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What’s Goya famous for?

• being deaf
• known as ‘the Father of Modern Art’
• painting the same woman two ways - Maya clothed and Maya nude
• painting the spooky ‘Black Paintings'

The Spanish painter, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes is one of the world’s best-known painters and undoubtedly one of the three great Spanish masters. NowYouKnowAbout Artists brings your children Goya’s lifestory in DVD format as an easy introduction to great historical figures.

Goya was born in a small town in northern Spain in 1746. His family were not well-off but his father was respected as a gilder and his mother came from a noble family from the area. Like most of the artists featured in this entertaining and educational DVD for children, Goya wasn’t very interested in schoolwork and preferred roaming freely outside with his gun and his dog and his friend, Martin Zapater.

At 14 he went to learn the basics of painting from the local painter of note, José Luzan and there he stayed for 4 years. At the age of 17 and bursting with confidence and keen to get on, he entered the big, annual painting competition in Madrid. But he didn’t win. He did meet the Bayeu brothers who were to be helpful in developing his career since they were already established painters working for the Royal Palace.

It wasn’t until he was 40 that Goya got a regular position working for the Spanish King, Charles III. And he was to work for the Spanish Royal Family for the next 40 years. At the time, this royal household rôle was the best long-term position an artist could hope for so Goya worked hard to provide what was asked of him. He produced scores of jolly pictures of Spanish life. These are known as ‘cartoons’ and were used as design sketches for the tapestry weavers as tapestry was the décor of choice at the time. These tapestries were then hung through the royal palaces and much admired. Little wonder he was eventually appointed Court Painter to the King.

But then tragedy struck. Goya, fell ill on a visit to the south of Spain. He was in bed for months, and little could be done for him. After he recovered, he realized that he had lost all his hearing and he remained profoundly deaf for the rest of his life. From this time forwards, Goya’s work took a darker and sadder direction.

Alongside this more gloomy approach, he also painted huge canvases that showed the cruelty of the invading French forces after Napoleon’s army invaded Spain and brought terror and death to the streets. Despite the political turmoil and his personal problems, Goya continued to work for the King, painting honest portraits of aristocrats and royals and not the idealized, sycophantic version of earlier years.

In his later years, Goya became weary and disillusioned. He left Madrid and retired to a small house in the Spanish countryside. There he created his famous series of dark, haunting pictures, known today as ‘The Black Paintings’. These he painted on to the walls of his house and they express his feelings of anger, frustration and disappointment and show a glimpse of the darker side of human nature. These Black Paintings were subsequently removed from the walls of the house and transferred to canvas. They now hang in the Prado, Madrid.

At the age of 78, Goya finally left Spain as an old man to settle in France. He took up lithography and created a series of bullfighting scenes before his death in 1828.

For children learning about Goya and his work through this DVD biography, he exemplifies the artist who reveals himself, his thoughts and his feelings, through his artistic legacy.

National Gallery, London –
A Scene from El Hechizado por Fuerza (black witch scene, painted after Goya went deaf)
A Picnic (jolly Spanish ‘cartoon’ created for tapestry weavers
The Duke of Wellington (portrait of the military leader)
Don Andrés del Peral (portrait of Spanish aristocrat)
Doña Isabel de Porcel (portrait of Spanish aristocrat)

The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Yorkshire –
Portrait of Juan Antonio Meléndez Valdés
Interior of a Prison (painted shortly after Goya went deaf)

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