Atropos By Goya

Daniel Pagan

Professor Thurmond

HUM 2310

12 October 2015

Atropos by Goya

A picture is worth a thousand words, this is a very common saying and it is false. A picture does not have a limit of descriptive words it is endless. We can look back at the late paintings of Francisco Goya and see this very clearly. In his painting “Atropos” one can see a painting of four women and their faces cannot be seen clearly. Many people can look at this painting and think many different things. They can see a painting that looks very dark with three people. Others can look deeper into the painting and think it has something to do with the time period the author was in. This paper will include a brief biography of the author and this paper will give also insight

Francisco de Goya, Editors at Biography.com called him “a famed painter in his own lifetime.”("Francisco De Goya Biography.") They also suggested that “he createdworks that criticized the social and political problems of his era.”("Francisco De Goya Biography."). He was born on March 30, 1746, in Fuendetodos, a village in northern Spain. His family later moved to Saragossa, where Goya's father worked as a gilder. A local painter, Jose Luzan was the teacher and mentor of Goya when Goya was only fourteen years old. In 1771 he began painting for the local church. These were the painting that started his famous reputation since they were done so beautifully. In 1773 he married Josefa Bayeu, which was the sister of one of his mentors. For seventeen years Goya painted casual paintings for a factory in Madrid. This was the most important period, as he was becoming an artist. As a casual painter, Goya did his first paintings from everyday life. The experience helped him because it allowed him to look at human behavior and study it, which really shows in his later paintings. He was also influenced by a newer painting style called neoclassicism, this new style was slowly but surely

At the same time, Goya reached his first high paying job. He was chosen to the Royal Academy of San Fernando, and was made the painter to the king in 1786, and only 3 years later was made the local court painter. His life was not all full of joy, a serious illness in 1792 left Goya forever deaf. Since he could not hear he felt secluded from others by his deafness, he became more occupied with his daydreams and he looked at the world in a humorous way, one could basically say he was going crazy. He changed his painting style to a more “out there” kind of painting style. Goya served as the head painter at the Royal Academy of San Francisco from 1795 to 1797, and then he was chosen to be first Spanish court painter in 1799. In 1799 he published the Caprichos, a series of etchings mocking human stupidity and disadvantages. His portraits were revealing the people in the painting as Goya saw them. In his religious murals he would paint in a style that was not the normal to religious art and was and many people found his religious painting offensive. During Napoleon’s invasion, Goya worked as a court painter to the French. He showed his hatred and fear of the war in “The Disasters of War”, and just like the name he painted the disasters of the war,