1746-1828 Goya is considered the 18th Century's foremost painter and etcher of Spanish culture, known for his realistic scenes of battles, bullfights and human corruption. Goya lived during a time of upheaval in Spain that included war with France, the Inquisition, the rule of Napoleon's brother, Joseph, as the King of Spain and, finally, the reign of the Spanish King Ferdinand VII. Experts proclaim these events -- and Goya's deafness as a result of an illness in 1793 -- as central to understanding Goya's work, which frequently depicts human misery in a satiric and sometimes nightmarish fashion. From the 1770s he was a royal court painter for Charles III and Charles IV, and when Bonaparte took the throne in 1809, Goya swore fealty to the new king. When the crown was restored to Spain's Ferdinand VII (1814), Goya, in spite of his earlier allegiance to the French king, was reinstated as royal painter. After 1824 he lived in self-imposed exile in Bordeaux until his death, reportedly because of political differences with Ferdinand. Over his long career he created hundreds of paintings, etchings, and lithographs, among them Maya Clothed and Maya Nude (1798-1800); Caprichos (1799-82); The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808 (1814); Disasters of War (1810-20); and The Black Paintings (1820-23).   Related Paintings of Francisco Goya :. | Highwaymen attacking a Coach | Blind Guitarist | The Spell | Funeral of a Sardine | Knife Grinder |
Related Artists:
VALKENBORCH, Lucas van
Flemish painter (b. ca. 1530, Leuven, d. 1597, Frankfurt/Main).
BOTTICINI, Francesco
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1446-1498 Francesco di Giovanni Botticini (1446 ?C July 22, 1498) was an Italian Early Renaissance painter. He studied under Cosimo Rosselli and Andrea del Verrocchio. He was born in Florence in 1446 and is mostly remembered for his painting entitled "Assumption of the Virgin"; he died in 1498 (some sources say 1497). He established his own workshop after a brief period as Neri di Bicci's assistant; the shop was renowned for its decorative works, a few of which can be seen in the cloistered church of Empoli. Some of Botticini's works are said to be overshadowed by his Florentine contemporaries, such as Filippino Lippi and Botticelli, who often influenced Botticini's works.
Semyon Fyodorovich Shchedrin
(1745-1804) was a Russian landscape painter, the uncle and mentor of Sylvester Shchedrin. He was born in St. Petersburg into the family of a life guard. In 1759, he entered the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, and in 1765 graduated with a gold medal and grants to study abroad. Shchedrin ventured to Paris, then to Rome. In Paris he studied the works of old and contemporary painters. Under the influence of Rousseau's idea that beauty exists not only in classic patterns of arts but also in everyday life and nature, Shchedrin worked much en plein-air, otherwise known as painting in outdoor environments. In Rome, however, he fell under the influence of classicism, the idea that art should reflect the works of antiquity and thus prolong their successes. Shchedrin returned to St. Petersburg in 1776 and became a professor of landscape painting in the Academy of Arts. He was assigned to draw views of the palaces and parks of Catherine the Great, which brought into existence such works as View of the Large Pond Island in the Tsarskoselsky Gardens (1777), View of the Large Pond in the Tsarskoselsky Gardens (1777), View of the Farmyard in the Tsarskoye Selo (1777). After 1780, Shchedrin also participated in the restoration of pictures in the Hermitage, and in 1799 he headed a new class of landscape graphics. The pinnacle of his art career came in the 1790s. The most famous of his works of the period are views of parks and palaces in Pavlovsk, Gatchina, and Petergof: The Mill and the Peel Tower at Pavlovsk (1792), View of the Gatchina Palace from the Silver Lake (1798), View of the Gatchina Palace from Long Island (1798), The Stone Bridge at Gatchina (1799-1801), View of the Kamennoostrovsky Palace through Bolshaya Nevka from the Stroganov Seashore (1803).