Francisco de Goya’s 10 best paintings

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printer who lived from 30 March 1746 to 16 April 1828. He is often regarded as the most significant Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th century.

His paintings, sketches, and engravings mirrored contemporaneous historical upheavals and inspired significant nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists. Goya is known as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.

In 1786, Goya was appointed as a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and his early work is defined by portraits of the Spanish nobility and monarchy, as well as Rococo-style tapestry cartoons produced for the royal palace.

In 1793, he was deafened by a serious and undetected illness, and his art grew more darker and depressing as a result. In contrast to his social ascent, his later easel and mural paintings, prints, and sketches seem to portray a dismal attitude on personal, societal, and political levels.

When Napoleon led the French army into the Peninsular War against Spain in 1807, Goya stayed in Madrid throughout the war, which seems to have had a profound impact on him.

Although he did not express his feelings in public, they may be deduced from his Disasters of War print series and his 1814 paintings “The Second of May 1808” and “The Third of May 1808.”

Other works from his mid-period include the “Caprichos” and “Los Disparates” etching series, as well as a wide range of paintings about insanity, mental asylums, witches, fantastical creatures, and religious and political corruption, all of which indicate that he feared for both the fate of his country and his own mental and physical health.

His late career culminates with the “Black Paintings” of 1819–1823, put on oil on the plaster walls of his home, the “Quinta del Sordo” (House of the Deaf Man), where he lived in virtual solitude, disillusioned by political and social changes in Spain.