Goya biography book

Before we talk about the books you’ve selected, who was Francisco de Goya?

The Spanish artist Francisco Goya y Lucientes (more simply, Goya, and the jury is out on the use of ‘de’) lived in a period of immense social and political transformation in both Europe and the Americas.

I often remind audiences in the U.S. that he was a contemporary of Thomas Jefferson, because we usually don’t think of them inhabiting the same world—imagine the dapper Jefferson confronting Goya’s painting, The Third of May 1808!

His work was as revolutionary as his era: the etchings of Los Caprichos, his frescoes for the church of San Antonio de la Florida, The Third of May, 1808, and the so-called ‘black’ paintings are without precedent. He was extremely prolific and mastered a wide range of media—oil on canvas, tinplate and plaster, ink and chalk, fresco; he was an extraordinarily innovative printmaker, who expanded the expressive potential of etching a