His name, Francisco Goya, born in 1746, one of Spains most innovative painters and etchers; also one of the triumvirate?óÔé¼ÔÇØincluding El Greco and Diego Vel?â?ízquez?óÔé¼ÔÇØof great Spanish masters. Much in the art of Goya is derived from that of Vel?â?ízquez, just as much in the art of the 19th-century French master ?âÔÇ?douard Manet and the 20th-century genius Pablo Picasso is taken from Goya. Trained in a mediocre rococo artistic milieu , Goya transformed this often frivolous style and created works, such as the famous The third of May, 1808, that have as great an impact today as when they were...
first court painter in 1799. His tapestry cartoons executed in the late 1780s and early 1790s were highly praised for their candid views of everyday Spanish life. With these cartoons Goya revolutionized the tapestry industry, which, until that time, had slavishly reproduced the Flemish genre scenes of the 17th-century painter David Teniers. Some of Goya"s most beautiful portraits of his friends, members of the court, and the nobility date from the 1780s. Works such as Marquesa de Pontejos show that Goya was then painting in an elegant manner somewhat reminiscent of the style of his English contemporary Thomas Gainsborough.