Goya. Jp. A. Calosse
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invited Ferdinand to Bayonne and persuaded him to return the crown to his father, upon which Ferdinand was imprisoned. Charles then abdicated in favour of Napoleon and went to live in exile in Rome, leaving Napoleon free to place his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne, in June 1808. Napoleon had not expected resistance and was surprised when large numbers of Spanish patriots began to wage a merciless guerrilla war against the invader.
The Marquesa de Pontejos
1786
oil on canvas, 211 × 126 cm
National Gallery, Washington
For six years, Spain became a battlefield: six years of bloodshed, terror and suffering. Napoleonic power began to decline in 1812. The British army advanced on Spain. It won victory after victory until finally entering Madrid in August 1812 and ousting Joseph Bonaparte and the French army. The liberal Cortes of Cadiz, the Spanish parliament, sought the restoration of the monarchy, but in constitutional form and answerable to the government.
Spring (The Flowergirls)
1786–1787
oil on canvas, 177 × 192 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Ferdinand VII returned to Spain to popular acclaim but, in defiance of the Cortes, immediately instituted an autocratic regime and brought an end to the Enlightenment in Spain. He re-established the Inquisition, dissolved the Cortes and imprisoned many of its members as well as many of those who had supported the French government. Goya, who had accepted the post of painter to Joseph Bonaparte during the French occupation, was brought before the Inquisition and accused of collaboration.
Summer (Harvesting)
1786–1787
oil on canvas, 276 × 641 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
However, he was acquitted on the grounds of his claim that he had never worn his French medal and had painted Joseph from an engraving and not from life. Ferdinand had no great interest in art, but was happy to have a celebrated artist in his employ; Goya continued to receive an annual salary of 50,000 reales and somehow managed successfully to avoid having to fulfil his duties as court painter. He became increasingly withdrawn and the imagery evident in his work became more and more imaginative.
Autumn (The Vintage)
1786–1787
oil on canvas, 275 × 190 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
He had long been fascinated by insanity and superstition, and in his old age, on the walls of his own house, the Quinto del Sordo, he painted powerful, dark images, known collectively as the Black Paintings. In 1812 Josefa Goya died. The following year Goya’s housekeeper, Leocadia Weiss, a recently divorced mother of two, gave birth to a daughter, Maria del Rosario Weiss, who is generally assumed to be Goya’s child.
Winter (The Snow Tempest)
1786–1787
oil on canvas, 275 × 293 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
A liberal coup in Cadiz in 1820 forced Ferdinand to accept a constitutional monarchy and, for three years, the king was under the domination of a liberal government.
In 1823, the French king, Louis XVIII, sent troops to Spain and restored Ferdinand to absolute power. The king immediately took punitive action and once again brought a reign of terror which saw liberals imprisoned or shot.
Wounded Mason
1786–1787
oil on canvas, 268 × 110 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Thoroughly disillusioned with Spain, Goya pleaded ill health and requested to go to Plombières to recover. Permission was granted and he made for Paris, where he saw the famous Salon. He then settled in Bordeaux, where some members of the Spanish Enlightenment were living in exile. In 1824, he was joined by Leocadia Weiss and her children.
Portrait of Charles III in Hunting Costume
1787
oil on canvas, 207 × 126 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
The King granted the artist several extensions of his French vacation and in May 1826 Goya, aged eighty, returned to Madrid in order to request that the king allow him to retire while continuing to pay his pension. Ferdinand agreed and Goya returned to Bordeaux where he died two years later, on April 16, 1828. Goya’s skill as a portrait painter lay in his ability to capture something of the personality of the sitter, more than to simply record an accurate likeness.
The Swing
1787
oil on canvas, 169 × 100 cm
Duke of Montellano collection, Madrid
He became celebrated as a portraitist relatively early in his career, and royal patronage ensured a steady stream of commissions.
More than 200 of his portraits are extant, and they offer for posterity of Spanish society at the time. Goya recorded three successive kings and their families, their courtiers and many Spanish aristocrats for posterity.
A Village Procession
1787
oil on canvas, 169 × 137 cm
private collection
He also painted political potentates – among them statesmen, liberal thinkers and army officers who helped to mould Spanish history – and he painted his friends and associates. Goya greatly admired the paintings of Diego Velázquez (1599–1660).
In 1774, he was asked to design tapestry drawings for the future King Charles IV, giving him the opportunity of studying Velázquez’s masterpieces in the royal collections.
Highwaymen Attacking a Coach
1787
oil on canvas, 169 × 137 cm
private collection
Four years later, Goya printed eleven engravings after Velázquez, the first copies of Velázquez’s works to be made. Including himself as artist in the picture was a device that Goya was to adopt and to use often as Velázquez did in Las Meninas. More than a century after Velázquez’s death, Goya stepped into the master’s shoes as the leading portraitist of the Spanish court. When he was first appointed official court painter in 1786, Charles III was on the throne.
The Meadow of San Isidro
1788
oil on canvas, 44 × 94 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Charles, a hard-working and enlightened