The Spanish Painter Francisco de Goya

Good day dear Hive friends, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my contribution and hope you had a day that was full of positive experiences! In my contribution, I would like to talk about art history and hope you can expand your knowledge.

Here you can see a reproduction of the well-known work the forge by the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746 - 1828) which I recently bought and this work was created in 1817 and is about depicting the blacksmiths at work. De Goya was born in the Spanish city of Zaragoza and he grew up as the son of a gilder and a landed gentry and early on he developed a great passion for art and especially for the rococo and decided to do an apprenticeship near his birthplace with a painter who had focused on the baroque style and some time later the young Goya moved to the city of Madrid to learn from the painter Francisco Bayeu (1734 - 1795) who had focused on classicism. He was also strongly influenced by the painters Diego Velázquez (1599 - 1660) who painted at the court of King Phillip IV and the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 - 1669) and a few years later he moved to Italy to the city of Rome to study Baroque art one year later after his return to Spain he quickly received some attention and mainly concentrated on religious paintings at the time. He also had the opportunity to work in a studio and almost 15 years later the Spanish nobility became aware of him and he became a court painter and during this time he painterd his most famous works, but a few years later a sad fate hit him and Goya lost his sense or hearing and at that time he changed his lifestyle and turned away more and more and this was also reflected in his works which became more and more occult and darker.

His view of some topics changed greatly and this also flowed into his works and he saw some things much more critically and he also began to address some serious social issues and was also known for his scandalous works and attracted a lot of attention. At the beginning of the 19th Century when Spain lost its power and was taken over by the French troops and the new king of Spain Ferdinand VII. (1784 - 1833) was not a great friend of his works, but decided to keep him as a painter in his court and he then gave him the order to paint the war between the Spaniards and the French and he should omit the Spanish successes and should only paint the French troops. Goya then became more and more thoughtful and he decided to end his career at the court and painted some critical works that were directed against the church and the royal house and he did not make himself popular with everyone because of the critical attitude and was strongly persecuted and for some time he still lived in Spain and retired to rural areas until his persecutions became stronger and stronger and he decided to flee to France where he died a few years later. During his artistic career, you can see more and more the change in his style and at the beginning the works were still full of joy and over time they became more and more gloomy and he is definitely one of the most remarkable artists and has definitely stationed an example and is a role model for many artists.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about art history! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!