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| Francisco de Goya |
| 1748-1828 |
| European Artist |
| Goya was born in a very poor village Fuendetodos, Spain. He began his artistic studies at the age of 13 with a local artist, who taught Goya to draw, to copy engravings and to paint in oils. To continue his studies, he went to Rome at his own expense. By the end of 1771, Goya came back to Spain and lived in Saragossa, where he received his first official commission; the frescoes in the Cathedral of El Pilar. By the 1780s Goya was Spain's leading painter, specializing in religious pictures and portraits. During the Napoleonic wars, Goya recorded his reactions to the occupying French army's atrocities in his Disasters of War etchings and a painting, The Third of May 1808, whose immediate equivalence of paint, flesh, and blood profoundly influenced Edouard Manet. By 1814, the repressive Spanish monarchy was restored and Goya resumed painting the royals, whom he portrayed with at times unflattering frankness. He died in voluntary exile in France. |
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