The painter of the grotesque and the cruel

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) learned painting the classical way, including a two-year study stay in Italy. He then traveled through Spain and painted frescoes in the late Baroque style in numerous churches. His fame grew and at the age of 27 Goya became the court painter of the Spanish king in Madrid. Thus he had reached the pinnacle of a painter's career, as painters had aspired to for centuries at that time. Goya painted portraits of the royal family and countless persons of the Spanish nobility. He regularly took part in salons, where he always dealt with current affairs - such as the French Revolution, which particularly fascinated him.

For reasons unknown today, Goya fell seriously ill in 1792. He lost his hearing and struggled with failing eyesight for the rest of his life. Goya withdrew more and more over the years. He fulfilled his commissions as a court painter, but his ambition now was to paint what really concerned him, to work on whim and invention, as he put it in a letter to a friend. It was during these years that he produced his etchings of the errors and follies of men, and later of the atrocities of war. The etchings are among his best-known works today, but were considered too radical in Goya's day, so many of them were not published until years after his death.

Goya's journey from one of the most respected academic painters, commissioned for portraits by all parties during wartime, to a reclusive artist concerned with the dark nature of humanity is explored in the documentary Francisco de Goya. The Sleep of Reason (2017) comprehensibly demonstrates. The Spanish painter is representative of the metamorphosis from academic commissioned painter to artist who realized his own interests in his own style, becoming the model for many 19th century artists. The one-hour documentary, which is well worth watching, is available in the ARTE media library until January 26, 2022.