Goya

=Francisco Goya=

Francisco Goya was a painter from Fuendetodos, Spain. Goya lived from March 30, 1746 to April 16, 1828 (died at age 82). He became one of the greatest painters in Spain. He is referred to sometimes as the last "Great Master", "The First of the Moderns", or "The Father of Modern Art". Being the Spanish court painter was one of his duties he had. He made himself a model to painters everywhere because of his imaginative element to his art and his bold handling of the paint.

Goya made his paintings realist or modern, AKA weird, crazy things. He didn't always want to use paint brushes, instead he used small sticks or reeds to paint. He said this made his paintings exciting. He began by painting realistic things. Many wealthy people would hire him to do family paintings. He also painted many things related to bullfights. One of them, //The Bullfight//, has a crowd of people watching about ten matadors fighting bulls. In 1783, Goya officially became the Spanish court painter when he was asked to paint the portrait of the Count of Floridablanca. While doing so he also became friends with Crown Prince Don Luis. A little bit later he became the painter to Charles III. While Charles III was having people redo the capital, Madrid, Goya went there to help create tapestries. After Charles III died, Goya reached his peak of royal popularity. He eventually painted portraits of Charles IV, the Prince of Peace, and many other royals.

Goya had made lots of money from painting these realistic paintings, but one day he got very sick. He eventually got better, but the sickness left him deaf. The feelings caused by his deafness made weird things pop up in his work. He starts to paint things like witches with skeletons circling a goat-human thing and bats flying around in the night sky (//Witches' Sabbath//). When Goya bought himself a huge house, began to paint even crazier things on the wall in his house! He never told anyone the back-story of any of the paintings, but when he died, people went through his house and found the walls covered in disturbing and strange paintings. Some people believe that his illness and deafness had driven him mad, others thought it was anger Goya felt towards the Peninsular War, and others just thought he was a cranky, weird old man. No matter the reason, Francisco Goya's strange images changed the face of art forever.