness. His unfaithful wife, dressed in mourning attire, went to mourn her husband in a castle in Andalusia and spent a little over a year there. Noteworthy was the fact that all this time Francisco Goya lived with the saddened widow.
Josepha Bayeux or Leocadia Weiss, 1814
When a year later the couple returned to Madrid, the duchess threw herself into the arms of her new lover - a very noble and brave warrior. And Goya, offended and embittered, continued to paint her portraits. But now he portrayed the traitor as either a stupid lady, or a corrupt girl, or scary witch.<
Allegory of the City of Madrid, 1809
About two years after these events, Goya became a European celebrity. He was appointed royal painter with a handsome salary and became rich. And the Duchess of Alba returned again to her abandoned lover.
The most famous paintings of the great master can be called, without a shadow of a doubt, the double painting “Naked Macha” and “Clothed Macha”. They date back to around 1800. The canvas folded back on hinges, like a read page, and another one was revealed under it - the same swing, but naked, despite the strictest prohibition of the Inquisition to depict a naked female body.
Mahi on the balcony, 1814
To this day there are disputes about who is depicted in the picture. In those days, in all of Spain there was the only person for whom the prohibitions of the Inquisition were not a decree - Manuel Godoy, the first minister of King Charles IV with the title of Prince of Peace. Art critics claim that Goya received the order for the double painting from Godoy and it depicts an unknown woman.
Woman with fan
However, it is known that many other paintings by the great artist were dedicated to the Duchess of Alba, and some of them were indeed too explicit: the Duchess is depicted completely naked. Once, on one such painting, she wrote in her own hand: “Keeping something like this is simply madness. However, to each his own." Her phrase was not without coquetry.
Portrait of the Marchioness of Santa Cruz
In the summer of 1802, Caetanya Alba gathered guests at her Buena Vista palace in Madrid. She was throwing a magnificent celebration in honor of the betrothal of her young niece. The most eminent representatives of aristocratic Madrid were invited to the celebrations, including Crown Prince Ferdinand and Prime Minister Godoy. The Duchess also invited Francisco Goya. After dinner, the Duchess showed the guests the artist’s personal studio, which was set up right there in the palace. She led the guests around the halls and talked incessantly. The Duchess's behavior was so strange that the guests were at a loss. Talking about the paints used in painting, Alba focused on the most poisonous of them, a small drop of which was a deadly poison. Interrupting the story, she joked about death.
Portrait of Countess Carpio, Marquise de la Solana. 1793
When the evening ended and everyone had left, Goya returned home, but could not sleep until the morning: he had repeatedly heard from his mistress about her desire to die young, before reaching old age. Suspicions were confirmed in the morning - the duchess was found dead.
The cause of Caetanya's death still remains a mystery. Some believe that Alba herself took poison dissolved in a glass of water. Others are sure of a violent death: many were interested in this, including Queen Marie Louise, who considered the duchess her rival, hated her and wished her death. But the wives of her lovers, the lovers themselves, who had once been abandoned by an unfaithful lover, and envious girlfriends, as well as servants, to whom, after the death of the mistress, a very impressive sum of money was left in the will, wanted to take revenge on Alba...
Portrait of Doña Teresa Sureda. 1904
Ten years have passed since the death of his beloved Caetanya, and Goya was still unable to calm his suffering heart.
Portrait of Senora Kean Bermudez, wife of Juan Agostino Bermudez, 1795
In 1812, Goya's faithful wife Josephine, who had suffered so much mental suffering and endured numerous affairs with her temperamental husband, died. The son, having got married, moved to another house, leaving his sixty-six-year-old father completely alone.
It was then that passion suddenly awoke in Goya with renewed vigor. He met the young wife of a poor merchant, Leocadia Weiss, persuaded her to cheat on her husband and took her away from the family. Nine months later, she gave her lover a daughter, and ten years later, the artist, along with his daughter and Leocadia, left Spain forever to settle in France.
Portrait of Doña Isabel Cobos de Porcel, 1806
Francisco Goya died on April 16, 1828. He was buried in Bordeaux, much later the ashes of the great artist were transported to Madrid and buried in the Church of San Antonio de la Florida.
Water Carrier, 1810-12
Portrait of the Marquise of Santiago
Maha nude
Portrait of the actress Antonia Zarate, 1811
Holy Family. OK. 1787
Young girl with a letter
Portrait of Doña Antonia Zarate, 1806
This painting is considered by many to be the first manifestation of impressionism in painting. Light strokes form the image of a beautiful seated girl, which amazes art connoisseurs with its unusualness. Thus, in place of almost photographic clarity and focus on [...]
Collaborating for a long time with the Royal Tapestry Manufactory, the artist painted various subjects in oil on cardboard, which the weavers then transferred to woven tapestries. One of these cardboard paintings is “The Game of Blind Man’s Bluff.” Picturesque […]
The canvas belongs to the brush of the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. The exact date of its creation is unknown. The painting is believed to have been painted between 1812 and 1819. The central place on it is given to a raging crowd of people carrying a banner with […]
In the 18th century, the situation with Spanish painting was not easy. The dominance of foreignness has penetrated into the art of Spain, into its painting. The authorities, paying tribute to fashion and political ambitions, promoted foreign painters to leading positions and […]
Francisco Goya's painting "The Grape Harvest" was painted in 1786. Currently, the work adorns the Prado National Museum in Madrid. The dimensions of the canvas are as much as 267.5 by 190.5 cm. In terms of style, the work can be […]
