Francisco Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucienteswas a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of late 18th and early 19th centuries and throughout his long career was a commentator and chronicler of his era. Immensely successful in his lifetime, Goya is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns...
NationalitySpanish
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth30 March 1746
CountrySpain
bank contented happiest man shares thirteen thousand twelve work
With all my work, I have not more, with my shares in the bank and the Academy, than twelve or thirteen thousand reales a year, and with all this, I am as contented as the happiest man on earth.
art difficult facts follow great impediment obligation oppression painting profess proof rules study
I will give a proof to demonstrate with facts that there are no rules in painting and that oppression or servile obligation of making all study or follow the same path is a great impediment for the young who profess this very difficult art.
enviable remain require unless work
I have now established myself in a most enviable manner. Those who require something of me must seek me out - I remain apart. I work for no one unless he is a high-ranking personality or a friend.
arenas artists boy loaded painted portrait returned success thousand unexpected
I have just returned from Arenas and feel very tired. His Excellency loaded me with a thousand honours; I have painted his portrait and that of his wife and boy and girl with unexpected success, for other artists had been there previously and not been successful.
enemies envious
I am beginning to have more powerful enemies and more envious ones, too.
brings chooses imaginary nature occur painting poetry single universals
Painting (like poetry) chooses from universals what is most apposite. It brings together, in a single imaginary being, circumstances and characteristics which occur in nature in many different persons.
art paint
In art, there is no need for color; I see only light and shade. Give me a crayon, and I will paint your portrait.
crazy sleep monsters
Monsters are the result of the sleep of reason.
nature eye lines
But where do they find these lines in nature? I can only see luminous or obscure masses, planes that advance or planes that recede, reliefs or background. My eye never catches lines or details.
criminal-mind abandoned-buildings monsters
Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters
three masters
I have had three masters, Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt.
dream monsters fantasy
The dream of reason produces monsters
art titles painting
Painting, like poetry, selects in the universe whatever she deems most appropriate to her ends. She assembles in a single fantastic personage, circumstances and features which nature distributes among many individuals. From this combination, ingeniously composed, results that happy imitation by virtue of which the artist earns the title of inventor and not of servile copyist.
mother dream art
The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.