A revival came with Francisco Goya, an ardent genius, who sprang from the people, and came to Madrid as a student. Goya studied the masterpieces in the Madrid galleries, visited Italy, and returned to the Castilian capital at about the age of thirty. Up to this time, Goya had painted but few pictures. Now he began his revolutionary career as an artist, and won fame, which has spread throughout the cultured world since his death. He soon became popular in Madrid. His daring and his pungent satire rather attracted than repelled the King, the clergy, and the society of the city. He painted the life of his day with a vivid, unsparing brush; he took liberties with even sacred institutions, and derided ancient and effete traditions.
Under Charles IV., Goya was appointed Royal Painter. He was a favourite of Queen Maria Luisa, the Duchess of Alba, and the Countess Benavente, and he enjoyed the confidence of the King. And yet Goya was a rebel in his opinions and in his art, and his royal portraits are characterised by a brutal frankness. In his tapestry designs, his scenes of Madrid life, his bull-fighting incidents, his portraits, and his “caprichos,” he displays the versatility of a remarkable mind. Goya worked rapidly, and his output was enormous.
The celebrated “Dos de Mayo,” a terribly realistic war picture, together with “An Episode in the French Invasion,” may be studied in the Royal Gallery at Madrid. In the Prado collection there are several of Goya’s royal portraits--“The Family of Charles IV.,” with its unflattering realism; “Charles IV. on foot”; “Queen Maria Luisa”; “The Infante Don Carlos, son of Carlos IV.”; and others of great interest. More of Goya’s works may be inspected in the Academy of Fine Arts at Madrid. These include a portrait of the painter by himself, a bull-fighting scene, an episode of the Inquisition, a procession, and other characteristic pictures.
When Joseph Bonaparte ruled in Madrid, Goya took the oath of fealty, and painted the usurper’s portrait. In 1814, the painter became a courtier of Ferdinand, and was pardoned for his disloyalty on the grounds that he was “a great artist.” A few years later, his wife Josefa died, and Goya, who was deaf, and bereft of many of his friends, seems to have wearied of the life of the Court at Madrid, and yearned for change and travel.