The first major English-language biography of Francisco Goya y Lucientes, who ushered in the modern era The life of Francisco Goya (1746–1828) coincided with an age of transformation in Spanish history that brought upheavals in the country's politics and at the court which Goya served, changes in society, the devastation of the Iberian Peninsula in the war against Napoleon, and an ensuing period of political instability. In this revelatory biography, Janis Tomlinson draws on a wide range of documents—including letters, court papers, and a sketchbook used by Goya in the early years of his career—to provide a nuanced portrait of a complex and multifaceted painter and printmaker, whose art is synonymous with compelling images of the people, events, and social revolution that defined his life and era. Tomlinson challenges the popular image of the artist as an isolated figure obsessed with darkness and death, showing how Goya's likeability and ambition contributed to his success at court, and offering new perspectives on his youth, rich family life, extensive travels, and lifelong friendships. She explores the full breadth of his imagery—from scenes inspired by life in Madrid to visions of worlds without reason, from royal portraits to the atrocities of war. She sheds light on the artist's personal trials, including the deaths of six children and the onset of deafness in middle age, but also reconsiders the conventional interpretation of Goya's late years as a period of disillusion, viewing them instead as years of liberated artistic invention, most famously in the murals on the walls of his country house, popularly known as the "black" paintings. A monumental achievement, Goya: A Portrait of the Artist is the definitive biography of an artist whose faith in his art and his genius inspired paintings, drawings, prints, and frescoes that continue to captivate, challenge, and surprise us two centuries later.

An innovative study of Goya's unprecedented elaboration of the critical function of the work of art Francisco de Goya and the Art of Critique probes the relationship between the enormous, extraordinary, and sometimes baffling body of Goya’s work and the interconnected issues of modernity, Enlightenment, and critique. Taking exception to conventional views that rely mainly on Goya’s darkest images to establish his relevance for modernity, Cascardi argues that the entirety of Goya’s work is engaged in a thoroughgoing critique of the modern social and historical worlds, of which it nonetheless remains an integral part. The book reckons with the apparent gulf assumed to divide the Disasters of War and the so-called Black Paintings from Goya’s scenes of bourgeois life or from the well-mannered portraits of aristocrats, military men, and intellectuals. It shows how these apparent contradictions offer us a gateway into Goya’s critical practice vis-à-vis a European modernity typically associated with the Enlightenment values dominant in France, England, and Germany. In demonstrating Goya’s commitment to the project of critique, Cascardi provides an alternative to established readings of Goya’s work, which generally acknowledge the explicit social criticism evident in works such as the Caprichos but which have little to say about those works that do not openly take up social or political themes. In Francisco de Goya and the Art of Critique, Cascardi shows how Goya was consistently engaged in a critical response to—and not just a representation of—the many different factors that are often invoked to explain his work, including history, politics, popular culture, religion, and the history of art itself.

"Published to accompany the exhibition Goya: the portraits, The National Gallery, 7 October 2015-10 January 2016."--Title page verso.

Visual indictment of war's horrors, modeled after Spanish insurrection (1808), the resultant Peninsular War and following famine. Miseries of war graphically demonstrated in 83 prints.

Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) created magnificent paintings, tapestry designs, prints, and drawings over the course of his long and productive career. Women frequently appeared as the subjects of Goya's works, from his brilliantly painted cartoons for the Royal Tapestry Factory to his stunning portraits of some of the most powerful women in Madrid. This groundbreaking book is the first to examine the representations of women within Goya's multifaceted art, and in so doing, it sheds new light on the evolution of his artistic creativity as well as on the roles assumed by women in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Spain. Many of Goya's most famous works are featured and explicated in this beautifully designed and produced book. The artist's famous tapestry cartoons are included, along with the tapestries woven after them for the royal palaces of the Prado and the Escorial. Goya's infamous Naked Maja and Clothed Maja are also highlighted, with a discussion on whether these works were painted at the same time and how they might have originally hung in relation to one another. Focus is also placed on Goya's more experimental prints and drawings, in which the artist depicted women alternatively as targets of satire, of sympathy, or of admiration. Essays by eminent authorities provide a historical and cultural context for Goya's work, including a discussion on the significance of fashion and dress during the period. The resultant volume is surely to be treasured by all who admire Goya's art and by those who are interested in women's issues of his time.

Francisco Goya (1746-1828) was recognised from a very early age as the leading artist in Spain, rising to become the official portraitist of the Spanish Court. He was famed for the quality and speed at which he executed his drawings, and his etchings are of extraordinary delicacy. His use of chiaroscuro in his dark, intense paintings influenced many artists, including Manet. This monograph presents the essential works of this pioneering artist, today considered the father of modern art. Book jacket.