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Full text of "Francisco Goya : a study of the work and personality of the eighteenth century Spanish painter and satirist"

FRANCISCO GOYA 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



THE ETCHINGS OF CHARLES 
MERYON 

BENOZZO GOZZOLI 

SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK 

THE ART TREASURES OF LONDON 
PAINTING 

VELAZQUEZ, HIS LIFE AND WORKS 

A PRINCE OF PLEASURE. Philip of 
France and his Court, 1640-1701 

MADAME DE BRINVILLIERS AND 
HER TIMES, 1630-1676 




About 1796 



FRANCISCO GOYA Y LUCIENTES, PINTOR 
After the etched Jrontispiece in "Los Caprichos." Plate I 



FRANCISCO GOYA 

A STUDY OF THE WORK AND PERSONALITY 

OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SPANISH 

PAINTER AND SATIRIST 



BY 

HUGH STOKES 

WITH 48 FULL-PAGE 
ILLUSTRATIONS 





HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED PUBLISHERS 
12 ARUNDEL PLACE HAYMARKET LONDON 

MCMXIV 



THE ANCHOB PRESS, LIMITED, TIPTKEE, ESSEX. 



TO 

MY WIFE 



PREFACE 

WITH the exception of two short monographs by 
Mr. William Rothenstein and Mr. Albert F. 
Calvert, together with a translation of a 
slight critical essay by Dr. Richard Miither, no biography 
of Francisco Goya has yet appeared in English. The 
time seems ripe for a volume which attempts to show this 
fine genius in relation to the art of his own country, as 
well as to that of the other schools of painting in Europe. 
England has been comparatively late in its appreciation 
of Goya, but across the Channel a steady stream of 
critical exegesis has flowed from the day when Theophile 
Gautier returned to Paris after his voyage of discovery 
beyond the Pyrenees. The first biography of Goya, by 
Laurent Matheron, was published in France, and 
appropriately dedicated to Eugene Delacroix. Nine 
years later came a more ambitious performance by 
Charles Yriarte. In the meanwhile the index of the 
Gazette des Beaux- Arts will reveal what an impression 
Goya's paintings and etchings had been creating in the 
French studios. Biirger-Thore, Feuillet de Conches, 
F. Lagrange, Jacques Desrosiers, Paul Lefort, Charles 
Blanc, Philippe Burty, and a dozen other well-known 
critics of the Second Empire, continually quoted and 
alluded to Goya in their articles. Since then the 



viii PREFACE 

published correspondence of poets, like Baudelaire, and 
of artists, like Manet, proves that Goya was a formative 
influence of the first importance upon the French art 
of the nineteenth century. 

The biographies of Matheron and Yriarte have become 
the foundation of what may be called the French tra- 
dition regarding the personality of Goya. Both authors 
accepted the romantic anecdotes of his youth, and the 
scandalous legends of his behaviour at the Court of 
Charles IV. His attitude towards Church and State 
they considered a logical result of his admiration of the 
political principles which governed the French Revolution. 
These biographical conclusions were fiercely controverted 
by Francisco Zapater, who published in 1868 a tiny 
booklet containing extracts from the correspondence 
between Goya and his father, Martin Zapater of Zaragoza. 
He could not have made use of the whole correspondence, 
which, if it has not been destroyed, may probably be a 
treasure for some future author. Writing for a Catholic 
journal (his pages were first issued hi La Perseverencia) 
he sketched the portrait of a hard-working youth, who 
certainly did not desert the God of his ancestors, had no 
desire to play skittles with the Ten Commandments, and 
was not only a good son, a truth which cannot be dis- 
puted, but a faithful husband a statement open to 
considerable doubt. 

Zapater's motive was praiseworthy, but he was an 
amateur historian who twisted his facts to suit his 
prejudices. The deeper we push our researches into 
Goya's career the less able are we to agree with his thesis. 
Laurent Matheron appears to have visited Madrid, and 
much of his material is vouched for by first-hand evidence. 



PREFACE ix 

He knew De Brugada, Goya's companion during the last 
years in Bordeaux, and cites him more than once as the 
source of his information. He was writing within thirty 
years of Goya's death, and his chapters were compiled 
with care and good taste. About the same time Valentin 
Carderera (who had written an article upon Goya in El 
Artista of Madrid as early as 1835) was collaborating with 
Philippe Burty in the Gazette des Beaux- Arts, and his 
contributions in no way contradict Matheron's views. 
Charles Yriarte's Spanish quest in 1866-67 was exhaustive, 
and he was fortunate in gathering the final reminiscences 
of a bygone generation. He visited the Duke de Mont- 
pensier at San Telmo, and the Duke de Osuna at 
Alameda. The Duke de Alba opened the Palace of the 
Liria to him, and he was cordially assisted by Frederico 
de Madrazo, Zarco del Valle, Francisco Zapater, and 
Valentin Carderera. Many of the Goya family papers 
were placed at his disposal. Yet upon Yriarte has fallen 
the full brunt of a hostile attack, and a German bio- 
grapher, describing Goya as " a man of noble character, 
straightforward and religious, full of deep-rooted naive 
piety," gracefully refers to Yriarte's life of the artist 
as the work of "an imaginative Gascon." 

The true Goya is not to be found in one or the other. 
He was neither the ferocious republican nor the pious 
Catholic. There was a diabolical side of his nature (to 
quote Mr. William Rothenstein) which cannot be lost 
sight of. On the other hand he was not the carrion- 
seeking hyena of Mr. P. G. Hamerton's excited brain. I 
have tried to draw a picture of a man who, despite his 
faults and eccentricities, was undoubtedly loved by those 
who knew him best. And the evidence of the sympathy 



x PREFACE 

he inspired cannot be lightly set aside. Upon a full 
knowledge of his life and personality we are best able to 
judge his art. 

Valerian von Loga's careful biography neglects to 
exhibit its subject in a proper frame. It is impossible 
to appreciate Goya, or to judge his actions, if we are 
ignorant of the age in which he lived. English readers 
know little of Spain during the eighteenth century. The 
names of Philip II. or Philip IV. come pat to our lips 
when we talk about Velazquez and his forerunners, and 
it is comparatively easy to form some opinion upon the 
Spanish decadence of the seventeenth century. But 
the reigns of Philip V., Ferdinand VI., Charles III., 
Charles IV., and Ferdinand VII., carry few associations. 
The social history of their Courts is an undiscovered 
continent. Yet, if we wish to understand Goya's position, 
we must learn something of the existence around him. 
We must at least attempt to breathe the atmosphere of 
Madrid during those days of transition, and to follow the 
tangled political situation which resulted in the Peninsula 
War. How can Hogarth's art be enjoyed if we refuse 
to glance at the London of the early Georgians ? French 
art of the eighteenth century cannot be disassociated 
from the history of Louis XV. Art, even more than 
literature, is the mirror of the life from which it 
springs. 

This must be my apology for dealing somewhat fully 
with several aspects of Spanish art which naturally lead 
to a consideration of Goya's own work, as well as to 
the inclusion of some account of Spanish politics and 
Madrid life during the reign of Charles IV. Goya was 
described a few months ago as a dull artist who could only 



PREFACE xi 

interest dull people. Would it be too presumptuous to 
hope that this book will lead to a reconsideration of so 
sweeping a verdict ? In reality the art and personality 
of Goya are of an engrossing fascination. Unfortunately 
his pictures cannot be studied to any large extent outside 
Spain, and his position as an artist has suffered for that 
reason. A few works are scattered throughout the 
museums and private collections of Europe and America. 
But a visit to Madrid is as necessary for an examination 
of his career as it is for a full understanding of the genius 
of Velazquez. 

Goya was a painter of most unequal standards. He 
must be judged upon his best work, and not upon the 
many unsatisfactory and dubious sketches which are so 
often exhibited under his name. His European celebrity, 
of a comparatively recent growth, is not likely to suffer 
from the criticism of the future. Goya is essentially a 
modern, and his finest work will not be injured by 
Time. 

The biographical facts in this volume are based upon 
the works to be found in the Bibliography, most of 
which I have studied. No life of Goya can be written 
without a sense of obligation to predecessors, notably 
Charles Yriarte, Paul Lefort, the Count de Vinaza, 
Valerian von Loga, and Paul Lafond. If I cannot accept 
all their conclusions I must bear witness to the extent 
of their labours in a difficult field. The list of pictures 
has been based upon the catalogues of Von Loga, Lafond, 
Yriarte, Vinaza, and recent exhibitions held during the 
past ten years. Several changes of ownership have been 
noted, as well as some new discoveries. But a perfect 
list of Goya's paintings is not yet possible, particularly 



xii PREFACE 

whilst so many examples are hidden in the private 
collections of Spain. With the etchings and lithographs 
there is not the same trouble. They have been so 
exhaustively catalogued by Paul Lefort and Julius 
Hofmann that I have not attempted to rival those 
authors in wealth of detail, and the lists in this volume 
must be taken simply as an indication and explana- 
tion of the various plates. Mr. Albert F. Calvert has 
generously placed at my disposal his unique collection 
of Spanish photographs, and has granted permission for 
the reproduction of six in his copyright. My thanks 
are also due to Mr. H. Granville Fell, who has given me the 
benefit of his expert knowledge. Lastly, to my fellow- 
traveller through Spain, whose unfailing sympathy and 
help has been more valuable than I can express, I offer 
this book in affection. 

H. S. 
Nice, August, 1913. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER I 
GOYA'S PRECURSORS 

The Death of Velazquez. Primitive Spain. The " Lady of Elche." 
Seventeenth-century Spanish Art. Velazquez and Rembrandt. 
Velazquez and Goya in Advance of their Time. The Church and 
Spanish Art. A Contrast between Spanish and Italian Artists. Lack 
of Imagination in Spanish Art. The Carvings of Valladolid. Spanish 
Portrait-painting. El Greco. Zurbaran. Velazquez. Goya's Borrow- 
ings from the Past. Decadence of Spain. Juan del Mazo. Carrefio. 
Claudio Coello. Giordano. Philip V. and the French Invasion. The 
Fire at the Alcazar. Stagnation of Native Art i 

CHAPTER II 
ARAGON AND ZARAGOZA 

The School of Aragon. Richard Ford on the Different Schools of Spanish 
Painting. The Character of the Aragonese. Arrival in Zaragoza. 
Typical Independence and Love of Freedom of the Aragonese. A 
Composite Race. Moslem Influences. El Filar. La Seo. The 
Audiencia and its Guardians 29 

CHAPTER III 
GOYA'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE IN ZARAGOZA, 1746-1765 

The Village of Fuendetodos. Goya's Father and Mother. Goya's first 
Drawing. Don Felix Salzedo. The Pignatelli Family. Jose Luzan 
and his School. His Manner of Teaching. Goya's Youthful Friends. 
His Pleasures. Religious Animosities in Zaragoza. Street Battles. 
The Inquisition decides to arrest Goya. His Flight to Madrid 41 

CHAPTER IV 
GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID, 1765-1769 

Little exact Information. Description of Madrid by Contemporary 
Travellers. Spanish Inns. The Insurrection of 1766. Active Foreign 



f 



~L 



-J-. 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Element. The Aristocracy in Madrid. Goya and Francisco Bayeu. 
Rafael Mengs. The Art Theories of Winckelmann. Goya studies the 
Old Masters. Mengs and Sir Joshua Reynolds. His Appreciation of 
Velazquez. Goya devoted to Pleasure. He is found dangerously 
wounded. His Friends smuggle him out of the City. He is said to 
have joined the Bull-fighters. Goes to Rome 55 

CHAPTER V 
STUDENT DAYS IN ROME, 1769-1771 

Goya's Arrival in 1769. A great Religious Procession. Carnival Scenes. 
The Spanish Colony of Artists. His Friendship with David dis- 
proved. An Invitation to Russia. Foolhardy Exploits. A Portrait of 
the Pope. Wins a Prize from the Academy of Parma. His Irregular 
Life in Rome. Attempts to abduct a Nun. Under Sentence of Death. 
Is set free upon condition that he leaves the City. Re-appears in 
Zaragoza 74 

CHAPTER VI 
ZARAGOZA, 1772-1774 

Goya returns to Zaragoza. His first Commission to decorate F f ] pilar 
Did he visit Italy a second Time ? The Chartreuse of Aula Dei. Its 
Forgotten Frescoes. Doubts as to Goya's Authorship of the whole 
Series. Little exact Information as to his Employment. He courts 
Josefa Bayeu 88 

CHAPTER VII 
THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS, 1775-1780 

Josefa Bayeu. Her Portrait. Distractions of Madrid. Church Work. 
The Holy Family. Rafael Mengs. The Tapestry Factory of Santa 
Barbara. Goya commissioned by Mengs. Description of the Cartoons. 
Goya and Hogarth. Increasing Reputation. Presented to the King, 
but refused a Royal Appointment. Other Paintings. The Crucifixion 
of San Placido. A Crucifixion by Velazquez. Goya elected a Member 
of the Academy of San Fernando 94 

CHAPTER VIII 
EARLY ETCHINGS, 1775-1779 

Philip Gilbert Hamerton on Goya. Interest of the early Etchings. The 
Flight into Egypt. Goya's first Etching. San Isidro and San 
Francisco. The Etchings after Velazquez. Studies for the Etchings. 
The Blind Street Singer. Hogarth and Goya 115 

CHAPTER IX 
ZARAGOZA AND MADRID, 1775-1785 

Goya neglected in Zaragoza. The Decorations of El Pilar. His Sim- 
plicity of Life. Further Work upon the Cathedral. The Quarrel 



CONTENTS xv 

PAGE 

with Francisco Bayeu. A Discussion with the Committee and Canon 
Allue. The new Frescoes. Goya's Letter to the Committee. Prior 
Salzedo. Goya returns to Madrid. Family Affairs. A Commission 
for the Church of San Francisco el Grande. Trouble with Florida 
Blanca over the Payment. Goya's Friendship with the Infante Don 
Luis. He is again refused a Court Appointment. Elected Director 
of the Royal Academy of San Fernando. Two Portraits of the Artist 122 

CHAPTER X 
TRANSITION * 

Goya not a ferocious Revolutionary. Hamerton's Explanation of the 
Artist's Renown. Spain passing through an Age of Transition. 
Ferdinand VI. Charles III. His Portrait by Goya. The Plot against 
the Jesuits. The Count d'Aranda. Influence of the French Philo- 
sophers upon the Spanish Nobility. Moral as well as Political 
Changes. Bad Example of the Heir to the Throne. Maria Luisa of 
Parma. Accession of Charles IV. Goya appointed a Painter of the 
Chamber. His Portraits of Jovellanos and the Count de Florida 
Blanca. Commencement of his best Period of Portraiture 142 

CHAPTER XI 
THE LATER TAPESTRY CARTOONS, 1786-1791 

Goya's growing Success. His Household. New Blood required at the 
Tapestry Factory. The " Second Series." Criticism by P. G. 
Hamerton and Richard Muther. Description of the Designs. Genre 
Pictures for the Osuna Family. Goya and Gainsborough. Some 
Portraits belonging to this Period. The M arquesa de Pontejos. Goya's 
Prices. Religious Pictures 157 

CHAPTER XII 
CHARLES IV. AND MARIA LUISA, 1788-1792 ** 

Character of Charles IV. His Amusements. Queen Maria Luisa. Her 
Independence and Extravagance. Goya's Portraits of the King and 
Queen. His Personal Friendship with the Royal Family. Letters to 
Zaragoza. Illness in his Household. His own bad Health. Visits to 
Valencia and Zaragoza 172 

CHAPTER XIII 
GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA ^ 

Goya's Political Opinions. His Success in Madrid Society. Popular 
Stories. His Acquaintance with the Duchess of Alba. Her Behaviour 
towards his Wife. Her Character. Various Portraits of the Duchess. 
Energetic Action of the Queen. The Journey to San Lucar. Goya's 
Deafness. Return to Madrid. The Maja vestida and the Maja desnuda. 
A Question of Identity. Their Artistic Value. Death of the Duchess. 
The Fascination of these Portraits. Baudelaire's Admiration 182 



xvi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XIV 
LOS CAPRICHOS 

The Foundation of Goya's Cosmopolitan Fame. In Progress from 1793 
to 1798. Goya's bad Health. Origin of Los Caprichos. The Unpub- 
lished Preface. Popular Explanations of the Plates. Manuscript 
" keys." Satire of Social Life in Madrid. Doubts as to Personal 
Caricature. A new Harlot's Progress. Goya's Realism. Coarseness 
in Art. English Caricature of the Eighteenth Century. The Scenes 
of Witchcraft. Demonology in Art and Literature. Ruskin and Los 
Caprichos. Goya as Etcher and Aquatintist. Gautier's Appreciation 
of the Plates. Los C&prichos taken over by the State. Editions and 
Impressions 202 

CHAPTER XV 
THE FRESCOES OF SAN ANTONIO DE LA FLORIDA, 1798 

Five genre Pieces. The Carnival Scene. Portraits in 1794-1796. A Royal 
Command. The Church of San Antonio de la Florida. Goya's 
Decorations. Various Criticisms upon these Frescoes. Royal 
Approval. Goya appointed First Painter of the Court. His Friendship 
with Charles IV. and Maria Luisa 222 

CHAPTER XVI 
THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD, 1798-1818 

A Portrait-painter's Prime. Goya's Slow Evolution and Lack of 
Uniformity. The Family of Charles IV. The Portrait of Godoy. 
General Urrutia. The French Ambassador Guillemardet. Leandro 
Moratin and his Portrait. Some other Portraits of Men. La Tirana. 
Dona Antonia Zarate. A Portrait in the National Gallery. Portraits 
of Women. The so-called Charlotte Corday. The Bookseller's 
Daughter. Majos and Majas. The Majas on the Balcony. Goya as a 
Painter of Fops. His Portraits of Elderly Men. Portraits of Children. 
An Allegory. The Santa Justa and Santa Rufina of Seville 231 

CHAPTER XVII 
THE PENINSULA WAR 

Death of Goya's Wife. Spanish Politics. Napoleon and the Bourbons. 
Invasion of the Peninsula. Ferdinand VII. His Portrait by Goya. 
The " Dos de Mayo." Goya's two Great Pictures of the Revolt. His 
Attitude towards King Joseph Bonaparte. A Portrait of Palafox. 
The two Sieges of Zaragoza. Goya visits Aragon. Los Desastres de la 
Guerra. Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. An Exciting 
Incident. The Restoration of Ferdinand VII. Goya goes into Hiding, 
but is pardoned by the King. Portrait of Juan Martin, " El Empe- 
cinado." Juan Martin's Reward. Goya contemplates a Voluntary 
Exile 255 



CONTENTS xvii 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XVIII 
GOYA IN RETIREMENT, 1818-1823 

Goya's Country House outside Madrid. Leocardia and Rosario Weiss. 
Two Portraits of the Artist. The Meeting of the Cortes. Portraits and 
Religious Subjects. The Portrait of Don Ramon Satue. The Tauro- 
maquia. Los Proverbios. The Prisoners. The Frescoes in his 
Country House. Indignant Criticism. Satan devouring his Children 273 

CHAPTER XIX 
BORDEAUX AND PARIS, 1824-1825 

Goya applies for Leave to go to Plombieres. His Arrival in Bordeaux. 
Letters from Moratin. He reaches Paris, July, 1824. Meets Horace 
Vernet. Studies Contemporary French Art. Paints two Portraits. 
Returns to Bordeaux in September. His Household. Applies for an 
Extension of his " Leave." Work and Recreation in Bordeaux. His 
Restlessness. His Health in June, 1825. Financial Worries. A 
Letter to his Son. His " Adopted Daughter," Rosario Weiss. Her 
Artistic Gifts and Education. Her Career and Early Death 285 

CHAPTER XX 
THE LITHOGRAPHS 

Goya experiments with Lithography in 1819. His first Lithographs. 
The Bull-fights of Bordeaux. Unsuccessful Attempts to sell the Litho- 
graphs in Paris. Correspondence with Ferrer. Goya on " Memory 
Drawing." His last Lithographs dated 1826 and 1827 299 

CHAPTER XXI 
LAST DAYS, AND DEATH, 1826-1828 

Portrait-painting in Bordeaux. A Visit to Madrid. The Portrait of Goya 
by Vicente Lopez. Return to Bordeaux. The Portrait of Muguiro. 
His last Work. The Chocolate Shop in the Rue de la Petite-Taupe. 
His latest Drawings. Antonio Brugada. Physical Ailments. Letters 
to Madrid. A Visit from his Son. Goya's decreasing Strength. His 
Death, April 16, 1828. Burial at Bordeaux. Removal of the Body to 
Madrid in 1899. Goya's Son and Grandson 305 

CHAPTER XXII 
GOYA'S INFLUENCE ON EUROPEAN ART 

His Criticism of Academic Teaching. The three Masters. Goya and 
Constable. Delacroix and the Romantic Movement. Deterioration 
of French Art. The Spanish Reaction of 1859. Manet. Baudelaire. 
Henri Regnault. Bonnat. J. S. Sargent. Goya a Link between the 
Past and the Future. Eugenio Lucas and Vicente Lopez. The 
Modern Spanish School. Conclusion 318 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FRANCISCO GOYA Y LUCIENTES, PINTOR Frontispiece 

1796. After the etched frontispiece in " Los Caprichos." Plate I. 

TO FACE PAGE 
PORTRAIT OF A LADY 8 

Louvre. 

THE BEWITCHED 24 

1798. Scene from a play, " El hechizado por fuerza," National Gallery, London. 

^ THE SWING 42 

1787. In the collection of the Duque de Montellano, Madrid. 

A BLIND MAN SINGING 56 

After the etching in the British Museum. 

A CARNIVAL SCENE 62 

1793. The Burial of the Sardine. Prado, Madrid. 

A BULL-FIGHT 72 

Royal Academy of St. Ferdinand. >~ 

A DRAWING 9 

The figure possibly represents Goya himself. British Museum, 

THE CROCKERY-SELLER 106 

1778. " El Cacharrero." Tapestry Cartoon XIII. Prado, Madrid. 

THE GAROTTE 118 

After the etching in the British Museum. 

FRANCISCO BAYEU Y SUBIAS 132 

1786. Prado, Madrid. 

PORTRAIT OF A LADY 152 

Collection of Don R. Garciar; 

THE VINTAGE 164 

1786. " La Vendimia." Tapestry Cartoon XXXIII. Prado, Madrid. 

DONA MARIA ANA MONINO, MARQUESA DE PONTEJOS 168 

About 1785. Collection of the Marquesa de Martorell y de Pontejos, Madrid. 

LA ROMERIA DE SAN ISIDRO 170 

1788. A popular feast on the outskirts of Madrid. Prado, Madrid. 

CHARLES IV. 172 

About 1790. Prado, Madrid. 



xx ILLUSTRATIONS 

10 FACE PAGE 

A MARIA LUISA, QUEEN OF SPAIN i7 8 

About 1790. Prado, Madrid. 

THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 186 

1795. Liria Palace, Madrid. 

GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 192 

1793. Collection of the Marquis de la Romans, Madrid. 

THE MAJA NUDE -| 196 

1799. Prado, Madrid. 

THE MAJA CLOTHED \ 198 

1799. Prado, Madrid. 

" A ROUGH NIGHT " 208 

1796. Mala Noche. After the etching in " Los Caprichos." Plate 36. 

" POOR LITTLE THINGS " 210 

1796. Pobrecitas ! After the etching in " Los Caprichos." Plate 22. 
"NAIL-TRIMMING" 214 

1796. Se repulen. After the etching in " Los Caprichos." Plate 51. 

" BON VOYAGE " 218 

1796. Buen Viaje. After the etching in " Los Caprichos." Plate 64. 

DONA MARIA FRANCISCA DE SALES PORTOCARRERO Y ZUNIGA, CONTESA DEL 
MONTIJO, AND HER FOUR DAUGHTERS 234 

Palacio de Liria, Madrid. 

CHARLES IV. AND HIS FAMILY 236 

1800. Prado, Madrid. 

THE TOREADOR COSTILLARES 238 

Collection of Sr. de Lazaro Galdeano. 

THE POET DON LEANDRO FERNANDEZ DE MORATIN 240 

1799. Royal Academy of St. Ferdinand, Madrid. 

LA TIRANA 242 

1802. Royal Academy of St. Ferdinand, Madrid. 

DONA ISABEL CORBO DE PORCEL 244 

1806. National Gallery, London. 

THE BOOKSELLER OF THE CALLE DE CARRETAS 246 

About 1790. In a private collection, Madrid. 

DONA JOSEFA CASTILLA PORTUGAL DE GARCINI 248 

1804. In the collection of Don Vicente Garcini. 

AN ALLEGORY 252 

1801. Collection of the Marquis de la Torrecilla. 

A COMBAT BETWEEN THE SPANISH AND THE MAMELUKES OF THE FRENCH 

IMPERIAL GUARD, PUERTA DEL SOL, MADRID, MAY 2, 1808 262 

About 1808-09. Prado, Madrid. 

-\ AN EPISODE DURING THE FRENCH OCCUPATION OF MADRID, MAY 3, 1808 264 
About 1808-09. Piado, Madrid. 



ILLUSTRATIONS xxi 

TO PACK PAGE 

J " ESCAPING THROUGH THE FLAMES " 266 

1810. Escapan entre las llamas. From " Los Desastres de la Guerra." Plate 41. 

" THIS is WORSE " 268 

1810. Esto es Peor. After the etching In " Los Desastres de la Guerra." Plate 37. 

ARTHUR WELLESLEY, DUKE OF WELLINGTON 270 

1812. Drawing in red chalk. British Museum. 

GENERAL JUAN MARTIN, EL EMPECINADO 272 

Collection of the Marquis de Casa Torres, Madrid. 

*V PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST 274 

Collection of the Count de Villagonzalo, Madrid. 

JUANITO APINANI IN THE BULL RING, MADRID 278 

About 1815. After the etching in " La Tauromaquia." Plate ao. 

MARIANO CEBALLOS IN THE RING 280 

About 1815. After the etching in " La Tauromaquia." Plate 23. 

A- SATAN DEVOURING ONE OF HIS CHILDREN 284 

About 1810. One of the frescoes formerly on the walls of Goya's country house. Prado, Madrid. 

<- PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST 288 

1815. Prado, Madrid. 

HEAD OF A DYING MAN : FRAY JUAN FERNANEZ 300 

About 1812. Drawing in chalk on the back of the portrait of the Duke of Wellington. British Museum . 

T FRANCISCO GOYA 308 

1827. Painted by Vicente Lopez y Portana. Prado, Madrid. 

ARABS AROUND A CAMP FIRE 320 

Gouache drawing. British Museum. 



FRANCISCO GOYA 



FRANCISCO GOYA 



CHAPTER I 
GOYA'S PRECURSORS 

The Death of Velazquez. Primitive Spain. The " Lady of Elche." 
Seventeenth-century Spanish Art. Velazquez and Rembrandt. Velaz- 
quez and Goya in Advance of their Time. The Church and Spanish Art. 
A Contrast between Spanish and Italian Artists. Lack of Imagination 
in Spanish Art. The Carvings of Valladolid. Spanish Portrait-painting. 
El Greco. Zurbaran. Velazquez. Goya's Borrowings from the Past. 
Decadence of Spain. Juan del Mazo. Carreno. Claudio Coello. Gior- 
dano. Philip V. and the French Invasion. The Fire at the Alcazar. 
Stagnation of Native Art. 

VELAZQUEZ died August 6, 1660. The date 
may be accepted as roughly marking the close 
of the most brilliant period in the history of 
Spanish art. Like a colossus, Velazquez overshadowed 
his contemporaries, and the perfection of his genius 
extinguished the lesser men who sought to emulate his 
master-work. At his death a flame, which had touched 
the skies, flickered above a dying fire whose feeble rays 
made the gathering shadows even darker. The artistic 
impulse of the nation was exhausted. Generations were 
to elapse before Francisco Goya emerged from a crowd 
of mediocrities and revived the vigorous traditions of 
the past. 

The painter who immortalised Philip IV. left no real 

B 



2 FRANCISCO GOYA 

successor. During the forty remaining years of the 
seventeenth century, artists who had worked by his side, 
and pupils who had come under his direct personal 
influence, vanished one by one from the scene of their 
labours. The royal house which had so generously 
patronised them became extinct. The Bourbons imported 
new ideals, and encouraged men who were strangers to 
the land. The great days had ended, and the country 
neglected the claims of its art in grappling with the calls 
and necessities of a new dispensation. During those 
early years of the eighteenth century Europe was sleep- 
ing through a stupor, both spiritual and political. Then 
came the rebirth, more striking in its consequences than 
the revival of the old learning two centuries before. 
Fresh breezes swept across the Pyrenees into Spain, 
dissipating man}? fogs of ignorance and superstition. 
But, " sow a wind, and reap a whirlwind," as the prophet 
Hosea said ages ago. The period closed in tempest and 
moral shipwreck, and Goya personifies in many respects 
Spain during a perilous transition. 

Spain is two hundred years behind the rest of Europe, 
wrote Richard Ford. The fact was true long before 
he stated it, and is still apparent to the most casual 
visitor at the present day. Indeed, it forms one of the 
chief fascinations of the Peninsula to the modern mind, 
which is beginning to ask whether progress really is the 
law of life.* Many reasons, geographical and tempera- 

* Browning's Paracelsus: 

" Progress is 
The law of life, man is not man as yet." 

The idea is typically Victorian. Tennyson wrote in Locksley Hall 
that " the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns," 
a statement open to considerable doubt. Shakespeare did not preach 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 3 

mental, can be suggested for a characteristic, to be praised 
or blamed according to our own respective points of view. 
Spain is a land of pre-historic races whose individuality 
has not been wholly submerged by later barbarians. 
Along the slopes of the Pyrenees, as in the depths of the 
mountains of Auvergne, are descendants of the earliest 
inhabitants of Europe, a hardy people which appears 
to have lost little of its primaeval animal strength. The 
Basques are of neolithic origin ; the Visigoths a fascin- 
ating community revelling in imagination, romance, 
and adventure. The Moors brought as their contribu- 
tion to the common stock oriental indolence, a truly 
artistic appreciation of luxury, a sense of dignity and 
power, and that brooding spirit of the East which shrouds 
Spain from end to end. Men of whom history has lost 
proof, because they lived before history began, wandered 
across this land and left mysterious traces of their exist- 
ence. Outside the seigniorial houses of Avila strange beasts 
stand on guard, carved in the hardest granite. Their 
age no antiquary can guess at ; their species is not to 
be found in any modern natural history. Who was the 
sculptor of the fantastic toros scattered throughout Old 
Castile ? In the Louvre is that marvellous bust of the 
" Lady of Elche," unique relic of a lost Iberian art. 
Her smile is as tantalising and enigmatic as that of the 
lost Monna Lisa. Archaeologists say she was created 
five hundred years before the Christian era. It is easy 
to talk of Greek influences, or of impressions travelling 
across continents from farthest Ind ; they but partially 

the " pushful " doctrine, either for men or nations, and in this forward, 
restless age we can fully sympathise with his " happiest youth," who, 
" viewing his progress through, what perils past, what crosses to ensue, 
would shut the book, and sit him down and die." 



4 FRANCISCO GOYA 

explain so supreme an effort of plastic beauty.* Yet 
in the veins of the peasants who sit in the shadow of the 
embattled walls of Avila, or labour in the fields of Valencia, 
flows the blood of those who carved the toros of Castile 
and were of kin to the woman of Elche. 

The art of Spain is more truly individualistic than 
that of any other country in Europe. War and civil 
commotion, as well as a characteristic lethargy, hin- 
dered its development. Under the Emperor Charles V. 
the plant commenced to show signs of blossom, and 
then for a century burst into a flower of most extra- 
ordinary rarity. In the sixteenth century there were 
few native artists of any considerable importance. In 
the seventeenth century not only was Velazquez at work, 
but with him were Ribalta, Zurbaran, Cano, Murillo, 
Ribera all men of outstanding genius. And it must 
be noted that they owed practically nothing to the foreign 
schools. The art of the seventeenth century was essen- 
tially Spanish. Aragon and the provinces of the eastern 
littoral were in touch with Italy. Jan van Eyck had 
passed through Castile on his way to Portugal. Political 
association with Flanders filled the Emperor's palaces 

* " In her enigmatic face, ideal and yet real, in her living eyes, on 
her voluptuous lips, on her passive and severe forehead, are summed up 
all the nobility and austerity, the promises and the reticences, the 
charm and the mystery of woman. She is oriental by her luxurious 
jewels, and by a vague technical tradition which the sculptor has 
preserved in the modelling ; she is Greek, even Attic, by an inexpres- 
sible flower of genius which gives to her the same perfume as her sisters 
on the Acropolis ; she is above all Spanish, not only by the mitre and 
the great wheels that frame her delicate head, but by the disturbing 
strangeness of her beauty. She is indeed more than Spanish ; she 
is Spain herself, Iberia arising still radiant with youth from the tomb 
in which she has been buried for more than twenty centuries." Quoted 
by Mr. Havelock Ellis in his Soul of Spain, from the Essai sur I' Art 
et I' Industrie de I'Espagne Primitive (1903), by Pierre Paris. 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 5 

with those beautiful examples of Memlinc, Mabuse, Patinir, 
and Van der Weyden, which to-day overflow in the base- 
ment of the Prado. But the native painters were not 
greatly impressed by these exhibitions of foreign skill. 
Morales is said to have been influenced by Leonardo, 
but no one could ascribe his panels to a Florentine or 
Milanese source. Alonso Cano has been called an Italian 
in spirit, but his work is distinctively Spanish. There is 
a vitality in Spain which no disaster is able to crush. 
Logically, the seventeenth century, being a period of 
decadence, should only have produced bad art ; actually, 
with the exception of the Dutch school, the Spanish 
artists surpassed the whole world. 

An atmosphere of detachment and repose is not un- 
healthy for characters of strength and originality. The 
search for experience often ends in an aimless pursuit 
of distraction. Great truths can more often be found in 
solitude. Perhaps this obvious thought explains the 
curious paradox that a nation always lagging in progress 
and endeavour has twice produced artists in advance 
of their age. The first was Velazquez, the second 
Goya. 

Diego Velazquez was so modern a painter that his full 
influence did not make itself felt until two hundred years/ 
after his death, when he became the inspiration of th< 
late nineteenth century. Comparing him with Rembrandt, 
whose career was practically coterminous, we find Velaz- 
quez a living force in the world of art, whilst Rembrandt 
has long been an extinct volcano. The technical in- 
fluence of Rembrandt ceased with the generation which 
followed his death. No man to-day tries to paint in the 
manner of Rembrandt, any more than he tries to paint 



6 FRANCISCO GOYA 

in the style of Turner.* But every young art-student 
of discernment and ability yearns for a ticket to Madrid. 
There is value in a comparison between Velazquez 
and Rembrandt, for Goya ardently admired and studied 
them both. Of the two men, Rembrandt was immeasur- 
ably greater, because his scope was so infinitely wide. 
He was interested in life itself, whereas Velazquez was only 
interested in some of the details of life. Velazquez was 
a craftsman of superb gifts possibly the most consum- 
mate craftsman the world will ever see. But he was 
little more than a craftsman. He lacked the energy and 
perpetual striving which characterises the Amsterdam 
master. Rembrandt was an experimentalist ever seeking 
to extend his empire. He was a restless worker of 
tremendous output. Every medium of artistic endeavour 
came within his grasp portraits, genre, landscape, 
drawings, etching. He never put aside the tools of his 
trade. His hand was as busy as his brain. Velazquez, 
on the contrary, apparently lacked this overpowering 
instinct to create. Although a rapid worker, like most 
Spanish artists, he did not leave behind an extraordinary 
number of canvases. His subjects were very limited. He 
seldom neglected his ordinary task to experiment. And 
he was able to drop his palette and engage in the prosaic 
routine of a methodical man of business. The mystery 
of his appointment as Aposeniador Mayor cannot be 
adequately explained, but it affords a key to the tempera- 
ment of the artist. Rembrandt would never have under- 

' That Lenbach followed the methods of Rembrandt, whilst Ziem 
and H. B. Brabazon worshipped Turner from very different points of 
view, may be advanced as a criticism of this remark. But these 
artists possessed a personality which prevented them from slavishly 
imitating their models. 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 7 

taken such onerous duties. All he asked for were canvases, 
pigments, brushes, charcoal, copperplates, gravers. Life 
fascinated him, and his single aim was to translate the 
humanity he loved into art. Bankrupt, discredited, 
ruined, deserted, he painted and etched his own battered 
features, or made studies from such willing models as 
Hendrikje Stoffels and his son Titus. Velazquez appears 
never to have stepped outside the palace which con- 
tained his studio. When he mixed with the crowd it I 
was not as an artist but as a court chamberlain over- I 
whelmed with a multitude of official cares and respon- ' 
sibilities. He does not give us the slightest pictorial 
comment upon the picturesque life of Old Castile, its 
adventurers, its ecclesiastics, its gipsies and vagabonds, 
its country-folk. His work affords the slightest indication 
of his personality. Serenely unconscious of the teeming 
world around him, he picked his way with eyes only for 
the King and his intimates. Despite his genius, we can 
but recognise that his outlook was narrow. 

Technically, Francisco Goya cannot be classed with 
either Velazquez or Rembrandt. He lacked their super- 
lative skill. But in temperament he is more akin to 
Rembrandt than to his own countryman. He too was 
a born experimentalist, with that disdain for materials and 
methods which may sometimes be found in Rembrandt 
but never in Velazquez. He worked unceasingly, and 
his imagination was unusually active. Now Velazquez 
was stolidly unimaginative, and it is only his superb 
craftsmanship which saves Los Borrachos and the Forge 
of Vulcan from failure. In another respect the history 
of Goya follows that of Velazquez with curious exactness. 
His own practice anticipated a school of painting which 



8 FRANCISCO GOYA 

did not come into formal existence until fifty years after 
he had ceased to work. Madrid has always been remote 
from the world, and it needs a journey to the Prado to 
learn that Goya is the godparent of Manet. Born in 
medievalism, educated amidst the classic revival, he was 
a Romantic before the leaders of that group were born. 
For the second time Spain produced an artist destined 
to inspire the youth of other lands. The influence of 
Velazquez is possibly on the wane ; that of Goya has 
hardly commenced.* 

The keynote of Spanish painting is truth. This 
factor is stamped upon the art of the Peninsula from the 
primitives of the fourteenth century to Zuloaga and 
Sorolla y Bastida. The traditions of the native school 
have always remained upon an exalted plane. The later 
artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took 
their craft seriously, as indeed they were compelled, for 
their most valuable patron was the Church. ' The 
chief end of the works of Christian art is to persuade men 
to piety, and to bring them to God," wrote Pacheco, the 
father-in-law of Velazquez. The remark was not a simple 
statement of personal opinion ; it was a dogma necessary 
for the salvation body and soul of his fellow-crafts- 
men. The solemn dignity of Spanish painting during 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can partly be 
accounted for by racial temperament, but the call of 
religion was an even stronger motive. Slowly the power 

* Meaning the influence of Velazquez as a fashion. His position 
as a master can only increase. The curious cycles of Spanish influence 
upon European art may be repeated at no late date. Gradually we are 
succumbing to the fascinations of El Greco, who will probably father 
one of the schools of to-morrow. Unfortunately he can only be studied 
adequately at Toledo, which is rather out of the way. 




PORTRAIT OF A LADY 

Louvre, Paris 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 9 

of the Church weakened. Pacheco's own grand-daughter 
married an artist, Juan del Mazo, who alone amongst 
the painters of his age did not execute a single religious 
composition.* A century later appeared an artist who 
never ceased to ridicule the Church and all its works. 
Rather than incite his fellows to piety, and show them the 
path to God, he delighted in dancing an artistic can-can 
over all their most cherished convictions. Despite the 
assertions of Zapater, Francisco Goya was not a good 
child of the faith. 

He lived in an hour of dawning freedom. Under the 
House of Austria there was no such liberty. The Church 
was omnipotent, and even defied and fought the Crown 
for the possession of unrestricted authority. Art and 
letters were controlled by an Inquisition whose unremit- 
ting censorship was strengthened by merciless punishment. 
The arts made a virtue of necessity, and became not only 
the servants but the slaves of their taskmaster. Since 
the expulsion of the Moors, secular buildings had practi- 
cally ceased to call for the skill of artists, and the decora- 
tion of churches was almost the sole employment of 
painters and carvers. Even the erection of the huge 
Escorial could have caused little perceptible activity. 
Externally, no sculptor was invited to break the severity 
of the barrack-like fa9ade. The era of flamboyant 
Gothic, when every inch was covered in flowing line, had 
ended with the usual reaction to a simpler taste. Herrera's 
granite walls remain in much the same condition as when 
the masons stepped off their scaffold. The apartments 
of Philip II. are plain to bareness. Only in the vast 
church were the artists offered an opportunity, which, 
* My authority is Senor de Beruete y Moret. 



io FRANCISCO GOYA 

however, came too late to be of service to the native 
school. 

Men who live gravely and under restraint can only 
think seriously. There is not the slightest note of light- 
heartedness in seventeenth-century Spanish painting, 
not even a suggestion of that simple joy in life which 
characterises so much Italian art. You will not find 
amongst the innumerable lesser masters of Spain that 
musical happiness in the 

fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going, 
As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood. 

Wander amidst the interminable Crucifixions, Pietas, 
Torments, Martyrdoms, which convert most Spanish 
galleries into chambers of horror. Rarely will it be found 
that the artist turns from his death and butchery to note 
pictorially the 

long blue solemn hours serenely flowing. 

Marco Basaiti* painted a Virgin and Child, but was unable 
to resist calling the attention of the onlooker to the exqui- 
site world around him a world even more wonderful 
and beautiful than the mother and her babe the wide 
expanse of glorious sky, the sound of the plough as it 
turned up the sweet-smelling earth, the sun striking the 
white walls of the tiny town on the rising ground. 

The hill-side's dew pearled ; 
The lark's on the wing ; 
The snail's on the thorn : 
God's in his heaven 
All's right with the world ! 

Bellini painted the murder of St. Peter Martyr in the 

* At least they call him Marco Basaiti to-day. I am referring to 
the Madonna of the Meadow in the National Gallery (No. 599), which is 
often ascribed to Giovanni Bellini. Mr. Berenson says that Basaiti 
was a mediocrity. Would that art had no greater incompetents. 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS n 

same spirit. Some pious ecclesiastic commissioned him 
to depict the saint " with twenty trenched gashes on his 
head." But all Bellini's enthusiasm is devoted to the 
copse in which the woodcutters are busy with their 
ringing axes. St. Peter Martyr may not be the greatest 
picture in the world, but it captures our heart because 
it was painted by a man who loved life and nature. 

The Italians kept closely in touch with the open air ; 
the Spaniards worked in their studios. No Spanish 
master painted the northern mountains as Titian painted 
the blue hills of Cadore. The arid plains of the Peninsula 
did not invite landscape art. The only nature studies 
which can be definitely ascribed to Velazquez were painted 
in Rome.* With the exception of Murillo, and to a cer- 
tain extent Zurbaran, Goya was the first Spanish artist 
to be interested in the daily life of his own time. The 
art instincts of the race were totally divorced from the 
literary. The picaresque novel and the comedy of cap 
and sword were in no way reflected in Spanish painting, 
which remained cold, gloomy, and dignified, yet exces- 
sively realistic. When Cervantes endeavoured to des- 
troy the books of chivalry he helped to destroy idealism. 
With the Inquisition dominating the studios, imagination 
was a dangerous gift, and an insurmountable wall barred 
those truant excursions to the isles of fancy which were 
permitted by the more pagan rulers of Italy and France. 

Spanish art was thus driven in, becoming introspective 
and morbid, terms which can never be applied to the 
sister Latin races. The plastic art can be quoted as an 

* The beautiful vistas in the gardens of the Villa Medici (Prado, 
Nos. 1210 and 1211). The fine views of Aranjuez I am inclined to agree 
are by del Mazo, as de Beruete suggests. 



12 FRANCISCO GOYA 

illustration. Had they been allowed a free exercise of 
their talents, Spanish sculptors might have raised their 
school to the level of the finest work of the Renaissance. 
Their carving in wood is more than remarkable, and a few 
scattered bronzes prove their power. In the Museum 
at Valladolid, a huge rambling warehouse, half palace, 
half monastery, gallery upon gallery is crammed with the 
accumulated loot of destroyed churches and dispersed 
convents. Battalions of carved figures (mostly life-size) 
posture in the various attitudes of the Passion. The 
realism is masterly, and overwhelming. Every attitude 
of human agony and suffering has been minutely dissected 
and reproduced. Like fiends the sculptors have gloated 
over the rebellion of soft, quivering, yielding flesh against 
cruel torment and unnatural strain. In striving to drive 
home the lesson of the Redemption they produce a bitter 
revolt of the spirit. Horror is crowded upon horror, 
until the eye grows dizzy and the brain swims. The 
visitor tries to escape from this nightmare. He rushes 
to the gates, overjoyed to escape into the courtyard, and 
almost astonished to find that the sun is still shining, 
that the pure air is fresh to breathe, that life was made 
for happiness and not for suffering. 

On Tadda's fountain in the courtyard of the Palazzo 
Vecchio is a tiny child, of " golden-winged host," singing 
as he clasps the dolphin to his breast, not less heavenly 
because so frankly pagan. He has no brother in Spain, 
where every Holy Child has the shadow of the Cross above 
his brow. 

The only secular commissions at the disposal of the 
artists were portraits, and here again imagination and 
grace were not desired. It has often been said that Goya 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 13 

caricatured his sitters. On the contrary he painted them 
according to the Spanish manner, which is disconcerting 
but truthful. The portraits of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries are statements as matter-of-fact as a 
lawyer's bill. Antonio Moro (who influenced Spanish 
painting more than is generally credited) was a meticulous 
upholder of absolutely sincere detail. His rule was 
followed without flinching, and patrons never seem to 
have objected. There is no flattery in the portraits which 
hang on the walls of the palaces of Spain. In the Library 
of the Escorial we can see Philip II. not only as Pantoja 
de la Cruz painted him, but as he actually lived ; jaun- 
diced, bigoted, sensual, with heart as stony as the build- 
ing he raised, and mind as arid as the mountain slopes 
he selected for his home. In the National Gallery we have 
Philip IV. the man, certainly not Philip IV. the king. 
Our sense of amazement at Velazquez's art is increased by 
our wonder at his daring. In the Prado, Carreno's portrait 
of Charles II. is more than a decorative footnote to history, 
rather an historical document of the first importance. 
The House of Austria must plainly die ; this hydroce- 
phalous boy is doomed. A physiognomist could almost 
write the history of Spain from a portrait-gallery of its 
monarchs. The state portraits of Versailles, the master- 
pieces of Largilliere, Rigaud, Van Loo, are mere studies of 
clothes in comparison with the works of even the lesser 
Spanish masters. Surprise is often expressed at the harsh 
truth of Goya's official portraits, particularly of Charles IV. 
and the Queen Maria Luisa. He was simply following a 
fashion which had become a law. Spanish artists and 
their sitters lived in a palace of truth. 

El Greco stands apart, both in his portraiture and his 



I 4 FRANCISCO GOYA 

large subject compositions. There is little doubt that 
he influenced Goya. He belonged to no circle, and, 
although he had a few pupils who endeavoured to imitate 
his fantasy, he founded no school, A Greek by family, 
Theotocopuli does not fail to remind us of the archaic 
Byzantines. At first his limited palette, his crudity, 
his angularity, excite repulsion. All his figures are 
muscularly distended, as if they had recently passed the 
ordeal of the rack. Gradually these very defects attract. 
There is a movement and passion in his pictures which can 
be found in very few purely Spanish works. These 
agitated patriarchs and apostles, with draperies caught 
by every wind of heaven, are almost demoniac. Nature 
herself assists, for each horizon in the background frowns 
with a gathering maelstrom of black thunderclouds. And 
yet, because El Greco could not resist bright colour, 
the inky skies are rifted with a patch of purest blue. 
Perhaps here we have the key to the artist's complex 
personality. Like so many of the Spanish artists, Goya 
included, El Greco was a man of passionate temper. Yet, 
if his paintings do not tend to convince us that " the blue 
of heaven is larger than the cloud " they certainly hold 
out hopes of heaven, which Goya's works never do. 

Despite every sign of artistic eccentricity, El Greco 
frequently strikes a noble chord. There is a St. Peter 
in the sacristy of the Escorial which has the grandeur 
of an Apostle in the Sistine Chapel. Most Spanish palettes 
tend towards schemes of blacks and greys, and El 
Greco painted many of his portraits in a monochrome 
of nervous brushwork which Goya did not forget. At 
other times his tonality is light, and he paints with loving 
care a white cope, trimmed with gold, and studded with 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 15 

sparkling gems. His larger compositions have a spiritual 
exaltation, an overwhelming sense of the supernatural, 
which is entirely individual to this strange artist. 
Religious ecstasy is to be found in much Spanish art, 
from Morales to Murillo ; often it degenerates into a 
mystical sweetness, like a heavy perfume, and thus palls, 
because the call it makes is too direct an excitement of 
the senses. With less gifted masters it sinks still lower, 
becoming maudlin and unbalanced. Rarely is it purely 
an exaltation of the soul, rising " higher still and higher 
, . . an unbodied joy." 

El Greco was the Blake of Spain, a poet with that 
spiritual insight which is the rarest of gifts. If his 
technical powers had not been so curiously limited he 
would have ranked as a world-master. He remains one 
of the most original of artists, supremely captain of 
his soul, owning allegiance to no man. Goya was of 
materialistic temperament, but, during his visits to 
Toledo, he undoubtedly pondered over the lessons El 
Greco offered. 

Zurbaran proves that naturalism was typical of the 
artists of his country, independently of the province from 
which they came. His Saint Lawrence (in the Hermitage) 
is the portrait of a comfortable parish priest, undisturbed 
by any premonition of the use to which the grid he is 
holding may be put. Our Lord after the Flagellation 
(Church of St. John the Baptist, Jadraque) is an excuse 
for the study of the nude. More typical is the large 
Adoration of the Shepherds, in the National Gallery, 
where the artist has selected his models from the 
peasantry amongst whom he was reared. There is no 
religious feeling, so-called. The Virgin's head is an 



16 FRANCISCO GOYA 

awkward copy of Morales. But the black-haired child, 
the tawny-skinned man, and the wrinkled beldame, 
who gaze at the smiling babe, can be found in any village 
in central Spain.* The Portrait of a Lady as Saint 
Margaret offers more than one problem, for it expresses 
a dawning sense of sex which is strangely absent from 
Spanish female portraiture until Goya painted the beauties 
of the Court of Charles IV. This is explained in part by 
the jealousy of husbands, and even Philip IV. issued an 
edict requiring ladies to veil their faces when in public. 
His reason was that his followers should be saved from 
the danger of their glances. 

As we shall note, Goya studied the art of Velazquez 
very attentively, and to a certain extent founded his 
ideas of portraiture upon those of his great predecessor. 
The personality of Velazquez remains an enigma. We 
know as little about him as of Shakespeare. He repre- 
sents the uninspired man of genius. His deficiencies 
cannot be better studied than at the Prado, where he 
stands in the company of Titian, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, 
Rubens. Yet as a painter pure and simple he surpasses 
them all. His Christ in the House of Martha (in the 
National Gallery), one of the early bodegones, is the study 
of an untidy kitchen and an ill-featured scullery drudge. 
He does not rise to any of those charming domestic 
fancies which delighted the German painters. 

Diirer had more invention in his little finger than Velaz- 
quez possessed in his whole body. Compare the prosaic 

* There is a repetition of this subject belonging to the Comtesse de 
Paris, and now probably in the Chateau de Randan, near Aigueperse, 
Puy-de-d6me. The Virgin and many of the details are the same, 
but angels appear in an open heaven. The National Gallery version 
is a better composition. 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 17 

Topers, and its most ungodlike Bacchus, with Titian's 
golden Bacchanal only a few steps away. The complete 
lack of imaginative conviction in the Spanish picture 
is as typical of its school as Titian's exuberant revelry 
is representative of Venetian art at its apogee. Yet we 
can quite understand Wilkie spending hours in front 
of Los Borrachos, and at last rising from his seat with 
a sigh of despair. We can believe without question 
Rubens' legendary statement that Velazquez was the 
greatest painter in Europe. When he executed the por- 
trait of Philip IV. which established his favour at Court, 
Pacheco explicitly chronicled that " all was painted from 
Nature, even the landscape." Vicenzo Carducho, theTus- 
can, bitterly assailed Velazquez's naturalistic tendencies. 
In his essay upon painting (published in 1633) he refers 
to the genre studies which " injure Art without bringing 
any honour " to their authors. The reference is probably 
to Los Borrachos, which lacks the supreme touch of genius 
because it is so matter-of-fact. The Forge of Vulcan 
marked a development, although not a reversal of the 
old policy of minute and careful study of the model. 
Then came the visit to Italy. Velazquez allowed no 
theory to come between his unerring vision and nature. 
The slight climatic change was instantly noted, and he 
awoke to the beauty of atmosphere.* The landscapes 

* To-day artists travel with ease from Ballinskellig to the Greek 
Archipelago, and their genius changes with the thermometer. Turner 
was one of the earliest masters who methodically toured in search of a 
subject. His journeyings amplified his talent, and we cannot imagine 
a Turner who had never crossed the Alps into Italy. Cosmopolitanism 
in art is not altogether an unmixed gain, but how fascinating would 
have been some of the results had Velazquez painted the mists of the 
Dutch canals, and Rembrandt caught the Madrid express to work on 
the scorched tablelands of Castile. 

C 



i8 FRANCISCO GOYA 

painted in the gardens of the Villa Medici have the soft 
charm of a Corot. A tiny sketch hanging on the walls 
of the Casa del Greco at Toledo (belonging to the Marquis 
de la Vega Inclan) is so exquisite in colour that I trust 
Sefior de Beruete y Moret does not ascribe it to Juan del 
Mazo. 

We cannot refrain from following the works of Velaz- 
quez with care, because they manifestly influenced the 
subject of this volume. Goya, like all great men, was 
very impressionable. In his youth, when at work on 
religious compositions, he borrowed freely from earlier 
Spanish masters. In his old age, when he decorated 
his country house with those fantastic imaginations which 
so annoyed Philip Gilbert Hamerton, he borrowed again 
from Rubens. At one stage in his career he painted in the 
manner of the Velazquez to whom we may attribute the 
magnificent Christ at the Column ; at another period he 
had transferred his allegiance to the later Velazquez 
although he never captured the amazing tonality of Las 
Meninas or the shimmering beauty of Las Hilanderas. 

The development of Velazquez's genius forms an 
engrossing study which can only be unravelled in these 
pages so far as it elucidates the genius of Goya. At his 
death Spanish art commenced to deteriorate. Velaz- 
quez's patron did not long survive his favourite artist. 
Philip IV. died on September 17, 1665, leaving a child 
of four to inherit an entangled and bankrupt kingdom, 
whose government would have taxed the energies of the 
most keen-witted statesman. The seventeenth century 
had been glorious indeed for Spanish art, but fatal to 
Spanish pride. When Philip III. expelled the Moors in 
1610 he sealed the ruin of his country. Under the rule 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 19 

of Ferdinand and Isabella the population of Spain was 
estimated at some twelve millions. Under Charles III. 
it had fallen to less than six. Even the historian of art 
cannot afford to neglect such economic facts.* Had the 
fortunes of Spain been on the upward trend it is impossible 
not to believe that the great school of painting of the 
seventeenth century might have been succeeded by an 
even more virile group. 

At the death of Velazquez three artists of importance 
were left working in Madrid. Mazo, Carreno, and Coello, 
may be called the masters of the decadence, although 
there was slight decadence in their own work. In all 

* Francis Gallon, in his Hereditary Genius, under the chapter- 
heading, " Influences affecting the natural ability of nations," deals 
with this matter, which unquestionably affects any discussion of the 
tendencies of a national art. " The Church, having just captured all 
the gentle natures, and condemned them to celibacy, made another 
sweep of her huge nets, this time fishing in stirring waters, to catch 
those who were the most fearless, truth-seeking, and intelligent in their 
modes of thought, and therefore the most suitable parents of a high 
civilization, and put a strong check, if not a direct stop to their pro- 
geny. Those she reserved on these occasions to breed the generations 
of the future were the servile, the indifferent, and again the stupid. 
. . . The Spanish nation was drained of freethinkers at the rate of 
1,000 persons annually for the three centuries between 1471 and 
1781 ; an average of 100 persons having been executed and 900 
imprisoned every j>ear during that period. The actual data 
during those 300 years are 32,000 burnt, 17,000 persons burnt in 
effigy (I presume they mostly died in prison or escaped from Spain) 
and 291,000 condemned to various terms of imprisonment and other 
penalties. It is impossible that any nation could stand a policy like 
this without paying a heavy penalty in deterioration of its breed." 

The steady emigration of the better-class yeomanry and peasantry 
from Great Britain is likely to have a marked result upon the art of 
the succeeding generations in our own country. Art, even more than 
literature, has found its brightest recruits in these sections of the 
community rather than in the higher ranks of society. Indeed the 
increasing mediocrity of English art may possibly be ascribed to the 
fact that most art-students of to-day belong to families of gentle birth 
and easy means. 



20 FRANCISCO GOYA 

histories of Spanish art it has become the fashion to exalt 
one master at the expense of nearly all his contemporaries. 
Had these three artists not lived in the shadow of Velaz- 
quez their rank would have been far higher, for they were 
no mere mediocrities.* Mazo died in 1667, Carreno 
in 1685, and Coello in 1693. With the last, Spanish art 
died. The artistic instinct of the nation was extinguished 
and there were no native artists of sufficient strength to 
make headway against the introduction of strangers and 
the domination of a monarchy alien in thought and ideals. 
Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazof has only recently 
been restored to his rightful place in the history of Spanish 
painting by the valuable researches of Senor A. de Beruete 
y Moret. His position in respect to Velazquez was 
peculiarly intimate. He was the master's pupil, son-in- 
law, and assistant. " He aided his master," writes 
Senor de Beruete, " or worked on his own account, using 
the same materials, living in the same atmosphere, copying 
the same models, and pressing on towards the same goal." J 
It is hardly a matter of surprise that Mazo's pictures 
should be confused with those of Velazquez. Palomino, 
who wrote only a few years after both were at work, said : 
" He was so skilled a copyist, especially with regard to the 
works of his master, that it is hardly possible to distin- 
guish the copies from the originals. I have seen some 
copies of his, after pictures by Tintoretto, Veronese, 

* We would admire Eugenio Caxes' large historical compositions 
more highly if we could forget Velazquez's Surrender of Breda. Alonso 
Cano does not receive justice because, outside Spain, he is practically 
unknown. 

f He was born, either in Madrid or Cuenca, about 1612 ; married 
Dona Francisca, the surviving daughter of Velazquez, in 1634, and 
died in Madrid, February 10, 1667. 

% The School of Madrid, English edition, p. 56. 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 21 

and Titian, which are now in the possession of his heirs ; 
if these copies were produced in Italy, where his talent 
is unknown, they would be taken, without any doubt, 
for originals." * The Spanish critic attributes to Mazo 
a number of works which have hitherto been ascribed 
to Velazquez, notably the Adrian Pulido Pareja, in 
the National Gallery, f the Prince Balthasar Carlos in the 
Prado, and the Philip IV. at Dulwich. Whether or no 
Goya ever differentiated between the respective work of 
Velazquez and his son-in-law cannot be said definitely, 
although studio gossip probably preserved some of the 
truth. In any case he studied the known works of Mazo, 
who must be cited as a distinct early influence. Goya 
was familiar with the masterly Dona Mariana of Austria, % 
whilst the View of Zaragoza^ by Velazquez and Mazo 
jointly, not only brought a flood of local reminiscence to 
his mind, but undoubtedly inspired his own delightful 
La Romeria de San Isidro. 

Juan Carreno de Miranda (1614-1685) is a more inter- 
esting painter because he did not merge his personality 
in that of a greater master. Of noble birth, he was par- 
ticularly successful with court portraits, and one anec- 
dote must have been often on Goya's lips. When he 
refused the Order of Santiago his friends told him that he 
should have accepted the decoration because of the honour 
it conferred upon painting. He replied : 

* See El Museo Pictorico y Escala Optica, Vol. III. El Parnaso 
Espanol Pintorisco Laureado, Madrid, 1724. 

f But the specific reasons Senor de Beruete advances for ascribing 
this work to Mazo apply with almost equal force to the full-length 
Philip IV. (No. 1129) on the opposite wall, which he accepts as a 
Velazquez. 

J Prado, No. 888. 

Prado, No. 889. 



22 FRANCISCO GOYA 

" Painting has no need to receive honour from anyone ; 
she is capable of conferring it upon the whole world." 

Carreno's decorative works must have been carefully 
studied by Goya during his early residence in Madrid. 
The mythological compositions perished in the fire of 
1734. But of the frescoes in the church of San Antonio 
de los Portugueses, Sefior de Beruete writes : " There is 
much that is very interesting in this ceiling. Of all the 
works in fresco which were executed by artists of the 
Spanish school, it is the most typical example, or perhaps 
it would be better to say that it is the work which best 
preserves the style of the school, uninfluenced by Italian 
art. The subject represented is Saint Anthony in ecstasy, 
adoring the Christ-child ; he is placed on a cloud, sur- 
rounded by angels. Carreno was obliged on this occasion 
to modify his realism ; nevertheless, the characteristics 
of the school, the striving to represent the truth, and the 
avoidance of foreign conventionalities, are very plainly 
shown in his treatment of the subject. We see it in the 
figures of the angels, in the saint, and in the Christ-child 
himself. With the angels we are already familiar ; we 
have seen the same figures with the same characteristics, 
in the openings of the heavens, and aloft amongst the 
clouds, in the many Assumptions, Conceptions, and other 
similar subjects which were produced at that time by the 
artists of the school of Madrid. . . . The artist shows 
in this painting that he could change his medium without 
changing his style. For this reason, the fresco is per- 
haps more interesting than any of those painted by Rizi 
and other painters of the day, whose only aim was to copy 
the Italian frescoes as closely as they could. The colour 
is moreover of great delicacy, and very harmonious." 

Goya knew these frescoes well, and Carreno's portraits 



23 

were equally familiar to him. They represented a dis- 
tinct change from the persistent imitation of Velazquez's 
manner, which prevailed towards the end of the seven- 
teenth century in Madrid. His colouring is richer and 
more brilliant than that of Velazquez. He came under 
the sway of Van Dyck, and the mellow, luscious glow of 
the Flemish artist pleased him better than Velazquez's 
harmonies of silvery grey. A few portraits by Carreno 
in Madrid, and elsewhere, bid us proclaim him as indis- 
putably the greatest portrait-painter of the dying school. 
Only a man of talent, almost if not quite a genius, could 
have painted the child Charles II., the Queen-Mother 
Dona Mariana of Austria (in the Altes Pinakotek, Munich), 
and the magnificent Peter Ivanovitz Potemkin of the 
Prado. The latter directly inspired Goya both in treat- 
ment and colour. In Carreno 's picture the bearded 
ambassador, who was also a priest but more like one 
of the warrior-prelates of the middle ages than a man of. 
peace stands superbly upright on the canvas. His 
right hand holds a staff of office ; his left rests upon his 
girdle, significantly close to a dagger. His silk robe 
reaches his ankles, and his cloak is of richly patterned 
brocade. His conical cap is covered in fur. Carreno's 
handling is of the boldest, and the fine depth and quality 
of his tone admirably support the mystery of this stranger 
from the cold north. How much Goya adapted of the 
method and the scheme can be immediately seen in his 
portrait of the General, Don Juan Martin, known as 
El Empecinado. During his youth Goya must have been 
in touch with the traditions of Carreno's studio, for Barto- 
lome Vicente, one of the master's many pupils, was a 
native of Zaragoza, and died in his native city. 

Last of the trinity, Claudio Coello's influence is less 



24 FRANCISCO GOYA 

directly traceable. He decorated many of the churches 
and public buildings of Madrid, and these Goya must have 
known. In 1683 he was working in Zaragoza for the 
Archbishop upon the dome of the church of the Augus- 
tines, and the following year he painted his greatest work, 
the Sagrada Forma in the Sacristy of the Escorial, repre- 
senting Charles II. and his court assisting at a Celebration 
in the same chamber in which the picture hangs. The 
canvas is recessed over the altar, and when the visitor 
stands before it the effect is that of gazing into a mirror. 
The Sagrada Forma is the swan song of seventeenth- 
century Spanish art. Coello never rivalled its realistic 
perfection, and in some directions he inclines to the ex- 
aggerated baroque style which announced the decadence. 
Coello was the first martyr of the decadence. 

Like all the princes of the House of Austria, Charles 
II. had marked artistic appreciations and tastes. The 
decoration of the vast palace, monastery, and church of 
the Escorial was still in spasmodic progress, and Charles 
did not neglect to continue the labours of his ancestors. 
Luca Giordano of Naples was commissioned to carry on 
the schemes of Cambiasi. In company with his pupils, 
Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli, he proceeded to the 
conquest of Spain, and in a short while he not only de- 
livered some damaging blows against the native art but 
even killed its greatest living master. 

Sefior de Beruete quotes an anecdote (from Palomino) 
which reveals Coello's apprehension when the royal 
invitation was sent to Italy. 

" Giordano is coming to teach you how to make a great 
deal of money," remarked a friend, with the kindly atten- 
tion of which only friends are capable. 




THE BEWITCHED 
Scene from n play, "El hecliizado porfnerza." National Gallery, London 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 25 

" Yes," was the reply. " He will absolve us from our 
sins and faults, and take away our scruples." 

Giordano was a painter of fatal ease. Paul Lefort 
says that he possessed " a deplorable facility, which 
brought him the admiration of the foolish,* and earned 
for him the surname of fa presto. Finally he reigned 
sovereign master of the school, which he perverted and 
dragged through the mud to its complete decadence." 

The revulsion against Giordano has been so extreme 
that his merits are completely overlooked. For, despite 
la grande admiration des sots, and the danger of being 
included in the wilderness of fools, Giordano was an 
artist of great gifts. He was the Alexandre Dumas of 
painting. Facility is not invariably the sign of a lack 
of genius on the contrary. Giordano had a passion, 
and a desire for applause. He said that the good painter 
is the one the public likes, and that the public is at- 
tracted more by colour than design. The first aphorism 
is a matter of opinion, the second indisputably true, for 
design only appeals to the educated taste, whereas most 
men and women have a natural instinct for colour. 
Giordano had passed through the usual Italian training. 
His master was Pietro da Cortona, and he copied the 
works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Julio Romano. 
He was certainly attracted by Veronese. When he com- 
menced an independent career his energy was terrific. His 
limpid brush skimmed over acres of canvas, and, even if 
we do not like his productions, we cannot fail to recognise 
his immense talent. 

Giordano's favour at Court probably rankled in Coello's 

* " A la grande admiration des sots," writes the angry French 
critic, in his Peinture Espagnole, p. 254. 



26 FRANCISCO GOYA 

sensitive soul far more than the Neapolitan's activity 
as an artist. Giordano had all those parlour tricks the 
dignified man cannot fight against. The stranger was 
famous for his conversational ability. He amused his 
patrons. The Queen of Spain once asked him about his 
wife. Whilst talking he painted upon the canvas at 
which he was working a portrait of the lady. Coello 
could not rival such extravagances. With one mighty 
effort he painted the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, which 
brought him the enthusiastic praise of the King and 
Giordano. Then he laid down the brush, died April 20, 
1693, only a year after the arrival of Giordano, and was 
buried in Madrid. 

" Carreno and Claudio Coello carried to the sepulchre 
the glorious traditions of Spanish painting, and it may 
be said that the fine painting of the Santa Forma was the 
testament of the national school," writes a Spanish 
critic.* Coello seems to have left little money, for his 
widow received assistance from the royal treasury. But 
Luca Giordano returned to Naples, in the words of a 
biographer, " gorged with wealth." 

The death of Coello marks the close of one of the most 
extraordinary periods of painting in the history of art. 
There were still many artists at work in Madrid, such as 
Teodoro Ardemans, Isidore Arredondo, Antonio Palo- 
mino, and others. But after the glories of the seventeenth 
century their work is pitiable in its incompetence and 
weakness. With the death of Charles II. on November 
i, 1700, the House of Austria became extinct, and the 
succession passed to the Bourbons. Philip V. was a 
Frenchman by birth and temperament. He encouraged 
* Menendez y Pelayo : Esteticas V. III. pt. 2. 



GOYA'S PRECURSORS 27 

the arts, but not the arts of Spain. His country retreat 
was " a little Versailles." He admired the imitators of 
Le Brun and imported his pupil, Rene Antoine Hovasse, 
Jean Ranc, who had studied under Rigaud, and, towards 
the end of his reign, Louis Michel Vanloo. " I like Michel 
Vanloo," wrote Diderot, in one of his Salons. " But I like 
truth better." For Michel could vanlote as well as his uncle. 
In the old days, Spanish painters only went to Italy 
as accomplished masters of their craft. Now Philip V. 
sent them to Rome as pupils and royal pensioners, where 
they concocted feeble imitations of Maratti, Sacchi, and 
the Naturalisti, following the precept of the Spanish proverb, 

Cuando a Romo fuercs 
Haz como vieres. 

' When thou art at Rome do as thou shalt see." French 
and Italian painters and sculptors invaded Spain. Van- 
vitelli, Conca, Olivieri, Procaccini, Solimena, Ventura, 
Lighi, Vaccaro, Mattei, Amigoni, Corrado, Fremin are 
names which mean nothing to-day. The only Spanish 
artist the King employed was Antonio Viladomat (1678- 
1755), who did not entirely forget the traditions of the 
past. Philip V. was not altogether a philistine. He was 
an amateur of the arts, sketched with ease, bought the 
marbles collected by Queen Christina of Sweden, founded 
the institution which afterwards became the Royal 
Academy of San Fernando, and built royal palaces. 
" The loveliest spot within the bounds of Castile is de- 
graded by a mansion in the vile taste of France in the 
days of the Regency. How striking is the contrast pre- 
sented by the gaudy pavilions of the French King, and 
the solemn Escorial of Philip II." * 

* Stirling-Maxwell : Annals of the Artists of Spain, p. 1159. 



28 FRANCISCO GOYA 

On Christmas Day, 1734, the Alcazar of Madrid, the 
palace which contained the art accumulations of a dynasty, 
burst into flame. Happily much was saved, but treasures 
perished whose loss we can still weep over. The salvage 
was roughly stored in an old building belonging to the 
Archbishop of Toledo in the Street of the Holy Sacra- 
ment.* Apparently little interest was displayed in their 
safe custody until Juan Garcia de Miranda was chosen to 
examine them and repair the damage. 

The stagnation was complete. No native artist ap- 
peared with the slightest claim to more than average 
ability. Not until Francisco Goya arose from the pro- 
vincial school of Aragon, a school relatively so unimpor- 
tant that some art-historians refuse to acknowledge its 
existence, did these dry bones move with life again. 

* F. Rousseau : Regne de Charles III. 



CHAPTER H 

ARAGON AND ZARAGOZA 

The School of Aragon. Richard Ford on the Different Schools of 
Spanish Painting. The Character of the Aragonese. Arrival in Zaragoza. 
Typical Independence and Love of Freedom of the Aragonese. A Com- 
posite Race. Moslem Influences. El Pilar. La Seo. The Audiencia 
and its Guardians. 

PAUL LEFORT, in the preface to his valuable hand- 
book upon Spanish painting,* protests energetic- 
ally against the sub-division of Spanish art into 
a series of local schools, composed of artists born or 
settled in the same common centre. Such a classifica- 
tion he considered arbitrary and misleading. In an 
aesthetic sense, the word " school " should imply the more 
or less prolonged existence of a group of artists possessing, 
if not a unity of manner, at least a community of tradi- 
tions, tendencies, sentiments, and even a certain frater- 
nity of executive methods. These conditions, he con- 
sidered, could not be applied with success to any of the 
local centres of Spain. At first the Spaniards imitated 
the Italian primitives and the early Flemish painters. 
Then, as the yeast of the Renaissance slowly penetrated 
Spain, its sons hastened to study the crafts in Rome, 
Florence, and Venice. Foreign artists settled in all the 
larger cities, and neither Seville, Valence, Toledo, Madrid, 
* La Pcinture Espagnole, Paris, 1893, p. 5. 



30 FRANCISCO GOYA 

nor the provinces of Aragon and Catalonia, escaped a 
slight impression of exterior influences. 

But the French critic does not sufficiently allow for an 
influence even stronger than that of the foreigner. Vol- 
taire said that three factors governed man's intelligence 
climate, government, and religion. He might have 
added that these very largely account for racial tempera- 
ment, which dominates art and artists to a supreme degree. 
To call Goya " the Spanish Hogarth " is as absurd a mis- 
nomer as to term Maeterlinck " the Belgian Shakespeare." 
There are almost greater racial differences between the 
various provinces of Spain than can be found between the 
citizens of Madrid and London. Environment is apt to 
play strange tricks with that very delicate plant we call art. 

The individual characteristics of the three chief 
schools of Spanish painting, the schools of Seville, Val- 
encia, and Castile, are too strongly marked to be sub- 
merged in one common designation. Over half a century 
ago, a writer in the Quarterly Review pointed out that : 
" strictly speaking there were four schools ; the indepen- 
dent kingdom of Aragon possesses another of its own, 
in which a marked oriental type gave evidence of early 
communication between commercial Catalonia and the 
East ; but neither Head nor Stirling visited these pro- 
vinces, and though Ford did, he says little of their art 
without doubt from its never having produced a master 
capable of setting on it an original and distinctive stamp." 
The qualifying reference to Ford's knowledge is somewhat 
extraordinary, for he himself was the author of the 
article in the Review* 

* Quarterly Review, June, 1848. See also the Letters of Richard 
Ford (1905). 



ARAGON AND ZARAGOZA 31 

Despite his immense treasures of knowledge concerning 
the arts of Spain, Richard Ford closed his chapter of 
appreciation at the end of the seventeenth century, and 
basked in the glorious sun of the day before yesterday 
as contentedly as any Spaniard. His one short reference 
to Goya is somewhat contemptuous, although he could 
not but admit the artist's talent, and he was clearly of 
opinion that Aragon had failed to produce a master- 
genius. Yet Aragon contains works of art as interesting 
as any in Spain, and from that province came one of the 
most original and distinctive artists, not simply in Spain, 
but in all Europe. Francisco Goya was a son of Aragon, 
and a very typical Aragonese. Unfortunately he be- 
longed almost to Ford's own century, and the traveller 
like so many other connoisseurs of taste could enjoy 
the works of every age but his own. 

Ford, however, drew attention to that marked indi- 
viduality of Aragonese art which seems to have escaped 
the notice of Lefort. Aragon possessed a school of paint- 
ing and the allied arts for nearly four hundred years. 
It was distinguished by an inherent originality, and no 
consideration of Goya and his place in the Spanish school 
can neglect the province which gave him birth, or the city 
in which he passed his youth. No visitor can walk 
through the streets of Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, 
without recognising that if he is not in the most pictur- 
esque city of Spain, he has certainly discovered a com- 
munity of extreme individuality and attraction. 

Railways have killed much of the romance of travelling. 
The dusty winding road, which suddenly revealed a vista 
of the promised Mecca, has given way to steel rails and 
the train de luxe. How many tourists to Italy gain 



32 FRANCISCO GOYA 

their first view of the Eternal City and the Seven Hills 
from that spot on the posting road which enraptured 
Byron and Shelley ? To-day we prefer to awake in our 
sleeping berth at the northern station, and if we want 
to see the famous view a glance through Turner's sketches 
of the Campagna will content us. 

Zaragoza is not a city easily to be invested, as Napoleon's 
troops found to their cost. More than a century has 
elapsed since Lannes and Palafox battled round the walls 
of this isolated town, and to-day the means of entry, 
though easier, demand much endurance as well as a 
resolute heart. The visitor from Madrid or Barcelona 
will probably arrive in the early morning. It is a 
peculiarity of Spanish railway time-tables that they 
invariably conspire to drop the traveller at his destina- 
tion at some hour after midnight and before dawn, an 
arrangement far less reasonable than that enjoyed by 
France, where the entire service comes to a standstill 
at noon for the benefit of the buffet. But at Zaragoza 
the intrepid tourist will step on to the platform tired, 
sleepy, and dejected. Without protest he will allow 
his body and his baggage to be fought over by a dozen 
touts, and, governed by an attitude of resistance more 
passive than active, will at last find himself in a vehicle 
which apparently dates from the Wars of Independence.* 
By degrees the tiny box will fill until he has reason to 
congratulate himself upon his foresight in sitting by the 
door. The company in the hotel omnibus is always the 
same, a couple of nuns, too exhausted even to tell their 

* Not necessarily an exaggeration. When Charles IV. and his 
Queen went to Napoleon at Bayonne in 1809 they travelled in the same 
state-coaches which had conveyed Philip V. to Spain in ,1700. Bausset 
in his Memoirs refers to the astonishment of the French. 



ARAGON AND ZARAGOZA 33 

beads, a priest, a commercial traveller, an old lady, who, 
like old ladies all the world over, is encumbered by a 
multitude of parcels, and probably a small girl. At the 
last moment the complement is made up by a couple 
of nondescripts, who may belong to any rank of society, 
from higglers to Grandees of Spain. 

The keen morning air cuts the face, and, after the warm 
heavy atmosphere of the railway carriage, the eyes smart 
unpleasantly. The coachman gives a wild cry, the mules 
shake their jingling harness, and the diligence uneasily 
sways across the cobbles towards the town. 

The sun is lazily rising in a leaden sky. Nature herself 
seems sluggish, and unwilling to turn from a warm bed. 
For some distance the road skirts a sandy parade. In 
the centre three unhappy cavalry recruits are exercising 
under the eye of a sergeant. Round and round gallop 
the horsemen, in endless circle, like figures ona child's 
revolving toy. From time to time they advance in 
line, or drop into Indian file, but always reverting to the 
eternal circle. Dust flies in every direction. The dili- 
gence flings itself at a weather-beaten, dilapidated, and 
extremely narrow town-gate, and becomes involved in a 
maze of gloomy alleys. Glimpses of spires, domes, and 
towers cut the brightening horizon. A chambermaid, 
whose outlook upon life has been permanently soured by 
having to rise before she has had her first sleep, interns 
the traveller in a cell which has the discomforts of a prison 
without its conveniences. For the boxes of the com- 
mercial travellers are being heavily dragged along pas- 
sages as interminable as the nightmares of Piranesi. 
The traveller dreams that he is a luckless cavalry recruit, 
strapped upon a phantom horse whose hard bones search 

D 



34 FRANCISCO GOYA 

out the tenderest parts of his anatomy. And amidst 
the penetrating dust he rides round and round and round, 
until at length he awakes from an unrefreshing and dis- 
turbed slumber. 

Such is the first impression of Zaragoza, or of any other 
town in Northern Spain. But when the sun is declining 
and the streets are crowded, the city bears another 
aspect. The citizens are a first study. " To the gravity 
of the inhabitants of Catalonia is added the wide-awake 
air of the inhabitants of the Castiles, enlivened still more 
by an expression of pride which is peculiar to theAragonese 
blood," wrote the Italian novelist Emondo de Amicis. 
And this hot, proud blood is the keynote of Goya's art. 

" Aragon, a disagreeable province, is inhabited by a 
disagreeable people," wrote Richard Ford. The inhabi- 
tants have certain marked racial characteristics. They 
are obstinate and self-willed. " Donnez un clou a 
1'Aragonais, il 1'enfoncera avec sa tete plutot qu'avec un 
marteau," said a Frenchman long ago. As a people 
they have no fear, and will suffer no contradiction. They 
have an inborn love of freedom. The General Privilege 
granted by Pedro III. in 1283 to the Cortes of Zaragoza 
declared that absolute power never was nor shall be the 
constitution of Aragon.* But in many respects the 

* The political institutions of Aragon- in the fourteenth century were 
the most liberal that existed in any country of mediaeval Europe. 
The King, escorted by twelve peers of the realm, knelt down 
before the Chief Justice as he swore to maintain the laws which 
were made by the representatives of burghers and nobles, assembled 
in annual or special Councils, which consisted of the Great Lords, the 
Lesser Knights, the Clergy and the Commons. The veto of a single 
member sufficed to defeat or postpone any measure introduced and 
supported by the most powerful majority in the Chamber. See 
A History of Spain, by Ulick Ralph Burke, Vol. I., p. 235. 



ARAGON AND ZARAGOZA 35 

Aragonese differed from their Catalonian neighbours, 
who inclined towards republicanism. The Aragonese 
boasted that they were a free and law-abiding people 
ruled by a free and law-abiding king. Each law had to 
receive the assent of the four classes of the community, 
the clergy, the aristocracy, the rich who were not noble, 
and the people. The monarch was forbidden to inter- 
fere in questions of finance and personal liberty. Law 
and equity were represented by an official called Justicia, 
who stood between the king and the people. The early 
kings were little more than hereditary presidents. Such 
an ideal state could not have long existed in a period 
of centralised government. Aragon was an independent 
state until Ferdinand, its heir apparent, married Isabella, 
in 1479, and his kingdom became eventually swallowed 
up in the vast empire of his grandson, Charles V. Liberty 
was lost when, at the close of the sixteenth century, 
Philip II. hanged the Justicia in front of his own court. 
The Aragonese, however, never forgot their old tradi- 
tions, and, if they lost political freedom, preserved a 
private freedom of religious thought which was very 
remarkable. In the fifteenth century there was a 
popular rising in Zaragoza ' against the Inquisition, and 
the Chief Inquisitor, Pedro de Arbues, was murdered 
before the altar of El Seo. The whole province asserted 
its right of the liberty of personal thought. At Villanueva, 
in Aragon, was born Michael Servet, the doctor, philo- 
sopher, and free-thinker, " precursor of Spinoza and 
Strauss," who was burnt for heresy at Geneva in 1553. 
Two centuries and a half later another famous Aragonese, 
J..A: Llorente, wrote a history of the Inquisition, which 
book is still a battlefield. Goya and Llorente were 



36 FRANCISCO GOYA 

acquainted, and the artist contested the power of the 
Holy Office as hotly in his drawings as Llorente did in 
print. 

The race is of composite stock. There must still be 
a trace of the blood of the forgotten Iberians in their 
veins. Then came the Berbers, followed by the early 
Goths. The very name of Zaragoza is in itself a history 
of the people who inhabit the town. The Celtic-Iberian 
Salduba gave way to Csesarea Augusta under the Roman 
dominion. This was modified by the Arabs into Sara- 
kostah, becoming, in modern language, Zaragoza. The 
climate is hard, and has made the inhabitants spartan. 
Although the valleys of the Ebro are fertile, the province 
is swept by the cold winds which blow down from the 
Pyrenees. The Aragonese believe in themselves and 
hate the stranger. In the Fueros it was stipulated that 
the aid of foreigners might be accepted, but they were 
never to be rewarded by a share in the conquests. There 
is a rugged harshness, a self-sufficiency, a turbulent 
passion, a desire for liberty, in the typical Aragonese 
which explains many of the characteristics of Francisco 
Goya. 

" Some people will have it that Zaragoza is a trading 
city. I saw no appearance of any such thing. The 
inhabitants were all lounging about with arms folded ; 
the warehouses were empty ; and not a single skiff 
could be seen on the Ebro.'' Thus wrote the Marquis 
de Langle in 1786,* and the description applies with 

* Precise biographers suggest that the Marquis de Langle never 
troubled to visit Spain before writing his account of that country. In 
some respects, however, his descriptions are so true to fact that he 
must have based his adventures upon actual experiences. A Senti- 
mental Journey through Spain (English edition, 1786). 



ARAGON AND ZARAGOZA 37 

equal truth at the present time. Doubtless municipal 
statistics prove increasing prosperity. Zaragoza has a 
comfortable air. But for a greater part of the day the 
only movement in the broad street crossing the city is 
created by the little bustling noisy tram, without which 
no self-respecting continental town can exist unashamed. 
As the stranger wanders haphazard along its winding 
alleys, he cannot fail to remember that Zaragoza has been 
the scene of continual warfare, from the days when 
Childebert and the Merovingians besieged its already his- 
toric walls, to the fierce assaults of the Moors in the eighth 
century, the recapture by the Christians in 1118, innumer- 
able fights during the middle ages, the campaign of the 
Duke of Orleans in 1707, and the sanguinary combats 
when Napoleon's army invested the city in 1808 and 1809. 
That intrepid woman Madame Dieulafoy has recently 
told us that Zaragoza instantly reminded her of a Persian 
town. The ordinary tourist has not usually penetrated 
so far east, but when he gazes upon the fantastic roof-line, 
broken by innumerable towers, domes, and spires, his 
fancy cannot fail to travel to the orient. Zaragoza was 
too long under the rule Of the Moors ever to throw 
off their influence. And when the Moors were defeated 
and the city became nominally Christian the atmosphere 
did not change. Moslem, Jew, and Christian lived side 
by side in peace and amity, and artists and craftsmen 
of Moorish descent stamped the architecture of Zaragoza 
with an exotic individuality time itself cannot wholly 
eradicate. The belfry of the Magdalena, built in the 
fifteenth century, the belfries of San Paolo and San 
Miguel de los Navarros, in the Jewish quarter, are almost 
purely Moorish in design and decoration. The Leaning 



38 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Tower (destroyed in 1887) was one of the wonders of 
Spain. There still exists a fa9ade of the parish church 
forming part of the old cathedral of La Seo which " might 
be a wall in an old mosque of Ispahan." * Gothic 
builders have chipped and defaced it, opening ogive 
windows, and otherwise defacing the delicate tracery 
and the lustre of the exquisite faience. Here, as in many 
other cities of Spain, art and history go hand in hand. 
Even in comparatively modern days the Cross seems 
to have been unable to resist the Crescent. Late in the 
seventeenth century the Zaragozans decided to commemo- 
rate the miracle of Our Lady of the Pillar by the 
erection of a great cathedral on the banks of the Ebro. 
The architecture was to rival that of St. Peter's at Rome. 
El Pilar was to be not only the largest church in Aragon 
but in all Spain. Unfortunately El Pilar was conceived 
at a moment of decadence fatal to good composition. 
Francisco Herrera el Mozo, and his successor, Ventura 
Rodriguez, hardly did justice to themselves. The church 
is grandiose, but wearily so ; lacking in expression and 
grace, coldly pedantic, unpleasantly rococo. Zaragoza 
is supremely proud of El Pilar, proud of the tawdry 
votive banners which cover its discoloured walls, offer- 
ings from every city of Spain and Latin America. In a 
dark crypt stands the sacred image which has conse- 
crated this most holy of spots. But the interior, with its 
classical pretension, is frankly disappointing. Far other- 
wise is the curious and bizarre building when viewed from 
the massive bridge which spans the Ebro.f Its cupolas 

* J. Dieulafoy : A ragon et Valence, 1901. 

f The Puente de Piedra, of unknown age, and suggesting in rough 
strength the hands of the Roman bridge-builders. Somewhere hidden 
in the Ebro is Don Quixote's Island of Barataria, over which Sancho 



ARAGON AND ZARAGOZA 39 

and pinnacles cast a thousand reflections in the rippling 
water, and throw the strangest shadows. The sun plays 
across a broken roof, tiled in outlandish patterns of green, 
blue, yellow, and white. The scheme is Slavonic, and 
suggests the Kremlin of Moscow on a smaller scale, until 
we realise that only the Crescent can crown these minarets. 
As the sun drops from high heaven a mirage passes over 
the scene. No longer does the angelus bell fitfully toll 
from these belfries. From each tower a Moslem priest 
bows to the East, and with an appealing cry of " Allah ! 
Allah ! " bids every true believer sink upon his praying 
mat in silent adoration. And in this dream we find the 
true Zaragoza. 

The twin-cathedral, on the other side of the Arch- 
bishop's palace, belongs to another age or it might be 
said, to another country. La Seo is one of those magni- 
ficent Gothic churches which are the chief glory of north- 
eastern Spain. It ranks in style with Barcelona and 
Gerona. Here the exterior is unimpressive, and the 
baroque belfry, with flying apostles supporting a 
clock, can hardly escape ridicule. But pushing aside 
the leather curtain across the portal we enter another 
world, as still, dark, and cold as the sepulchre. A few 
lost rays of sunshine penetrate the glass ; the slender 
pillars of the nave and aisles rise higher and higher until 
they become lost in the impenetrable gloom of the roof. 
Every chapel recalls the dead, every stone is a tomb. An 
old sacristan of parchment face, in black gown and 
white ruff a portrait by El Greco come to life again 

Panza was appointed perpetual governor. It has been identified 
as Alcala del Ebro, a village near Pedrola, on a peninsula formed by a 
bend of the Ebro. 



40 FRANCISCO GOYA 

wanders like a lost soul from altar to altar, as if striving 
to discover his forgotten resting-place. A tiny child 
enters, and drops on his knee. But the icy chill pene- 
trates his soul, he is overwhelmed by black oppression, 
the church is crowded by a million dreadful spirits. 
In fear, he flies to the door. La Seo is not a church for 
children, but a church for the dead, for those who have 
lost hope, and cling in despairing anguish to a faith which 
bids them live and suffer. 

There are many other great buildings in Zaragoza. 
The Lonja, or Merchants' Hall, Goya painted in the back- 
ground of a tapestry cartoon. A huge brick pile, like 
an Italian palazzo, it stands crumbling and deserted at 
the entrance to the city. The home of the famous 
Luna family, which gave a Pope to the Church,* fronts 
the Cosso. Life has not deserted it, for the building is 
used as the Audiencia. On each side of the entrance 
gate stand semi-nude figures of colossal ogres, in menacing 
posture, with uplifted clubs. Their attitude is typical 
of the old Aragon spirit, fiercely independent, and ever 
ready to fell its enemies to the ground. The boy Goya 
must often have gazed at these forbidding statues, and 
pondered over their significance. Character is largely 
based upon the early impressions of youth, and the moral 
of the stone giants who guard the Audiencia may perhaps 
be found in the story of the artist's life. But in any case, a 
visit to Zaragoza and a study of its conflicting influences, 
Moslem, Christian, political, religious, Gothic, rococo, 
reveal many of the hidden sources of the art of Goya. 

* Or rather an anti-pope, Benedict XIII., who reigned at Avignon. 
Another member of the same family turns up in Verdi's opera // 
Trovatore, the action of which passes in Zaragoza. 



CHAPTER III 

GOYA'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE IN ZARAGOZA, 1746-1765 

The Village of Fuendetodos. Goya's Father and Mother. Goya's first 
Drawing. Don Felix Salzedo. The Pignatelli Family. Jose Luzan 
and his School. His Manner of Teaching. Goya's Youthful Friends. 
His Pleasures. Religious Animosities in Zaragoza. Street Eattles. 
The Inquisition decides to arrest Goya. His Flight to Madrid. 

THE tiny village of Fuendetodos boasts a popula- 
tion of some few hundred souls. Situated 
upon the banks of a sluggish stream called 
Huerba, the straggling hamlet nestles at the foot of 
mountains black with pine trees rising from tangled 
undergrowths of heath. The ruins of a Moorish strong- 
hold dominate the landscape, and across the fields of a 
vast plain the passing breeze fitfully carries the sound 
of bells in Zaragoza. 

Fuendetodos is about six leagues from the capital of 
Aragon. Here, in a humble farmhouse now converted 
into an inn,* Francisco Jose Goya y Lucientes was born 
on March 30, 17464 Of his father's occupation there 
are conflicting reports. Francisco Zapater, in his 
Noticias biogrdficas, $ describes Jose Goya as a labrador, 

* Francisco Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas (1868), p. 6. No. 18, Calle 
de la Alf6ndiga, in the lower part of the village. The house formerly 
belonged to the Goya family, but, when Zapater wrote in 1868, it had 
passed into the hands of the Count de Fuentes. 

f Sometimes wrongly given as March 31, 1756. 

I Noticias biogrdficas, p. 7. 



42 FRANCISCO GOYA 

a term which generally means a tiller of the soil, and 
includes farmers employing labourers as well as those 
who dig their own land or work for others.* Sancho 
Panza, according to Cervantes, was a labrador, and typical 
of his class. Other biographers have followed Zapater's 
lead, and Jose Goya is usually said to have been a small 
farmer, who, shortly after his son's birth, settled in Zara- 
goza as a gilder. But the Count de la Vinaza, in his recent 
additions to Cean Bermudez's dictionary,! corrects his 
previous statement that the parents of the artist were 
agriculturists who possessed " scarcely more than the 
fruits of their labour." j Jose Goya, he asserts on the 
authority of Don Mario de la Sala, left his family in 
Fuendetodos early in life, and, settling in Zaragoza, 
became a tradesman before the birth of his son, and not 
after. His choice of a trade suggests a slight inclination 
towards the arts. His progress could not have been 
unsuccessful, for, in 1749, he was able to buy his own 
house. 

On the paternal side Francisco Goya undoubtedly came 
from peasant stock. His mother, Gracia Lucientes, 
was of gentler birth. She too belonged to the neighbour- 
hood of Fuendetodos, which was probably the reason 
why the child first breathed the pure air of the country 
rather than the foul miasma of a crowded alley in Zara- 
goza. The Lucientes family held a certain position in 
the neighbourhood. Francisco Zapater classes them with 

* See J. Fitzmaurice Kelly's edition of Don Quixote, Vol. I., p. 35. 

t Conde de la Vinaza : Adiciones al Diccionario histcrico de los 
mas illustres profesores de las be.llas artes en Espana de Don Juan 
Augustin Cean Bermudez (1894), article " Goya." 

J Vinaza : Goya (1887), p'. 15. 

Noticias biogrdficas, p. 7. 




1787 



THE SWING 
In the collection of the Duque de Montellano, Madrid 



GOYA'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 43 

other clans, the Salvadores, the Grasas, the Aznarez, 
and relates that their arms were yet to be seen crumbling 
above the doorways of ancestral dwellings.* They were 
of hidalgo rank, and when Francisco Goya was created a 
royal painter, and placed upon the establishment of the 
Court of Spain, he did not forget this fact in the prepara- 
tion of his genealogical tree. 

The day after his birth the child was baptised in the 
parish church of Fuendetodos. He received his Christian 
name from his godmother Francisca Grasa, whose family 
name appears in the list cited by Zapater. The entry 
of the baptism still exists, f and was prepared with such 
careful detail as to suggest that the head of the Goya y 
Lucientes household was something more than a penniless 
tradesman or simple farm-hand. After the baptism 
comes a long gap in the story of Francisco's youth 
which can only be filled by surmise. According to Vinaza 
Jose Goya was living at Zaragoza in the Calle de la Moreria 
Cerrada from 1746 to 1760. He and his wife sold their 
house in the latter year, and removed to the Calle de 
Rufas.J Zapater says that the boy Francisco did not 
leave his birthplace until 1760. Probability asks us to 

* Noticias biograficas, p. 9. 

f " En trienta y uno de Marzo de mil settecientos cuarenta y seis, 
Bautice yo el infrascripto Vic un Nino que nacio el dia antecedente 
inmediato, hi jo legitimo de Jph Goya y de Gracia Lucientes Legitim te 
casados habitantes en esta Parroquia y vecinos de Zaragoza : se le 
puso por nombre Francisco Joseph Goya : fue su Madrina francisca 
Grasa desta Parroquia, a la qual adverti el Parentesco espiritual que 
abia contraido con el Bautizado y la obligacion de ensenarle la doctrina 
Christiana en defecto de sus Padres, y por la verdad hago y firmo la 
Presente en fuendetodos dho dia mes y ano ut supra etc. Licenciado 
Jph Ximeno, Vic." 

J Vinaza: Adiciones al Diccionario historico. 

Zapater : Noticias biograficas, p. 7. 



44 FRANCISCO GOYA 

believe that he was reared in Zaragoza, for there were 
brothers and sisters in this domestic circle. Fuendetodos 
is not far from Zaragoza, and maybe the young family 
lived in the country, whilst the father worked in the 
town. 

Vasari's charming anecdote of Cimabue discovering 
the youthful Giotto sketching the flock he was supposed 
to be tending has been demolished by the modern his- 
torian. Possibly a like fate awaits the legends which sur- 
round the early years of Goya. Contradictory in detail, 
they agree in one chief fact that a passing stranger recog- 
nised the child's dormant talent and promptly rescued him 
from impending servitude as a journeyman gilder or a 
daily husbandman. One story relates that a monk, 
walking through Fuendetodos, found the boy roughly 
outlining on a white-washed wall the features of the 
village blind man. Matheron gives practically the same 
tale.* Jose Goya sent his son to the mill with a sack 
of flour. A priest on the road to Zaragoza watched 
him drawing a pig on a barn wall. 

" Who is your teacher ? " he asked. 

" I haven't one, your reverence," replied the child. 
" I have always been trying to do it." 

" If you like to come with me to Zaragoza, I will find 
you a master, and you will become a great artist." 

"Go to Zaragoza ! Of course, if my father will give 
his consent." 

This picturesque conversation need not be vouched for, 

but there is general agreement that a priest did rescue 

Goya from the slavery of uncongenial toil. Don Felix 

Salzedo, prior of the Chartreuse of Aula Dei, not far 

* Laurent Matheron : Goya (1858), chap. II. 



GOYA'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 45 

from the gates of Zaragoza, was Goya's earliest admirer, 
and lived long enough to see the success of his protege. 
With the approbation of Jose" and Gracia he brought the 
case to the notice of the Count of Fuentes, who was 
seigneur of Fuendetodos and the most influential noble- 
man of the district. The Count de la Vinaza writes that 
there was no necessity for protection and financial help 
from the Count of Fuentes, as Goya's parents were in a 
position to support their son.* But this need not neces- 
sarily rule out the protection of the Pignatelli family. 
Of Neapolitan extraction, its power in Aragon was almost 
kingly, and its members accepted their feudal responsi- 
bilities in a proud spirit. Not the least of their activities 
was a whole-hearted support of the fine arts. In the 
eighteenth century a man of wealth encouraged artists ; 
to-day he patronises art-dealers, and the result is not 
altogether satisfactory. The art-loving Pignatellis fol- 
lowed the wiser path.f 

Don Salzedo carried his point and placed Francisco 
under the care of one of the most celebrated masters of 
Zaragoza. Whether or no the boy was added to the already 
innumerable pensioners of the Pignatelli household it is 
now impossible to say. We do not even know the exact 

* Vinaza : Adiciones al Diccionario historico. 

f In The Spanish Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland, edited by 
the Earl of Ilchester, is a reference to this family which shows that half 
a century later it had lost little position. Under the date November 
12, 1802, Lady Holland chronicles a visit to the theatre with the wife 
of the Danish minister. " Afterwards we went to Conde de Fuentes 
. . . one of the most powerful men in Spain in point of wealth and 
influence ... his possessions are in many provinces, also countries, 
Naples, Flanders, France, Germany. He is the son of Count Egmont, 
and grandson of the Mardchal de Richelieu. His family name is 
Pignatelli. His revenue hundred thousand pounds a year : his expendi- 
ture double." Goya's Count was possibly an uncle to this young man. 



46 FRANCISCO GOYA 

date of his entry as a formally adopted student into the 
world of art. Francisco Zapater, writing in the capital 
of Aragon almost a century after the event, asserts that 
the boy went to Zaragoza in 1760.* Charles Yriarte, 
upon the authority of Valentin Carderera,f says that 
Goya became an art-student in 1758 at the age of twelve. 
The Count de la Vifiaza reminds us that Goya's parents 
had been living in Zaragoza since I749, which clashes 
with the earlier pages of Zapater 's pamphlet, despite the 
fact that Martin Zapater and Francisco Goya had grown 
up side by side in the mediaeval city. 

The name of Don Jose Luzan y Martinez has been 
rescued from oblivion by the fame of his pupil. Luzan 
was about fifty years of age when Goya entered his studio. 
Born in Zaragoza in 1710, he had been educated as an 
artist at the cost of the Pignatelli.|| This tends to support 
the assertion that the boy was also cared for by the same 
noble house, and was thus naturally placed under the 
tuition of an earlier pensioner. In 1730 Luzan made the 
usual foreign tour of all Spanish artists of the eighteenth 
century. He travelled through Italy, visiting Florence, 
Venice, and Rome, finally resting in Naples, where he con- 
tinued his studies under MastroleoH. Returning to Spain 
in 1735, he settled in Zaragoza and speedily gained a lucra- 

* Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 8. 

| Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1860, Vol. VII., p. 216. 

J Charles Yriarte : Goya, Paris, 1867, p. 12. 

Vifiaza : Adiciones al Diccionario histcrico. 

|| Ibid. 

H' Mastroleo, who died in 1744, gained some fame in his time as an 
historical painter. He had formerly worked in the atelier of Paolo 
de Matteis (1662-1728), a pupil of Luca Giordano who had acquired his 
master's rapidity of execution. Thus Luzan to some extent inherited 
the Giordano tradition. 



GOYA'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 47 

tive reputation amongst the ecclesiastical authorities 
of the northern provinces. In 1741 we find him busily 
engaged upon portraits, altar-pieces, and frescoes. To 
such a degree did he please the Church that he was 
created artistic censor to the Inquisition, and the honour 
was followed, in 1744, by an appointment as one of the 
Court painters to Philip V. This took him for a short 
while to Madrid, but he speedily returned to his native 
city, where he resided until his death. 

Luzan was by no means a great artist. To this day the 
Prado, the national museum of Spain, has not troubled 
to add to its collection an example of the work of Goya's 
first teacher. However, the student can readily make 
good this deficiency in his knowledge when he reaches 
Aragon. Like most of the members of the school of 
Aragon, Luzan had been carefully trained. His drawing 
was good, and his Italian journey had given him some 
feeling for decoration and harmony of colour. In Rome 
and Naples he had copied Luca Giordano and Pietro de 
Cortona. Tiepolo had undoubtedly influenced his brush. 
He never rose to any height of inspiration, and his gifts 
were hardly superior to those of hundreds of fellow- 
craftsmen who were scattered throughout the cities 
and towns of Italy and Spain. But he took his art 
seriously, and in one respect his record was a very honour- 
able one. His talent as an instructor was pre-eminent. 
He was to Goya, suggests Paul Lafond, what Otto 
Vcenius was to Rubens, and Quentin Varin to Poussin.* 
The Count de Vinaza selects an apter parallel from the 
art history of his own land, and describes Luzan as an 
Aragonese Pacheco.f Francisco Pacheco was cultured; 

* Paul Lafond : Goya, p. 13. f Vinaza : Goya, Madrid, 1887, p. 17. 



48 FRANCISCO GOYA 

but slow and infinitely painstaking. These characteristics 
seem to form part of the individuality of Luzan. In the 
art circles of Seville and Zaragoza the two men occupied 
almost analogous positions. But Vinaza will not admit 
that Luzan's abilities were equal to those of Velazquez's 
master and father-in-law, and declares the Aragonese to 
be " a very decadent Pacheco." 

This judgment is in several respects unduly harsh, for 
Luzan did most valuable work as a teacher, if not as a 
creator. Like most of the Spanish artists of the eighteenth 
century, his methods were scrupulously exact ; unlike 
them, he did not wholly renounce nature. His artistic 
principles were straightforward, and no better mentor 
could be found for youth. Like all born teachers, he loved 
teaching, and soon after his return from Italy and settle- 
ment in Zaragoza he opened an atelier for pupils. He had 
a saying, which he was always ready to impress upon his 
friends, that the best way to reach perfection in art was 
to teach it. The fine spirit of the man can be judged from 
the fact that he refused to accept any payment from his 
pupils. 

Such a centre of enthusiasm naturally attracted the 
brightest students in Zaragoza, which had already pos- 
sessed good teaching facilities for nearly half a century. 
In 1755 Luzan opened a public academy of the fine arts 
with a regularly constituted staff.* The building was 
given by the Pignatelli family, never backward in any 
movement affecting the arts. Many of the Aragonese 
artists gathered to support Luzan's venture. Amongst 
the professors were Luzan's father-in-law, Juan Zabalo, 

* Zapater : Apuntes histtirico-biogrdficas de la Escuela Aragonesa 
de Pintura. Madrid, 1863. 



GOYA'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 49 

Pablo Raviella, and Jose Ramirez, the sculptor, whose 
father, Juan Ramirez, had founded an earlier school. 
Juan Ramirez held classes in the principles of design and 
for the study of the nude model until his death in 1740. 
Jose then opened an atelier in his own house, and con- 
tinued his father's work until Luzan's more important 
scheme probably led to the amalgamation of their forces.* 

The new academy did not depart from the principles 
upon which Luzan had founded his original school. 
Instruction was still given without charge. Pupils came 
in considerable numbers. Of most we hear no more, 
but a few deserve their place in the archives of the local 
school, and to a lesser extent in the not too glorious history 
of Spanish eighteenth-century art. The three brothers 
Bayeu, Jose Beraton, who died as success opened its 
gates to him, Tomas Vallespin, and Antonio Martinez 
come under the second category. But Francisco Goya 
ultimately surpassed them all, to find his niche in the 
European Valhalla. 

Luzan's method of teaching was old-fashioned, but 
thorough. The pupil was first set to copy engravings with 
the most painstaking exactitude. The idea is despised 
nowadays, but many famous artists have commenced 
in the same manner. As a child, G. F. Watts copied 
engravings in the way Luzan taught Goya to copy, and, 
judging from the reproductions in Mrs. Watts's volume, 
the English boy was very faithful to his exemplars. 
When Luzan's pupils had gained a certain amount of 
facility, together with a control over their tools, the master 
put them in front of the plaster cast, and here they spent 
laborious days saturated in the atmosphere of the antique. 

* Zapater : Apunles historico-biogrdficas. 

E 



50 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Finally they were allowed to draw from the living 
model. 

This was an excellent training for those able to profit 
by it, and Goya's masterly ease with the pencil was the 
result of Luzan's teaching. In the studios of Zaragoza 
the youthful Goya must have spent some of the happiest 
hours of his life. He found several congenial companions. 
Jose Beraton was a lad of his own age. Francisco Bayeu 
y Subias, the eldest of the three brothers, was an older 
man, having been born in Zaragoza in 1734. He was 
soon off to Rome, and Goya could have seen little of him. 
Ramon Bayeu, however, like Beraton and Goya, was born 
in 1746. Vallespin was about the same age, as also 
Antonio Martinez, destined to become a goldsmith. A 
third Bayeu was studying art and preparing for the 
priesthood at the same time. This fact, coupled with 
Luzan's ecclesiastical patrons and official connection with 
the Inquisition, suggests that his workshop may have had 
an air of pious if not prudish restraint. But, if popular 
tradition is to be believed, the tale was a different one 
when the students left the peaceful atelier for the crowded 
streets of Zaragoza. 

In his monograph upon Velazquez, the late R. A. M. 
Stevenson draws upon his youthful recollections to 
illustrate one phase of Spanish life. " Many old men, 
reared in the puritanical and hypocritical Edinburgh of 
the past, could tell you the private, reactionary effect 
of that life of repression and humbug upon a decent, 
genuine man. That you may not think at all, or act for 
yourself, is to add the zest of piracy to experiment in 
life and originality in thought. Where public profession 
is manifestly a lie, and public manners a formal exaggera- 



GOYA'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 51 

tion, life becomes a chest with a false bottom, which opens 
into a refuge for the kindlier, wiser, and more ardent 
among human beings. As much as Spain, the Court, and 
the priest, asked of man in those days, so much you may 
be sure did the courageous individual repay himself in the 
freedom of private life, and in the audacity of private 
thought." These sentences are so truthfully put that 
they form in many respects a master-key to the discussion 
of Goya's character. The harsh creed of Scottish Calvinism 
was not less onerous to the bohemian soul than the strict 
rule of the Catholic Church in Spain to the lawlessly 
disposed artist. The brilliant critic was able to explain 
with some personal feeling an atmosphere of repression 
which is foreign to English life. 

It is easy to believe that the young art-student, like 
Byron's Childe Harold, chased the glowing hours with 
flying feet. There was plenty of amusement in Zaragoza. 
To this day, the old city, although shorn of all its privi- 
leges, and deteriorated from the capital of a kingdom 
to the chief town of a province, is far from dull. When 
the burning sun has disappeared, and the citizens stroll 
out in the cool night air, the streets quickly become 
crowded, the cafes are densely packed, and the lively 
rhythms of piano and guitar ring from the open windows. 
Zaragoza has not forgotten the habits of its Moorish 
conquerors, and still retains many of the customs of the 
orient. Joy grows with the night, and the city does 
not sink to rest until long after midnight. 

In Zaragoza Goya became a clever musician. There 
were also sterner pleasures, and he appears to have added 
swordsmanship to his other accomplishments. The city 
was militantly religious, and animated by the fiercest 



52 FRANCISCO GOYA 

sectional rivalries. The partizans of the two cathedrals, 
La Seo and El Pilar, were so tenacious of their respective 
rights that the only solution was to share alternately 
the predominance for periods of six months. Then 
each parish fought for supremacy with its neighbours. 
Each church had its special festivals, which could only 
be celebrated by public procession.* The religiously 
inclined trailed their piety, like an Irish coat, through the 
streets of the city, and days of holy excitement ended in 
sanguinary encounters. Tradition says that Goya was 
more often than not engaged in defending the glory of 
his parish. Francisco Zapater contradicted these stories,! 
which he asserts were invented by the French biographers, 
Matheron and Yriarte. The latter writes that Goya 
captained the battle on behalf of the partizans of the 
cathedral church of Our Lady of the Pillar : the opposing 
band represented the parish of San Luis, and the fight 
took place by the Ebro on the lower side of the town. 
Many were wounded, and three bodies were left on the 
field of honour.J Francisco Zapater appears to base his 
denial upon the fact that the parish of San Luis did not 
exist at the time. But we must recognise that many of 
his statements are inexact, and undoubtedly savage 
conflicts did take place in Zaragoza. In August, 1792, 

* These religious processions were famous. " In October, crowds 
come to pay their respects to the Madonna. Their processions are 
very singular ; the women appear in masquerade dresses ; the men 
on horseback ; the children naked." So writes the Marquis de Langle, 
and I believe that, though he wrote from hearsay and gossip, many of 
his facts are not far from the truth. 

f Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 8. 

{ Yriarte : Goya, p. 13. 

Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 8. 



GOYA'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 53 

the fight was so severe that seven combatants were 
slaughtered.* 

The tradition that Goya fled from his native city because 
of his active participation in these murderous feuds is too 
strong to be swept aside. The Holy Office was moved 
to action, for the affair had become a scandal to the city 
and a blot upon its religious life. The young art-student 
was marked as a notorious ringleader, and this distinc- 
tion agrees with all we know of Goya's hot and impulsive 
temper. Through his master Luzan, who was officially 
connected with the avenging powers, the culprit probably 
received early warning of his fate. There was small 
chance of appeal against so influential a body. Con el 
Rey y con la Inquisition, chiton, says the Spanish proverb. 
' With regard to the King and the Inquisition be silent." 
Goya slipped through the hands of the familiars, and 
reached Madrid. 

He had lived six years in the capital of Aragon, if we may 
believe Zapater's testimony, f Perhaps six years of active 
studentship would be a more correct description, if 
Vinaza's researches are accepted as exact. Zapater cites 
the recollections of three old inhabitants of Zaragoza, 
Cenon Grasa and his wife Vicenta, and Thomas Goya's 
niece, to support his contention that Goya left Zaragoza 
in the normal course of his studies . J These reminiscences 
are so colourless that they mean very little. Mas mat hay 
en U Aldeguela del que gAsuena, is one of the proverbs of 
Spain which applies to the discussion. " There's more mis- 
chief in the village than comes to one's ears." Matheron 

* Yriarte : Goya, p. 13. 

f Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. u. 

J Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 10. 



54 FRANCISCO GOYA 

records that Jose Goya gave the boy twenty pounds, with 
the words, " My son, if you are wise this money will 
take you to Madrid and Rome." * The Count de Vifiaza 
also suggests that the parents sold some of their property 
to aid their son's career. f 

From a sad-faced childj he had developed into a bold- 
tempered and strongly built youth, who looked the world 
in the face without fear, and possessed an undeniable 
gift of personal attraction. He was nineteen years of age, 
had made many friends (notably Martin Zapater), and 
his removal to the capital could not have been long de- 
layed in any case. Of his professional attainments we 
know nothing, and this suggests that he had gained 
little reputation amongst his companions. In 1808, 
during one of his periodical visits to Zaragoza, an obliging 
friend brought out one of his earliest efforts, an altar- 
piece dealing with the miracle of the Virgin of the Pillar. 
The artist looked at it with no kindly eyes. 

" Don't tell anyone that I did that," was his disgusted 
comment. 

* Matheron : Goya, chap. III. 
f Vifiaza : Adiciones al Diccionario historico. 
% Zapater : Noticias biograficas, p. 10. 
Zapater : Noticias biograficas, p. n. 



CHAPTER IV 

GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID, 1765-1769 

Little exact Information. Description of Madrid by Contemporary 
Travellers. Spanish Inns. The Insurrection of 1766. Active Foreign 
Element. The Aristocracy in Madrid. Goya and Francisco Bayeu. 
Rafael Mengs. The Art Theories of Winckelmann. Goya studies the Old 
Masters. Mengs and Sir Joshua Reynolds. His Appreciation of Velaz- 
quez. Goya devoted to Pleasure. He is found dangerously wounded. 
His Friends smuggle him out of the City. He is said to have joined 
the Bull-fighters. Goes to Rome. 

GOYA'S first residence in Madrid lasted some three 
or four years. So little is known about his 
doings that we cannot state whether or no he 
remained in the capital the whole time. His genius was of 
slow growth, and he did not reveal any sign of future cele- 
brity. None of his work is to be dated so early, and to 
some extent it may be surmised that he was an idle appren- 
tice. We can only attempt to recreate the atmosphere in 
which his art and individuality were gradually evolved. 

To this day Madrid appears remote from the rest of 
the world. It is not on the travellers' high road from one 
country to another. It does not offer the social delights of 
Paris, or the historical attractions which make the cities 
of Italy so fascinating to the tourist. Indeed, the lover 
of antiquity will deem it the last city of Spain to visit 
rather than the first. Arbitrarily selected by Charles V. 
as a seat of government because the air suited his gouty 



56 FRANCISCO GOYA 

disposition, it has never become pre-eminently the business 
centre of the nation, and its supremacy has been chal- 
lenged more than once by towns of greater commercial 
importance and richer historical tradition. Unhealthy, 
and difficult of access, Madrid has retained its position as 
the chief city of Spain because it has continued to be the 
most important home of the monarch, and the centre of 
administrative power. Of natural advantages it pos- 
sesses few. Even the river upon which it stands requires 
a careful voyage of discovery.* Until recent years, with 
the exception of the palace, the public buildings did not 
rise above provincial mediocrity. It is easy to agree 
with Stirling-Maxwell that " the royal residence at Madrid 
is perhaps the finest existing example of a Bourbon 
palace . . . Rising proudly, in a grand white mass, from 
its airy terraces, the new palace is the chief object which 
arrests the eye on approaching Madrid, and invests it 
with somewhat of the dignity of a metropolitan city." 
But it is by no means distinctively Spanish. " In the 
sentiment which it awakens, and in the style of its decora- 
tions, both without and within, it belongs to that Italian 
architecture, embellished according to the florid taste 
of France, which arose at Versailles, and overspread 
Europe in the last century." Sachetti's huge pile was 
ever before the eyes of the young Goya. Upon every side 
the arts were under the bonds of foreign influence. 
Native artists forgot the glories of Spanish art during the 
seventeenth century, and were only happy when imitating 

* The Manzanares may be in flood sometimes. All the writer saw 
was the merest trickle. The size of this stream has always been a 
joke. The inhabitants of Madrid were nicknamed the Ballenatos, or 
whalemen, from the story that they mistook a mule's saddle floating 
along their river, when in flood, for a whale. 




A BLIND MAN SINGING 
After the etching in the British Museum 



GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 57 

the lesser masters of the Watteau school, or the sprawling 
monsters of the decadence in Italy. Goya was the first 
to set aside these weaknesses, and, although he failed 
to establish a new school, he remains the one distinctively 
national painter of his age. To appreciate his work we 
must know a little about the world which surrounded 
him. 

The truest impressions of Madrid in the late eighteenth 
century can be obtained from the memoirs of the few 
English and French travellers who crossed the Pyrenees, 
either as diplomatic representatives, or, more rarely 
still, searchers after the strange. When the first Lord 
Malmesbury (then James Harris, a commoner) journeyed 
south to join the British embassy in 1768, he made every 
effort to reach Madrid without delay. But although he 
rested only twenty-four hours at Bordeaux, and hardly 
so long at Bayonne, the voyage from Paris to Madrid 
occupied exactly twenty-six days. Such painful travelling 
did not invite visitors. The roads were bad, often mere 
bridle tracks which could only be safely traversed by the 
sure feet of mules. " Except at the Carolina in the Sierra 
Morena, and for a few leagues about Madrid, I have never 
seen any made roads," writes one traveller. The accom- 
modation of the inns was atrocious, and became a by- 
word throughout Europe. Major Dalrymple gives a 
vivid impression of a country posada. " Our apartment, 
which had a flagged floor, was furnished with two broken 
chairs, a small table, and a picture of our Saviour on the 
Cross. There was a square hole cut out of the wall, that 
served to let in the light and air ; there were two pieces of 
old deal put together, and intended for a shutter, but 
did not cover half the space. This sumptuous lodging, 



58 FRANCISCO GOYA 

together with the use of a few kitchen utensils, and straw 
for the cattle, were all the comforts we had to expect in 
the posada. We had brought a ham along with us, and 
the village afforded a few eggs, a light white wine, with 
barley for our cattle." * The major was lucky to have 
his ham, and his travels contain some weird descriptions 
of the old Spanish cuisine. As Sancho Panza explained 
to Doctor Pedro Recio Aguero of Tirteafuera, " I am 
accustomed to goat, cow, bacon, hung beef, turnips, and 
onions. Serve me with olla podrida, and the rottener it 
is the better it smells. And let the cook put into it 
whatever he likes, so long as it is good to eat." Major 
Dalrymple complains that his salads were made with 
lamp oil. He was fortunate to find a salad. When Don 
Quixote and Sancho Panza were travelling to Zaragoza 
they rested at an inn, and Sancho commanded supper. 
' What have you ? " asked he. 

' Your mouth is the measure," replied the landlord. 
" Ask what you will. The inn is provided with the birds 
of the air, and the fowls of the earth, and the fish of the 
sea." 

" A couple of chickens ? " suggested Sancho. 

The landlord was sorry. The hawks had stolen all the 
chickens. 

" Roast a pullet ? " 

" Pullet ! I sent more than fifty to the city yesterday. 
But saving pullets, ask what you will." 

" Have you any veal or goat ? " 

" At the moment it's all finished. But next week there 
will be enough and to spare." 

* Travels through Spain and Portugal in 1774, by Major William. 
Dalrymple. London, 1777, p. 94. 



GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 59 

" Bacon and eggs ? " cried Sancho. 

" You must be precious dull. If I have neither pullets 
nor hens how can I give you eggs ? Talk of other dainties 
if you please, but don't ask for hens again." 

" Body o' me, let's settle the matter. Say at once 
what you have got, and let us have no more words about 
it." 

" In truth and earnest, senor guest, all I have is a couple 
of cow-heels like calves' feet, or a couple of calves' feet 
like cow-heels. They are boiled with chick-peas, onion, 
and bacon, and at this moment they are crying, ' Come eat 
me, come eat me ! " 

Sancho marked them for his own. " I don't care a pin 
whether they are feet or heels." The landlord explained 
that persons of quality brought their own cook and larder, 
not surprising news. Away from the towns the Spain of 
Cervantes was little different from the Spain of Goya, and 
this miniature of a Spanish inn helps us to realise the 
daily adventures of the artist. For Goya mixed with 
every condition of man, and had a decided partiality for 
company which may be " low " but is always curiously 
fascinating. 

The first view of Madrid in the days of Charles III. 
and his successor was far from inspiriting. Major William 
Dalrymple, who toured through Spain from Gibraltar 
in 1774, speaks of the capital as " surrounded with a 
kind of mud wall, with gates at different avenues ; it is 
enclosed, with a view to prevent the introduction of the 
various articles of subsistence, etc., without paying the 
impost." Madrid, with its " kind of mud wall," compared 
unfavourably with the glories of Seville, the unbroken and 
frowning bastions of Avila, which father all the legends 



60 FRANCISCO GOYA 

of Old Castile, or the fortified heights of Toledo, that town 
of fantasy. Yet the comparison seems to place Madrid 
in its typical position amongst the cities of Spain. The 
capital was as devoid of character as the Bourbon kings 
who ruled over it. If any suggestion was made for im- 
provement, the answer came pat : " Quiere V. M. com- 
poner el mundo ?" " Do you wish to reform the world ? " 

Major Dalrymple gives some valuable descriptions of 
Madrid at this period of Goya's life in the capital. ' The 
houses here are chiefly brick. Those of the nobility are 
plastered and painted on the outside. The vestiges of 
jealousy are still to be seen ; rejas, or large iron grates, 
are placed at every window. Some of the houses are 
very lofty, five, six, or seven stories, particularly in the 
plaza major, which is a large square, where the royal bull- 
fights are held. The middling people live on separate 
floors, as at Edinburgh, which renders the one common 
entrance to many families very dirty and disagreeable. 
The portals are the receptacles for every kind of filth." 
The inhabitants had retained many Moorish habits, 
neither picturesque nor sanitary. In dress they had 
partially followed French fashions, although in the country 
the old habits continued. The women wore mantillas, 
but since an insurrection which took place in 1766 no 
man was allowed to wear a flapped hat.* 

Did Goya take part in this mimic revolution ? If he 
was living in Madrid at the time we may be sure that his 
ardent soul pushed him to the front of the battle. The 
cause of the dispute was quite parochial, and ostensibly 

* They were supposed to favour crime and assassination. For the 
full history of the rising see Coxe's Memoirs of the Kings of Spain, Vol. 
IV., chap. 64. 



GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 61 

concerned the paving and lighting of the streets, and the 
decree forbidding flapped hats and long coats. The 
palace was besieged with all the etiquette of war. " At 
the time of that commotion the mob regularly took their 
siesta, and then returned to their different places of 
rendezvous. Government was so sleepy that it also did 
the same, so that there seemed to be a convention between 
administration and the people for a few hours every day. " 

This rising provoked considerable comment, and Lord 
Malmesbury also refers to it. But it is difficult to take 
seriously a revolution in which both sides, with dignified 
courtesy, forbear to irritate their enemies during the heat 
of the day.* 

Dalrymple noted, and the fact is valuable in any sur- 
vey of Spanish art at this period, that the chief activity 
of the city was confined to the foreign element. "This 
town swarms with French and Italian manufacturers and 
shopkeepers. If one hears of an artist, one is sure to find 
him a foreigner, for the arts have made but little progress 
amongst the natives." Indeed the Madrilenos were 
rather an idle race. " The part of their character we are 
most deceived in is of their being serious," wrote the 
ambassador, Malmesbury. " I never met a nation more 
fond of amusements, and which pursues them with more 
avidity. The people are gay beyond conception." The 
town supported a bull-ring and two theatres. During 
the carnival the masquerades were crowded. Charles 
III., an essentially pious man, set his face against bull- 
fighting and public dancing, but both amusements 

* Turenne once took advantage of this national characteristic, and, 
by moving his troops during the siesta of his Spanish adversaries, won 
a battle. But it was hardly a sportsmanlike action. 



62 FRANCISCO GOYA 

flourished. During Lent the whole aspect of the city 
changed, for forty days the playhouses were shut, and 
the only recreations officially recognised were puppet- 
shows, acrobats, and rope-dancers. Lord Malmesbury, 
writing in 1768, tells us what the streets were like when 
Goya walked abroad. " During Holy Week, those of the 
Court and of the better sort dress themselves in black 
velvet, with flame-coloured waistcoats, and sleeves 
trimmed with gold. The ladies also are clothed in the 
same manner. The bourgeoisie, supposed to be occupied 
in acts of devotion, leave their shops and work, and pass 
the whole week in the streets. 

" From Friday to Sunday no coaches are allowed to be 
used ; the grandee-men go on horseback, and the grandee- 
women in sedan chairs. The parade both of the one and 
the other does not carry with it an air of humiliation. 
They are generally attended, the one by led horses, 
ecuyers, grooms, etc., the other, by numberless pages and 
footmen." * Major Dalrymple adds some curious details. 
" Not a woman gets into a coach to go a hundred yards, 
nor a postillion on his horse, without crossing themselves ; 
even the tops of tavern bills, and the directions of letters, 
are marked with crosses. There are eternal processions 
in the streets, which the people are very fond of, and the 
clergy take care to encourage." These years marked the 
close of the old mediaeval life which surrounded the boy- 
hood of Goya. The Irish traveller saw signs of change. 
' Though the clergy must have considerable power in this, 
as well as every other country, yet it has been much 
reduced of late years." Charles III., essentially a respecter 
of the Church and a good Christian, realised the necessity 
* Diaries and Correspondence of the ist Earl of Malmesbury. 




Photo. Lacostc 



A CARNIVAL SCENE 
The burial of the Sardine. Prado, Madrid 



GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 63 

for change and was steadily endeavouring to recapture 
for the State much of the temporal power which had been 
usurped by the Church. At this period it was computed 
that Spain contained about 54,000 friars, 34,000 nuns, 
and 20,000 secular clergy. The whole population of the 
kingdom was not much more than 10,000,000.* 

The Academy of San Fernando had been founded in 
June, 1752, and Goya may have worked with its pupils. 
But there is no documentary evidence of his enrolment, 
and, when he settled in Rome, he was not counted amongst 
the pupils who received a subvention from the State. 
Probably he assisted Francisco Bayeu y Subias, who, 
after leaving Zaragoza, had worked in Rome, and then 
returned to Madrid, where he was soon attached in an 
official capacity to the Court. Francisco Bayeu was 
considerably older than Goya, and already a man of some 
importance in the artistic life of the city. To him Goya 
probably owed his introduction to Rafael Mengs, who 
ruled the art world of Madrid as Pompeo Battoni con- 
trolled the same circles of Rome. 

Fame has dealt harshly with this son of Bohemia, who 
was educated in Dresden. Anton Rafael Mengs was a 
man of an extreme talent which nearly approached genius. 
In 1741, at the age of fourteen, he went to Rome, and, 
like many another painter, his art suffered. He became 
the slave of theories rather than the student of nature. 
To adopt Richard Muther's telling phrase, he was 
" poisoned " by Winckelmann, that pedant who had 
laid down as indisputable dogma the statement : ' The 
sole means for us to become ay, if possible, inimitably 
great is the imitation of the ancients." This had been 
* The census of 1787 returned a population of 10,268,150. 



64 FRANCISCO GOYA 

published by Winckelmann in his Thoughts upon the 
Imitation of Greek Works, issued about 1755. In his History 
of Ancient Art (1764) he compared the tendencies of the 
art around him to the masterpieces of Athens and Rome. 
" If Holbein had studied, and been able to imitate the 
works of the ancients, he might even have become as great 
as Raphael, Correggio, and Titian ; yes, he might have 
surpassed them." The Dutch were ignoble, and " aped 
mean nature." Rembrandt he detested ; Watteau was 
an ugly " realist." Gerard de Lairesse was one of the 
greatest painters of all time, that Gerard of Liege who 

showed our sky 

Traversed by flying shapes, earth stocked with brood 
Of monsters, centaurs bestial, satyrs lewd, 
Not without much Olympian glory, shapes 
Of god and goddess in their gay escapes 
From the severe serene : or haply placed 
The antique ways, god-counselled, nymph-embraced.* 

And Winckelmann delighted in the archaeological detail 
of the pictures by this " Olympian glory." In describing 
one, he writes : ' The face of Seleucus is taken from 
profiles of the best heads on the medals, the vases are 
devised after the best works of antiquity, the trestle 
before the bed he makes, like Homer, of ivory, the back- 
ground represents a splendid Greek temple, the sphynxes 
on the bed are an allegory of medical research." And, as 
Richard Muther points out, Winckelmann had a crowd 
of disciples, who believed with their master that the Greek 
statues were the ideal study for the painter. " In Greek 
sculpture the painter can attain to the most sublime con- 
ception of beauty, and learn what he must lend to nature 

* Robert Browning : Parleyings with certain people of importance in 
their day. " With Gerard de Lairesse." 



GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 65 

in order to give dignity and propriety to his imitation," 
wrote Solomon Gesner in 1759. And in 1762, Hagedorn, 
who also came from Dresden, deplored in his Treatise on 
Painting that " Terburg and Metsu never showed us fair 
Andromache amongst her industrious women, instead of 
Dutch sempstresses." 

Mengs, although eleven years younger than Winckel- 
mann, had been in the closest friendship with that archaeo- 
logist and historian, and his remarkable technical powers 
allowed him to carry out his mentor's theories in practice. 
His skill over his material was probably equal to that of 
any of his contemporaries and he lived during the age 
of Reynolds and Gainsborough in England, of Boucher 
and Fragonard in France. Few boys of sixteen have 
ever rivalled his extraordinary facility. Before he came 
under the sway of Winckelmann and the Greek revival 
his personal sympathies must have tended towards the 
Baroque, a style which raged through early eighteenth- 
century Germany like a pestilence. Mengs spent the 
best years of his life in Rome, and during a journey to 
Naples was presented to the reigning monarch of that 
house, who afterwards ascended the throne of Spain as 
Charles III. An invitation to Madrid quickly followed 
his patron's accession, and Mengs became a pontiff 
from whose decrees there was no appeal. 

The young Goya spent much of his leisure amongst 
the royal pictures. To-day the masterpieces collected 
by Philip II. and his successors have been brought to- 
gether under one roof in the Prado. A century and a half 
ago they were scattered throughout the palaces, the 
Escorial, Aranjuez, the Casa del Campo. Through the 
Court influence of Bayeu, Goya was undoubtedly free to 

F 



66 FRANCISCO GOYA 

examine them. In no city in Europe could he have 
found such a collection of chefs-d'ceuvre, and in the 
twentieth century the Prado is certainly still one of the 
most fascinating museums on the continent. The palaces 
were crowded with examples of the Flemish and Dutch 
schools, and assuredly some of the masters appealed to 
Goya's taste. " Hell " Brueghel attracted him in subject 
rather than in style. David Teniers had a potent influence 
upon the mind of a youth who was to conceive so many 
scenes of sorcery and devil-worship. Jeronimo Bosch's 
fantastic inventions were not forgotten when the caprices 
came to be etched upon the copper. The portraits of 
the German and Flemish schools were clearly studied 
with much attention. The influence of the two magnifi- 
cent Diirers is less apparent in the portrait work of Goya 
than that of the marvellous Old man by Holbein. 
The Italian schools were supremely represented. Ra- 
phael's Pearl, the Holy Family which passed from the 
collection of Charles I. of England to the Monastery of 
the Escorial, was less appealing than the portraits of 
Andrea Navagero and the Cardinal Alidorio. Religious 
art never appealed strongly to Goya. Then were to be 
seen the magnificent succession of Tintorettos which had 
escaped the fire in the Alcazar in 1734. There are thirty- 
four examples of Tintoretto now in tne Prado, and most of 
them were then housed in Madrid. The Titians, brought 
together by the three Philips, included the equestrian 
Charles V., the Bacchanal, which sums up the whole 
spirit of Italy, and the glorious Offering to the Goddess of 
Love. The works of Veronese covered the walls of all 
the royal palaces. Indeed, out of Venice, the Venetian 
school could and can be best studied in Madrid. 



GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 67 

The last of the great Venetians, Gian Battista Tiepolo, 
was actually at work in the royal palace from 1762 to 
1770, and some of his most brilliant decorations adorn ! 
Sachetti's building. The influence of Tiepolo upon 
Goya may be more fitly discussed when we come to the 
frescoes of San Antonio de Florida. Lastly, amongst 
the treasures of the palaces, were the canvases of the 
Spanish school. That Goya was a humble pupil of 
Velazquez is evident in all his work. Charles Yriarte 
says that at this moment of his career he copied the 
Menippus and the Socrates, and 'that his copies were 
decidedly bad.* Probably he studied Velazquez more 
searchingly upon his return from Rome, when he com- 
menced to etch the subjects. 

Meanwhile every young artist who wished to succeed 
had to cultivate the goodwill of Rafael Mengs. The 
Bohemian was not a man to suffer argument or contra- 
diction. Sir Joshua Reynolds refers to him in the sixth 
Academy discourse, delivered December 10, 1774. " I 
remember, several years ago, to have conversed at Rome 
with an artist of great fame throughout Europe ; he was 
not without a considerable degree of abilities, but those 
abilities were by no means equal to his own opinion of 
them. From the reputation he had acquired, he too 
fondly concluded that he stood in the same rank when 
compared with his predecessors, as he held with regard 
to his miserable contemporary rivals. In conversation 
about some particulars of the works of Raffaelle, he 
seemed to have, or to affect to have, a very obscure 
memory of them. He told me that he had not set his 
foot in the Vatican for fifteen years together ; that he 
* Yriarte : Goya, p. 14. 



68 FRANCISCO GOYA 

had been in treaty to copy a capital picture of Raffaelle, 
but that the business had gone off ; however, if the agree- 
ment had held, his copy would have greatly exceeded 
the original." And Sir Joshua did not hide his own 
opinion of Mengs (for this paragraph can only apply to 
him) : " the merit of this artist, however great we may 
suppose it, I am sure would have been far greater, and 
his presumption would have been far less, if he had 
visited the Vatican, as in reason he ought to have done, 
at least once every month of his life." 

Sir Joshua advocated a careful study of nature in 
conjunction with the works of the great masters.* But 

* Whether or no Sir Joshua practised his own doctrine is another 
matter. Mr. William Rothenstein in his little volume on Goya, pub- 
lished in 1900, refers to Reynolds' study of nature, and the passage is too 
interesting to omit. " A general tendency amongst English painters 
has been, I think, with few notable exceptions, to seek inspiration from 
pictures rather than from Nature. The influence Hogarth might have 
exercised was quickly overridden by that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
whose erudition and passion for pictures, and genuine dislike of all 
he did not consider to be sufficiently sublime in life, whose high stan- 
dard of excellence, and distinguished personality, earned for him a 
position no artist had hitherto held in England. The veriest hint 
from Nature sufficed him for his pictures, and if he was a little too 
familiar with beauty, it was at least this lack of humility which 
enabled him to hand down to posterity a host of beautiful women and 
distinguished gentlemen, with glimpses of poetic scenery behind 
them." In the thirteenth edition of the Catalogue of the Wallace Collec- 
tion (1913) the most readable and engrossing catalogue of any public 
gallery in Europe there is a curious note about a portrait of Don 
Baltasar Carlos, after Velazquez, which came from the Reynolds col- 
lection. Quoting Reynolds' pupil, Northcote (p. 189 of his Life], we 
are told : " It was a particular pleasure to Sir Joshua when he got 
into his hands any damaged pictures by some eminent old master ; 
and he has very frequently worked upon them with great advantage, 
and has often made them, both in effect and colour, vastly superior 
to what they had ever been in their original state. For instance, 
with respect to one picture by Velazquez, a full-length portrait of 
Philip IV. of Spain when a boy [an obvious mistake for Prince 



GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 69 

he did not forget to add that even the masters were to be 
studied with suspicion, for great men were sometimes 
exempt from great thoughts. Goya knew little of 
Reynolds or his work ; and the Discourses hardly pene- 
trated to Madrid. Mengs's writings, on the contrary, 
were translated into most European languages, and as 
the young Aragonese was able to listen to Mengs's conver- 
sation we know exactly what he heard. Art was divided 
methodically into sections, and labelled as the sublime, 
the beautiful, the graceful, the expressive, the natural, 
the vitiated, and the easy. Examples of the sublime 
were to be found in the Apollo Belvidere, the paintings 
of Raphael and Michel Angelo, Annibale Carraci, and 
Dominici Zampieri ; the beautiful was to be found in 
Raphael, Annibale, Albani, and Guido ; the graceful in- 
cluded Correggio and Parmegiano, with a passing reference 
to the " inelegancy " of Raphael, who was, however, cited 

Baltasar Carlos], I well remember, when I entered his painting room 
one day, and saw this picture, he said to me : ' See, there is a fine 
picture by Velazquez.' I looked at it and greatly admired it, and with 
much simplicity said : ' Indeed it is very fine ; and how exactly it is in 
your own manner, Sir Joshua ! ' Yet it never entered into my mind 
that he had touched upon it, which was really the fact, and particularly 
on the face." The writer of the catalogue adds that an examination 
of the picture (No. 4, in Gallery XVI.) confirms the story, though the 
repainting affects the face less than some other parts. The shadow 
round the jaws has been worked upon the forehead and the hair, 
which has lost its form ; the left hand is now pure Reynolds ; but 
it is chiefly on the background, as the cracks alone would prove, that 
he has repainted. To the right of the original was a table with a 
black hat upon it, and beyond that a gray piece of wall. Reynolds 
seems to have taken the dark patch of the hat as defining the shape 
of the table in a curve ; has made the wall a sort of mantelpiece with 
a little book lying on it, and has broken a second curtain across it. 
Sir Joshua objected to Mengs improving Raphael, but did not scruple 
to put Velazquez through the same process. But then Velazquez 
was not a sacrosanct Old Master in the eighteenth century. 



70 FRANCISCO GOYA 

as a perfect model for the expressive style. The natural 
style gave Mengs more trouble. One paragraph displays, 
amidst some crudities of thought, an appreciation of 
the greatest genius of Spanish art which even Reynolds 
did not share. In speaking of the " natural style," 
Mengs said : " Though painting in general is intended 
to give us an idea of nature, I distinguish under this 
arrangement of styles, those works in which the artist 
only proposes to himself that simple and sole idea, without 
any alteration or preference, of the most exquisite objects 
of nature itself. Thus, I mean, to be understood in 
speaking of painters, who attach themselves to simple 
nature, not having had the talent to enrich the object 
before them, or giving preference to its best objects, but 
have only imitated such objects as casually occurred to 
them, or may be found and observed every day. 

" I think I may compare this manner of the art with 
that of poetry, respecting the comic muse, who avails 
herself of poetic numbers, without the aid of poetic ideas ; 
some Dutchmen and Flemings have excelled in this line, 
such as Rembrandt, Gerard Dou, Teniers, and others ; 
but the best examples of it may be produced from the 
works of Velazquez, and if Titian was superior to this 
last in colouring, Velazquez had greatly the advantage 
of him in his disposition of light and shade, as well as 
aerial perspective, which are principal requisites in this 
style of painting, since these convey very just ideas of the 
reality ; as no natural objects can be supposed to exist 
without some bulk and distance from each other, but 
they may have a more or less brilliant colour. Whosoever 
wishes to find a more perfect solution of this truth than 
is to be observed in the works of Velazquez may see it in 



GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 71 

nature herself ; but its principal parts he will always 
meet in the works of this great master." * This is one 
of the earliest critical appreciations of Velazquez ; and 
although the Bohemian and the Spaniard looked at art 
from vastly different standpoints, their likes and dislikes 
were much the same. Velazquez told Salvator Rosa : 
" Raphael, to be plain with you, for I prefer to be candid 
and outspoken, does not please me at all. . . It is Titian 
that bears the banner." Indeed the criticism of Rafael 
Mengs approaches that of R. A. M. Stevenson. ' Velaz- 
quez uses tone as an important element in his composition ; 
that, in fact, he utilises the expression of space as well as 
the expression of form to give character to his picture." 
And again : ' Velazquez relies on tone, on the magic of 
true light, on delicate adjustments of proportion between 
masses ... he gives a sense of intimacy by gradations 
of tone rather than by fixed contours."! Mengs proved 
his critical discrimination in his admiration of Velazquez, 
but his practice failed because he placed Nature second 
if not third or fourth rather than first. " Painting 
never existed as an art in any country prior to its estab- 
lishment under the Greeks, nor ever rose to a higher pitch 
than it did amongst those people." The painter who 
could write such nonsense was hopeless, despite his 
occasional acumen. 

These pages are valuable because they give some idea 
of the conversations in the studios of Madrid when Goya 
was a youth. That he took his part in the debates we 
may feel sure : he was always keenly interested in every 

* Quoted from the English translation of Mengs's critical works 
published in 1796. 

f R. A. M. Stevenson : Velazquez, 1900. 



72 FRANCISCO GOYA 

aspect of his art. His celebrity, however, as an artist 
was not so great as his notoriety in other respects. Al- 
though Yriarte's statements are traversed by Zapater, 
we believe the French biographer to be near the truth 
when he asserts that Goya had, to some extent, the re- 
putation of a roystering bully who was alwaj^s ready for 
a fight or a dissipation, who was not insensible to the 
charms of a sparkling eye and a red lip, and did not fear 
the dangers which surrounded a too ardent admiration. 
Goya was an expert swordsman, and as willing to display 
his skill as any member of the forty-five musketeers. He 
was also a fine musician, a gift as acceptable in the 
boudoir as in the studio. " He resuscitated the tradi- 
tions of the Renaissance, and became the leader of the 
young Aragonese colony in Madrid, which later supported 
the Count d'Aranda. Already he had gained popularity 
by his vivacity, his character, and his audacity." * 

Audacity is not always successful. One night Goya was 
picked from the ground by his Aragonese followers with 
a dagger in his back. Again he had given cause for 
scandal, and the Inquisition issued an order for his arrest. 
Where he recovered from his wound we do not know, 
but his friends evidently got him safely out of Madrid. 
It was time he went to Rome, but he had little or no 
money, and could count upon no official protection. 
Tradition, based upon the anecdotes handed down by the 
Spanish students in Rome, comes to our aid. Goya is 
said to have made his way through the south of Spain as 
a bull-fighter. His passion for the ring was equalled by 

* Yriarte : Goya, p. 15. Aranda, of course, was from Aragon. 
Rich and poor, the natives of that province appear to have kept 
close company, and they firmly helped each other. 



F 




GOYA'S FIRST VISIT TO MADRID 73 

his knowledge of its laws, and how deep that was we 
can tell from the plates of the Tauromaquia. In a letter 
cited by Zapater he signed his name Francisco de los Toros. 
There is every reason to believe that Goya shared the 
delights, and the dangers, of the banderillas and the 
toreadors, before he left Spain for Italy. Some bio- 
graphers say that by these exploits in the arena he 
earned the money to pay his passage to the Eternal City. 



CHAPTER V 

STUDENT DAYS IN ROME, 1769-1771 

Goya's Arrival in 1769. A great Religious Procession. Carnival Scenes. 
The Spanish Colony of Artists. His Friendship with David dis- 
proved. An Invitation to Russia. Foolhardy Exploits. A Portrait of 
the Pope. Wins a Prize from the Academy of Parma. His Irregular Life 
in Rome. Attempts to abduct a Nun. Under Sentence of Death. Is set 
free upon condition that he leaves the City. Re-appears in Zaragoza. 

OF Goya's life and work in Italy we have little 
exact information. He appears to have arrived 
in 1769, probably early in the year. Zapater 
disposes of the whole journey in a short paragraph,* upon 
which Yriarte bases a statement that the artist did not 
return to Spain until 1774. f But Valerian von Loga 
quotes letters clearly proving that Goya was resident 
in Zaragoza in the autumn of 17714 The archives of 
the cathedral of El Pilar, published by the Count de 
Vifiaza, show that the artist was in his home in October, 
1771. We are told that the sea voyage was so trying 
that upon his arrival in Rome he fell dangerously ill. 
His attraction of manner (one can hardly call it charm) 
came to his aid. He fell into the hands of an old woman, 

* Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 12. 
f Yriarte : Goya, p. 18. 

I Von Loga : Goya, Berlin, 1906, p. 15, quoted from Vinaza's life 
where the text is given in the Appendix. 



STUDENT DAYS IN ROME 75 

who cared for him so well that he quickly recovered.* 
Some biographers say that Goya was a man of robust 
health ; yet we find throughout his career periods of 
sudden, and in some cases prolonged, incapacity. That 
he had great powers of endurance, as well as much 
physical strength, need not be questioned, but there is 
more than a suspicion that during the active part of his 
life he was subject to nervous breakdown. 

Rome in the middle of the eighteenth century was the 
undisputed capital of the arts, and for the first time in 
his life the young Spaniard realised what art really meant 
in the social life of the community. Zaragoza, and 
even Madrid, must have seemed in retrospect sadly 
provincial. Rome was the first city in the world, and 
its citizens were proudly conscious of the advantages 
they had to offer. Society was brilliantly cosmopolitan, 
and the peculiar conditions of the Papal States intensi- 
fied an atmosphere of culture and luxury to which 
Europe could show no equal. . 

Pope Clement XIII. died on February 2, 1769. 
His successor, the monk Ganganelli, was conducted in 
state to the Lateran basilica on November 26th following, 
under the title of Clement XIV. Thus the opening of 
Goya's residence in the Eternal City was distinguished 
by a succession of public processions and parades which 
must have delighted the eyes of the excited artist. His 
native city was celebrated for its religious functions, but 
these were insignificant when compared to the triumphal 
progress from the Quirinale to the Lateran of the newly- 
elected successor to St. Peter. That Goya took full 
advantage of such sights cannot be questioned for a 
* Matheron : Goya, chap III. 



76 FRANCISCO GOYA 

moment. He must have fought for his place in the huge 
crowds which filled the narrow streets by the SS. Apostoli 
and Gesu and the Campidoglio, by the Aracceli, or in the 
Forum. David Silvagni draws a vivid picture of the 
scene. The balconies filled with ladies whose beauty 
was thought to be enhanced by powder and patches ; the 
faades of every palace on the route covered with price- 
less tapestries and carpets of the most exquisite textures ; 
the Palazzo Colonna decorated with trophies of arms 
captured in past days from the Turks ; the banner of the 
northern republic flying above the Palazzo Venezia ; the 
houses of the Doria, the Asti, the Cenci, the Malatesta, 
and a score of like noble names, enriched with hangings 
of red damask and gold lace. Then, as the gun on the 
ramparts of San Angelo gave the signal to the expectant 
city, the horsemen of the " Guardia di nostro Signore " 
opened a passage through the throng for a pageant of 
priests, noblemen, and high dignities of the Church, 
valigieri in scarlet cloaks, cavalry in crimson velvet, 
monsignori in purple, chamberlains in black, the Roman 
nobility in gala attire, the glory of which no pigment 
could dare to rival, Swiss Guards in yellow and black 
uniforms half-covered by steel cuirasses. And behind 
the pontifical cross rode Clement XIV. upon a white 
palfrey, attended by twenty-four pages in cloth of silver, 
followed by cardinals, patriarchs, and bishops, on mules 
harnessed in gold and purple. 

This was the magnificence of the official life of the 
city on the hills. Social manners and customs were 
equally fascinating. Goya witnessed one if not two carni- 
vals, when masqueraders scrambled up and down the 
Corso, triumphal cars were pulled along upon which the 



STUDENT DAYS IN ROME 77 

most beautiful women of the aristocracy postured in the 
scantiest costumes, every cry ceasing at the hour of Ave 
Maria on the Vigil of Ash Wednesday, when thousands 
of tiny candles burst into flame. Amidst wild shouts of 
" Abbasso il moccolo I " or " Sia ammazzato ! " the 
lights were extinguished, and if the revelry was con- 
tinued it was behind barricaded shutters. For Lent had 
commenced and the police of the Inquisition were ready 
to arrest the contumacious. " Next morning," to quote 
Silvagni, " the gay ladies who had figured as Venus, or 
Pallas, or Psyche, might have been seen in sable habili- 
ments, and covered with huge black cloaks, making 
their way to church, hearing mass, and confessing 
their sins with every orthodox sign of penitence." * 

Such was the society into which Goya had been thrown. 
He must have had a little money, although he was not 
amongst the Spanish students who received small pensions 
from their home government. Vinaza is convinced that 
Jose Goya sold his house in Zaragoza to support his son 
in Rome.f We are more inclined to believe with Matheron 
that the gilder sent the boy a few pounds, and told him 
to shift for himself with all the wisdom of which he was 
capable. | Besides, it is doubtful if Goya was ever able 
to keep money in his purse. Life had too ardent a call 
for him. The ducats must quickly have vanished in those 
streets of forbidding character between the Piazza di 
Spagna and the Corso, inhabited by artists' models and 
the attractive riff-raff of a cosmopolitan and wicked 
city. 

* Silvagni : La Corte e la Societa Romana nei secoli XVIII. e XIX. 
Florence, 1882-85. 

f Vinaza : Adiciones al Diccionario historico. 
j Matheron : Goya, chap. II. 



78 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Charles Yriarte's description of Goya's life in Rome 
should be near the truth, for the French critic had many 
of his facts from Don Jose de Madrazo, who knew Goya 
towards the close of his life. The pupils of the newly- 
established Academy of San Fernando of Madrid had 
hardly the status of the French students gathered 
together in the Villa Medici, and Goya had no official 
place of any description in the Spanish art colony. But 
he was a fellow-townsman of Bayeu, and probably worked 
in his studio and amongst his friends. Yriarte mentions 
other young Spaniards in Rome at this time, but their 
names mean little to the stranger. Zacharias Velazquez 
and Antonio Ribera are responsible for some of the 
traditions of Goya's residence in the city, but they 
could not have worked with him, for the first was born in 
1767 and the second twelve years later.* It is reasonable 
to believe that Goya saw much of the French art-students 
and very little of those from England. The latter sup- 
ported their national reputation upon the Continent for 
phlegm, and were rather a dull community if we accept 
contemporary evidence. Samuel Sharp wrote in 1766 : 
" It is with great pleasure I can tell you that the English 
students here, both in painting and sculpture, have great 
merit, and are a remarkable set of sober, modest men, 
who, by their decorum, and friendly manner of living 
amongst one another, do credit to their profession."! 
Baretti angrily criticised the truthfulness of Sharp's 
observations, and probably that somewhat self-satisfied 
and highly moral traveller was himself the cause of 
restraint in the English studios he visited. 

* Von Loga : Goya, p. 12. 

f Letters from Italy. London, 1767. 



STUDENT DAYS IN ROME 79 

Goya refused to submit to discipline, rule, or control 
whilst in Italy. He was a free-lance, and followed his 
own inclinations. He had not to justify his existence 
by evidence of work, as had the students of the Villa 
Medici or San Fernando. During the first year of his stay 
he did little painting. According to Yriarte he studied 
the quality of the Old Masters, rather than their form or 
design. He wandered from gallery to gallery, and pro- 
duced practically nothing.* Other art-students who follow 
the same course of instruction have been called idle, 
but it is more pleasant to agree with Yriarte, and imagine 
that Goya being a genius was busiest even when 
most inactive. 

He does not appear to have made any fresh friends. 
Matheron writes : "Of all the men he had known in 
Italy, Goya spoke in his old age chiefly of the painter 
David. For a short while they were in close intimacy, "f 
I am more disposed to credit some of the statements in 
Matheron's tiny volume than many of Goya's later 
biographers. Like Yriarte, Matheron must have known 
Madrazo, and he wrote within thirty years of Goya's 
death. But in this instance the old painter's conversa- 
tion must have been misreported. He could not possibly 
have met David in Rome, and it is difficult to suggest 
where he could have studied that artist's work.J 

Louis David competed for the Prix de Rome at the 
age of twenty-three, and failed four successive times. At 

* Yriarte : Goya, p. 16. 

t Matheron : Goya, chap. III. 

I Vinaza also says that Goya made the acquaintance of Louis David, 
and that in his old age his only remembrance of Italy was his friend- 
ship with the French artist. Did Vinaza base this on Matheron, or 
did Goya's tongue wander in his old age ? 



8o FRANCISCO GOYA 

the fifth attempt, in 1775, he took the prize and, as his 
master Vien was appointed director of the French Aca- 
demy at Rome the same summer, they travelled together 
to Italy, leaving Paris on October 2, 1775.* It is more 
than probable that Goya left Italy four years previously, 
and we can only accept Yriarte's and Lafond's statement 
that he remained until 1774 or 1775 upon the supposition 
of a second visit. This idea can scarcely be entertained, 
and does not explain an acquaintanceship with David, 
for Goya was certainly in Madrid during March, 1775, f 
and wrote a letter from the same capital to Martin Zapater 
dated September 6, 1775. Half a century later, when 
Goya visited Paris, David was in semi-exile in Brussels. 
The two men probably had a sympathy for each other, 
and had passed under similar influences. Although 
Matheron's sentence is so explicit it cannot be supported, 
and Goya must have been a personal stranger to the 
creator of the Rape of the Sabines and the Coronation of 
the Emperor. This destroys an elaborate structure of 
critical dissertation upon the influence of the French 
Conventional upon the Spanish sceptic. Goya's ad- 
vanced political tendencies can be explained in a sim- 
pler and more truthful fashion. 

But at Rome he was little more than a boy, and more 
interested in the wave of classicism which had swept south 
from Germany, than in the rights and wrongs of monarch- 
ism and the democracy. Maybe there was wild talk at 
the Villa Medici, and much denunciation of Louis XV. 
and his mistresses, who were devouring the wealth of 
France. The French students were always a source of 

* C. Saunier : Louis David, p. 15. 

f Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 12. 



STUDENT DAYS IN ROME 81 

trouble to the Papal authorities.* With regard to the 
Spaniards the case was different. No such scandals sur- 
rounded the Court of Madrid, and Charles III., although 
a Bourbon, led an existence free from the slightest moral 
stain. He endeavoured to deal with the abuses of the 
administration of which he was titular head, as Clement 
XIV. attempted to reform the Church. Both grappled 
with the Jesuits, and perhaps Charles III. had the greater 
success, for he died a natural death, which was not 
the fate of the Pontiff, f Goya's free-thought was symp- 
tomatic of the intellectual unrest of his time. The late 
eighteenth century was a period of transition, or rather 
upheaval, in every department of life. Dogmas that had 
become sacred more through tradition than belief were 
now critically examined and discarded. 

The storm had not yet gathered, and Goya's days in 
Rome were free from anxiety. He painted canvases 
representative of scenes of Spanish life, which found a 
ready sale amongst the visitors who flocked upon the seven 
hills. They attracted the attention of the Russian 
ambassador, probably Count Ivan Schuwalow, who had 

* E. J. Delecluze : David, p. 145. This was particularly so during 
the time of the Revolution, when the students conducted an active 
republican campaign and the leaders were obliged to fly across the 
papal frontier to preserve their lives. 

f Cardinal de Bernis wrote to his master, Louis XV. : " The nature 
of the Pope's illness, and all the circumstances attending his death, 
make everyone believe that it could not be natural." Three years 
later he referred to a private conversation with Pius VI. " The Pope 
has occasional moments of frankness, when he shows his real sentiments. 
I shall never forget one or two expressions he has allowed to escape 
in my hearing, from which I can guess that he is well acquainted with 
the unhappy end of his predecessor, and that he has no desire to run 
any risk of a similar fate." These rumours must have been well known 
to Goya, and account in some measure for his attitude towards the 
clergy. 

G 



82 FRANCISCO GOYA 

been commissioned by Catherine II. to send artists of 
talent to St. Petersburg to assist in her schemes for the 
improvement of Russian taste.* Proposals were made 
to Goya, but he was a child of the sun, and rejected any 
suggestion of settling in the bleak north, f With Charles 
Yriarte, we find it hard to imagine the sarcastic author 
of the Caprices becoming the courtier of a despotic 
Empress, and quietly submitting to the iron will of the 
Court on the Neva. 

Matheron writes that Goya's life at this period was 
solitary,! a statement unsupported by the traditions 
which have come down from other Spanish students in 
Italy. He seems to have been proud, vainglorious, and 
foolhardy. One day he crawled round the crumbling 
cornice of the Tomb of Cecilia Metella in the Campagna, 

... A stern round tower of other days. 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 
. . . Standing with half its battlements alone, 
And with two thousand years of ivy grown. 

The boyish feat commended itself to him and his com- 
panions by reason of its aimless danger. Perhaps it 
was this same monument he clambered up to cut his 
name above that of Vanloo. ' What a Frenchman can 
do, a Spaniard ought also to do," was his boast. Vanloo 
as Court painter to Philip V. could have been but a name 
to him, but the ill-feeling of this foreign appointment still 
rankled amongst Spanish artists. Upon a third occasion 
he climbed up the lantern of the dome of St. Peter's to 

* Yriarte, p. 16. Von Loga, p. n, 

f Matheron says he gave up the idea at the request of his parents, 
who did not wish to be parted from him for so long. 
J Matheron : Goya, chap. III. 
Yriarte : Goya, pp. 17, 18. 



STUDENT DAYS IN ROME 83 

cut his name upon a stone no man had reached since the 
builders had struck their scaffolding. There was a story 
that Poussin had tried to perform the same deed, and 
Goya, full of patriotism, wished to surpass him. The 
feat was perhaps rendered less perilous by the little 
iron foot supports for the use of the workmen who decor- 
ated the dome at Easter, but their task was always 
recognised as one of extreme danger. There was an 
emulous spirit abroad at this period, when every young 
soul aspired to the skies. Von Loga draws a parallel 
between Goya at Rome and Goethe scaling the steeple 
at Strasburg, almost in the same year. 

Tradition relates that, amongst other works, Goya 
painted a portrait of Pope Benedict XIV. Valerian von 
Loga disposes of this statement by drawing attention 
to the fact that Benedict XIV. died in 1758, eleven years 
before Goya arrived in Rome.* Clement XIII., who 
died in February, 1769, must be excluded for the same 
reason, and the only possible name can be that of 
Clement XIV., who suppressed the order of the Jesuits. 
Von Loga refuses to accept that suggestion, as there is no 
trace in the Vatican of any portrait of this pope which 
can be ascribed to Goya. Although on account of his 
youth it seems unlikely that Goya received such a privilege, 
it is not impossible, for the Spanish ambassador, the 
celebrated Count of Florida Blanca, had much influence at 
the Vatican, and the portrait may yet be found in Spain. 

Paul Mantz,in turning over the pages of the Moniteur de 
France, found under the date of January, 1772, the only 
document which relates to Goya's Italian years. f " On 

* Von Loga : Goya, p. 12. 

f V. Carderera. Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1860, Vol. VII., p. 216, 
where the paragraph is quoted. 



84 FRANCISCO GOYA 

the 27th June last, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of 
Parma held a public conference for the distribution of 
prizes. The subject of the painting [for competition] was 
' The Conqueror Hannibal looking upon the plains of 
Italy from the heights of the Alps.' The first prize for 
painting has been accorded to the canvas with the device 
Monies fregit aceto, by Monsieur Paul Borroni. 

" The second prize for painting has been taken by Mr. 
Fran$ois Goya, Roman, pupil of Mr. Vajeu, painter to the 
King of Spain. The Academy has noted in the second 
picture the beautiful management of the brush, and the 
depth of expression in the face of Hannibal, as well as 
the individuality and grandeur in the attitude of this 
general. If Mr. Goya had not been so slight in the com- 
position of the subject, and if his colouring had been more 
truthful, he would have divided the votes for the first 
prize." This paragraph is extremely valuable in adding 
to our knowledge of the painter's studentship. He was 
an acknowledged pupil of Bayeu, who returned to Madrid. 
The canvas was probably a small one, little more than a 
rough sketch executed in a hurry. We know for certain 
that Goya was in Rome in 1771 . Whether or no he travelled 
to Parma to receive his prize is doubtful. There was a 
connection between that city and Madrid, for the heir 
to the Spanish throne had found a bride in Maria Luisa 
of Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Parma. Both 
Prince and Princess were to enter into Goya's future career, 
but in 1772 they were but names to him. A more impor- 
tant witness to his northern journey is the evidence that 
Correggio's frescoes strongly influenced his coming work 
in the same medium. The decoration of the cupolas of 
the Benedictine church at Parma are the most remark- 



STUDENT DAYS IN ROME 85 

able of their kind in Italy, and Goya would have a 
very natural wish to examine them closely. Some 
biographers assert that he closed his residence in Italy 
with a prolonged tour which included Florence and 
Venice. From these cities it was easy to continue the 
journey to Spain. There are, however, other traditions 
too strong to be lightly disregarded.* 

His life in Madrid had been irregular. In Rome he 
did not change his habits, for he found greater freedom 
and greater temptation. More than once he escaped from 
the sbirri who attempted to regulate the disorderly life 
of the city. Amongst the Trasteverini he found much 
to remind him of his own province of Aragon. The men 
were hasty, passionate, and revengeful, but a stronger and 
more vigorous people than the inhabitants of the other 
quarters of Rome. They were ever ready to gamble over 
mora, and to hold competitions of running and other 
athletics. They were satirical, appreciated poetry and 
music. Love formed an essential part of their light- 
hearted existence. Ready to quarrel upon the slightest 
provocation, they were quick to use their fists and their 
knives. The most curious of their amusements was the 
famous stone-throwing matches, when the residents of the 
Monti upon the Forum were challenged to combat. The 
opposing factions faced each other, armed with the rough 
munition so prodigally scattered over the battlefield. 
At a given signal volleys of stones darkened the air, and 
finally either Trasteverini or Monticiani were compelled 

* Vinaza considers that the picture of Hannibal was painted, and 
the prize won, before the artist went to Italy. This seems very im- 
probable, unless Goya visited Rome more than once, of which we have 
no proof. 



86 FRANCISCO GOYA 

to seek safety in flight. Sometimes mounted cavalry 
and sbirri were able to interfere with effect, but, as a rule, 
after the wounded had been removed to the hospital 
the sport recommenced. This was a game to Goya's 
own heart, for it brought many recollections of the 
parochial fights of Zaragoza. 

Indeed, during his residence the social condition of 
Rome was perhaps at its worst, and we are told that in 
1774 the state of anarchy and confusion had reached 
such a height that the gravest crimes were committed 
with impunity by people of every class. At nights the 
streets were in darkness, the only light a tiny lamp before 
a corner shrine, or a smoking torch at the gate of a palace. 
Few men were brave enough to cross the city without 
an armed guard. Robberies and murders were of almost 
daily occurrence, and the police patrols were outwitted 
by the lurking assassins so frequently hired by princes, 
ambassadors, and cardinals. 

Goya was an adventurous youth, willing to pass the 
time of day with the biggest scoundrel. Even if the 
tradition of his life in Rome is false, his character tells us 
that he was ready to mix in any brawl, prepared to use his 
knife without fear of consequences. The story runs that 
one black night he scaled the walls of a convent in order 
to abduct a young and charming nun. Unfortunately 
his usual luck deserted him, he was caught, and delivered 
into the hands of the sbirri, who interned him in a Roman 
prison.* 

The crime was unpardonable, and is given special pro- 
minence in Cardinal Valenti's criminal code, which was 
drawn up whilst he was Secretary of State to Benedict, 

* Yriarte : Goya, p. 18. 



STUDENT DAYS IN ROME 87 

not being abrogated until 1833. In the article " con- 
cerning the Violation of Nunneries " it is set forth : " And 
because all sacred places, but above all nunneries, deserve 
every respect, his Eminence orders and desires that if 
anyone, in any way whatsoever, seeks to enter a nun- 
nery without official permission, whether by night or day, 
he shall incur the penalty of death ; even if he have not 
committed any special fault. And all who have in any 
way aided or abetted him shall incur the like penalty."* 
These laws were carried out with a savage ferocity, and 
Goya had most assuredly rendered himself liable to the 
final penalty. But he was no longer an unknown art- 
student, and had many influential friends amongst the 
Spanish colony. The ambassador made representations 
to the Holy Seat which carried weight. Goya was par- 
doned and liberated, upon the condition that he at once 
left the Papal States. 

The story is probably true, for it agrees with the indi- 
viduality of this stormy petrel of art, and it does not 
contradict the suggestion that Goya returned to Spain 
by way of northern Italy. But we have few actual 
facts to deal with in tracing his student days in Italy, 
and we cannot even be sure how long he remained out 
of Spain. Certainly he had returned long before 1775, 
and the correct date is more probably 1771 when he 
reappeared in Zaragoza. 

* Silvagni : La Corte e la Societd Romana. 



CHAPTER VI 

ZARAGOZA, 1772-1774 

Goya returns to Zaragoza. His first Commission to decorate El Pilar. 
Did he visit Italy a second Time ? The Chartreuse of Aula Dei. 
Its forgotten Frescoes. Doubts as to Goya's Authorship of the whole 
Series. Little exact Information as to his Employment. He courts 
Josefa Bayeu. 

THE troubles which compelled Goya to fly from his 
native city had been discreetly forgotten by the 
ecclesiastical authorities of Zaragoza. Indeed, it 
was a proposed commission for the church which brought 
the young painter home. The cathedral of El Pilar, which 
had commenced building in 1684, was now at a stage 
when its internal decoration had to be considered. Rodri- 
quez Ventura, the architect in charge, had drastically 
altered the original design of Herrerra. Although the 
author of a volume which laid down the severest laws of 
style for other architects, he considered himself bound 
by no similar rules, and many of his architectural fancies 
are based upon the merest caprice. Von Loga describes 
the church as " one of the purest examples of the style 
of Louis XVI." In reality the huge building is a piece 
of meretricious classicism, lacking all true inspiration, 
and in many details an offence to the cultured eye. 

Goya's invitation to prepare a scheme for the decoration 
of part of the church probably came through Luzan and 






ZARAGOZA 89 

the elder Bayeu. With the Bayeu family, as will be 
seen, he was evidently on terms of the closest affection. 
On October 21, 1771, he submitted to the Building 
Committee sketches for the decoration of the vault of 
the chapel of the Sacrament. The committee solemnly 
deliberated, and some while elapsed before the members 
arrived at a decision. Goya was a young and untried 
artist ; although twenty-five years of age he had registered 
no success, and could show very little completed work. 
The committee consisted largely of priests, who must 
have been influenced by the not too favourable personal 
reputation of the young man. He had left Zaragoza 
under a cloud, had been smuggled away from Madrid, and 
then finally expelled from the dominions of the Sovereign 
Pontiff for a most heinous crime. These facts did not 
affect his skill as an artist, but they were unquestionably 
discussed, for corporate bodies are nothing if not highly 
moral. However, it was desirable to have the decoration 
in hand as early as possible, and the committee appealed 
to Canon Mathias Allue for expert advice. The worthy 
canon's qualifications for the task are not recorded, and 
the scope of his enquiries is unknown. On February 
n, 1772, he reported that Goya had proved his ability 
in the technique of fresco, and was prepared to undertake 
his scheme for 15,000 reals (about 150), the artist pro- 
viding labour and materials. As Antonio Velazquez, the 
only other competitor, demanded 25,000 reals, the com- 
mittee did not waste any more time. Although Goya's 
designs had been sent to Madrid, and submitted to the 
Royal Academy of San Fernando, the committee did 
not even wait for the official verdict. The commission 
was given to Goya on January 27, 1772, two weeks before 



go FRANCISCO GOYA 

Canon Allue's report was formally received. On the 
first day of the following June the work appears to have 
been completed, for the scaffolding was then being taken 
down from the roof. 

Goya's earliest decorations in the cathedral of El Pilar 
do not require detailed consideration. The vault is lofty, 
and the light far from good, whilst there has been consid- 
erable discoloration of the original pigments. There is no 
more distinction or individuality in Goya's work than in 
any of the surrounding walls by contemporary but now 
justly forgotten artists. It is good church decoration of 
mediocre ability, although one cannot wholly agree with 
Von Loga that Goya's paintings betray the inexperience 
of a beginner. If the visitor to the cathedral is not 
searching for traces of Goya's brush he will hardly 
give these decorations a second glance. As far as can 
be judged at the present day the young Goya had a 
sympathy for rather crude reds and yellows, and was 
liable to over-accentuate his lights and shadows. This 
may have been due to a remembrance of the character- 
istics of El Greco, but was more probably due to the 
artist's own immaturity. The Count de Vinaza asserts that 
Goya's visit to Rome was made after the decorations of 
El Pilar, and that in fact the balance of the 15,000 reals 
provided the necessary funds for the journey.* Cer- 
tainly these frescoes do not show signs of a deep study of 
Correggio ; if they reveal the impression of any other 
artist it is that of Tiepolo, but even that very slightly. It 
is easy to read many factors into such featureless designs. 

* Vinaza 's biography is so careful that all his suggestions must 
receive consideration. But it is most unlikely that the Parma picture 
was painted out pf Rome. 




A DRAWING 
The figure possibly represents Goya himself. British Museum 



ZARAGOZA 91 

Von Loga discovers an attempt to imitate the inferior 
productions of Murillo. 

At the end of July the committee was discussing with 
the elder Bayeu the advisability of decorating several of 
the smaller cupolas. That Goya's work was received 
with satisfaction is doubtful, for he was not given a 
second commission. Here we are stopped in our investi- 
gations by a considerable gap in his history, which, 
according to Vifiaza, was occupied by the visit to Rome. 
Another suggestion is that he made a second visit to 
Italy, although we have no documentary or traditional 
evidence to support the idea. More probably he was 
engaged from 1772 to 1774 upon minor church work in 
Aragon,* and also upon a series of frescoes chiefly devoted 
to incidents in the life of the Virgin, which are to be found 
in the chartreuse of the Aula Dei, an institution dating 
from the fifteenth century, some ten kilometres north of 
Zaragoza on the left bank of the Ebro. The authority 
cited is that of Don Tomas Lopez, a Carthusian monk. It 
will be remembered that Goya's earliest patron was Don 
Felix Salzedo, prior of this same cartuja, the priest who 
had first appreciated the boy's dawning talent, so it is 
not unlikely that early work of his should be found in the 
chartreuse. 

This monastery suffered so severely during the French 
occupation of the country around Zaragoza, that many 
of the frescoes were utterly ruined. The whole work was 

* We know that he painted an altar-piece dealing with the miracle 
of the Virgin of the Pillar, which was placed in the parish church of 
Fuendetodos, where he had been baptised, and shortly after his marriage 
he was working on a processional banner with St. Christopher as its 
subject. .. . 



92 FRANCISCO GOYA 

forgotten.* " Finally," writes Von Loga, " the building 
was sold, and became dilapidated and deserted. In our 
own time, monks, driven from France, have taken pos- 
session of the ruins, and have endeavoured with much 
industry to restore the damaged house. For over half a 
century these frescoes remained under a roof which had 
been partially burnt away, and was open to all weathers. 
Without adequate protection many of these paintings 
have been almost wholly destroyed, but the remainder 
(more than half), untouched by the hands of restorers, 
shine with an unusual freshness. Goya's hand cannot 
be doubted." As in the decorations of El Pilar, there is 
the same bright red and evident love for yellows. Von 
Loga considers the drawing, full of energy and decision, 
reminiscent of Tiepolo's masterly originality of concep- 
tion. The same biographer is also reminded of the Sistine 
Chapel in Rome, which hardly supports Vinaza's belief 
of a later visit to Italy. Goya was certainly impressed 
at one period in his life by the grandeur of Michel 
Angelo. 

Above the entrance is a composition depicting Jacob's 
sacrifice. In extremely bad condition, it contains the 
remains of the figure of an angel, of " monumental 
grace." f Another subject is the journey of the Three 
Kings, which the same critic calls " a tasteful compo- 
sition." Certainly Goya never painted in after life such 
a number of scriptural subjects, and we are almost 
inclined to doubt his authorship of all the frescoes in 

* I regret that I was not able to visit the cartuja during my stay in 
Zaragoza. Valerian von Loga is the only biographer who appears to 
have seen these frescoes. 

f Von Loga, p. 17. 



ZARAGOZA 93 

the Aula Dei. " Monumental grace " is hardly to be 
discovered in other works from his brush. Had these 
frescoes been wholly his, we ought to find more evidence 
relating to their execution. He had many admirers 
in Zaragoza, and frequently visited the city, both before 
and after the French invasion. It is strange that not 
the slightest mention is made of the monastery in 
Zapater's biography, and that his own letters to Martin 
Zapater do not refer to what is evidently a very con- 
siderable work. And, in the argument which afterwards 
arose with the authorities of El Pilar, he might well 
have referred them to the frescoes of the cartuja. 

The whole disposition of his time during these early 
years bristles with difficulties. The first commission in 
the cathedral proves him to have been a rapid worker, 
and this is corroborated by his later life in Madrid. 
Could he have spent, two years over the decorations of 
the cartuja, and could the monks have afforded to pay 
him for so large a slice of his life ? The best suggestion 
that can be offered is that he was not only busily painting 
the chartreuse, but also equally active courting Josefa 
Bayeu, the only sister of his three old friends. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS, 1775-1780 

Josefa Bayeu. Her Portrait. Distractions of Madrid. Church Work. 
The Holy Family. Rafael Mengs. The Tapestry Factory of Santa 
Barbara. Goya commissioned by Mengs. Description of the Cartoons. 
Goya and Hogarth. Increasing Reputation. Presented to the King, 
but refused a Royal Appointment. Other Paintings. The Crucifixion 
of San Placido. A Crucifixion by Velazquez. Goya elected a Member 
of the Academy of San Fernando. 

OF Goya's family life we know very little, and can 
only partially reconstruct it by means of a few 
disconnected references in his letters to Zapater 
at Zaragoza. In March, 1775, he wrote from Madrid to 
the committee which had charge of the decoration of the 
Cathedral El Pilar, referring to Francisco Bayeu as his 
brother-in-law. We may therefore assume that Goya 
married Josefa Bayeu either shortly before this date, or 
during the following summer. 

Although Josefa Bayeu y Goya came of a family of 
artists, she does not appear to have had any artistic 
aptitude herself. Her portrait (now in the Prado) was 
probably painted at the time of her marriage, and is 
therefore one of the first in the series which brought her 
husband fame. Of remarkable merit, it draws attention 
to the fact that Goya was only at his best as a portrait- 
painter when in sympathy with his model. This he 
realised in later life, and would not accept every casual 
client who wished to join the fashionable throng of his 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS 95 

sitters.* But the portraits of the members of his family 
are always of the highest quality, and it is odd that an 
artist who had a reputation for being a good son has 
not left us portraits of his father and mother. 

The features of Dona Josefa are not of classical beauty. 
The mouth is too big, and the nose too prominent. Yet 
the portrait has much charm, and is a masterly piece of 
characterisation. A few wandering curls fall across a 
wide forehead. The chin is firm, the cheeks well pro- 
portioned. The neck has the same proportions of that 
of the Venus of Milo. A light scarf is thrown airily across 
the shoulders, and the only technical flaw is a somewhat 
clumsily modelled left arm and hand. The chief fas- 
cination of the portrait rests in the large brilliant eyes, 
sparkling with life and vivacity. Josefa Bayeu was a 
true Aragonese, quick, energetic, excitable, self-willed. 
The lips are a trifle pinched, and support the tradition 
that she had not only a will but a temper of her own. 
Such a woman would not . endure in patience, and 
Goya's temperament was not wholly angelic. f 

A recent German biographer asserts that Goya changed 
in disposition from the day of his marriage. He set 
aside his youthful love of travel and excitement, gave 
up his participation in the national recreation of bull- 
fighting, and developed into the hard-working father of 
a household, devoted to his work, and overflowing with 
a hitherto unsuspected energy. 

Such a miracle is hardly human, and, unless we brush 

* Matheron, chap. V. 

t In a short footnote to Carderera's article on Goya (Gazette des 
Beaux-Arts, 1860, Vol. VII., p. 216) Philippe Burty says that Josefa was 
ten years older than her husband. The statement is not made by any 
other biographer, and I am inclined to disbelieve it. 



96 FRANCISCO GOYA 

away all the traditions enveloping Goya's name, can be 
scarcely credited. Undoubtedly the artist attacked his 
canvases in a new spirit of determination. Practically 
no easel pictures executed before his marriage are in 
existence, though probably he destroyed a good many 
early attempts. His disgust when shown one of his first 
altar-pieces is symptomatic of his maturer judgment. 
Before now artists have purchased their own work to 
feed a critical bonfire. But Von Loga fails to prove that 
Goya suddenly reformed. He still remained passionately 
devoted to pleasure. Such a mixture of toil and dissi- 
pation is not impossible. No painter worked harder 
than Boucher, yet no man dallied more frequently along 
the primrose path. " No profit grows where is no 
pleasure ta'en," was the motto of Goya, and had there 
been less pleasure there might not have been greater 
profit. But, as Renan says, man finds salvation in 
more than one way. 

Madrid offered innumerable distractions to the artist, 
and many of these recreations Dona Josefa could hardly 
share. Goya loved to mix with the rougher elements 
of the city, the bull-fighters, the professional swordsmen, 
the gipsies, the musicians, the dancing girls, perhaps also 
the thieves and the murderers, of whom there were many. 
This attraction towards the pothouse is not a sign of 
innate depravity. Goya was no Tony Lumpkin, or 
even, to take an apter example, a George Morland. The 
Spaniards are one of the most abstemious races in 
Europe, and call for water before they call for wine. 
This curious underworld fascinated Goya by reason of 
its picturesqueness, its freedom from restraint, its 
realism and its actuality. 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS 97 

He was also welcomed in the most intimate circles of 
the Court and the aristocracy, and here again his wife 
could not follow him. With the growing age of Charles 
III. the earlier restraint of manners slowly vanished. 
Society was dominated by Maria Luisa of Parma, who set 
a moral standard which was new to the Court. There 
was little difference between the freedom of the gitanas in 
the lowest quarters of the town, and the behaviour of the 
men and women who, laden with official distinctions 
and honour, tried to kill time in the palaces of the capital. 

Goya had a real affection for his wife ; that he faith- 
fully respected his marriage vows cannot be said. 
Von Loga suggests that when, in 1781, husband and wife 
were at variance, the discord had been caused by the 
easy morals of the artist. There is scanty information to 
be gathered concerning Josefa, but she seems to have been 
a very good wife, and to have forgiven much. In later 
years Goya and Bayeu bitterly quarrelled, but whether 
the cause was professional jealousy or ill-treatment of 
Josefa cannot be stated. At any rate, in 1775, and for 
some years after, no clouds overshadowed the young 
household. 

During the summer of 1775 Goya endeavoured to 
obtain commissions from the Church. He was in 
negotiation with the authorities of El Pilar at Zaragoza, 
and, from a letter dated September 6, 1775, he appears 
to have been engaged upon a processional banner bearing 
St. Christopher on one side, with the Mater Dolorosa 
on the other. Valerian von Loga dates the Holy 
Family in the Prado about this period, which is not 
unlikely, although there are reasons for ascribing it to 
the years 1776-1777. But when the German biographer 

H 



9 8 FRANCISCO GOYA 

likens this uninteresting work to that ot Correggio, it is 
impossible to agree with him. Goya followed the 
methods of Mengs, rather than any of the Italian masters, 
and in this, his first important canvas, he based the lines 
of his composition upon his remembrances of the Raphael 
Madonnas he had studied in Rome. No previous bio- 
grapher has realised that the models for the Holy 
Family were probably found in the artist's own home, 
and that the radiant Mother is Josef a Goya, whilst the 
Holy Babe and the tiny St. John are the two children of 
the artist. The face of Josef a has been slightly ideal- 
ised, but, after comparing the features of the Madonna 
with the portrait of Dona Josefa, there cannot be much 
doubt as to the identity of the model. The children 
are delightfully painted, the St. John being a charm- 
ing figure. Here again Goya was naturally interested 
in his task. As a whole the colour is poor, and Goya 
evidently painted to catch a popular fashion. The artist 
was probably the first to realise that he would never 
attain the success his ambition craved for with sub- 
jects selected from Holy Writ. 

There is no documentary evidence of a personal 
relationship between Rafael Mengs and the young Ara- 
gonese, but there must have been a strong friendship, 
for Mengs furthered Goya's career very considerably. 
Doubtless Goya was ready to admit the technical 
excellence of Mengs's work. Although Anton Rafael 
Mengs was no great master, he hardly merits the dis- 
paragement he has received from art-historians during 
the last century. Mengs based his style upon Raphael 
and Correggio, and, had his brush not been frozen by the 
classical ideals of Winckelmann, his place in the history 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS 99 

of his craft would have been more exalted. Only one 
modern critic, Dr. Richard Muther, has had the courage 
to admit the skill of Mengs. " There is nothing insipid 
or affected, none of that simpering affability that his 
successors brought into vogue/' writes Muther of the 
early Dresden portraits. Of the later work he remarks : 
' The better ones are distinctly classic ; very noble in 
their clear, subtle gray tone, strikingly alive, and withal 
of an extraordinary independence, which shows no lean- 
ing upon any other master whatever. Mengs belongs to 
those portrait-painters who look into the souls of their 
sitters, and he ranks, like his portrait of himself in the 
Munich Gallery, amongst the best portrait-painters of 
the eighteenth century." Goya had only to see the 
portraits in the royal collections (many of which are 
now preserved in the Prado) to discover that Mengs was 
greater than his theories. His classical decorations, 
and compositions like the Mount Parnassus, did not 
influence Goya in the slightest. Mengs, said Azara, 
was " a philosopher who painted for philosophers," 
whilst Goya was essentially a man of action, and, as 
his later history proved, a true " painter's painter." 
But Mengs and Goya must have had sympathies in 
common. Mengs was too successful a man to go out of 
his way to patronise a young artist he was not interested 
in, and Goya never dissembled his feelings, or truckled 
to success in order to gain a job. To Mengs Goya owed 
his first important commission, which was to bring him 
before the notice of the Court in a particularly favour- 
able manner. 

Philip V. (probably in imitation of the Gobelins work- 
shops on the banks of the Bievre in Paris) had founded in 



ioo FRANCISCO GOYA 

Madrid, in 1720, the royal tapestry factory of Santa 
Barbara. Under the management of Jacob Van der 
Goten and his sons from Antwerp, the factory speedily 
built up a local reputation. Copies were made after 
Wouwerman and Teniers, and original cartoons were 
designed by Giordano, Andre Procaccini, Hovasse, and 
other Frenchmen resident in Madrid. Antoine Lenger, 
a French craftsman, lent valuable aid, and in 1730 the 
factory produced with much success a copy of Raphael's 
Pearl* one of the treasures of the royal collection. 
At the death of Van der Goten the management passed 
into the hands of his son Francisco, and the manufacture 
continued to flourish. 

Then followed a gradual loss in skill, and the pro- 
ductions ceased to be regarded with favour. Charles III. 
took much interest in art, although his critical judgment 
was not of the purest. He decided to resuscitate the 
fortunes of the royal tapestry, and was helped by his 
consort, a Saxon Princess who had an inclination towards 
the hobbies of a connoisseur, for she was an enthusiastic 
collector of Capo di Monte ware. 

Mengs was then at the summit of his fortune. A few 
Spaniards attempted to destroy his influence, notably 
Don Gregorio Mayans, who afterwards expressed his 
views in a pamphlet El Arte de Pintar, published in 
1776. But Mengs was securely entrenched behind the 
royal approbation, and the King turned to him for advice 
as to the reorganisation of the tapestry factory. From 
1762 he was responsible for its artistic control. When 
Major Dalrymple visited Madrid twelve years later, the 
establishment was of sufficient importance to be included 
* Eugene Muntz : La Tapisserie. 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS 101 

in his description of the capital. " There is a manufacture 
of tapestry that was founded by Ferdinand VI., where 
there are about twenty looms going. There is also a 
porcelain manufactory, but no one is admitted to see it. 
These fabrics have been imitatively established, through 
a puerile vanity, whilst those of more real utility are 
never thought of. They are kept up at a considerable 
expense by royal munificence, for their produce cannot be 
purchased but by the opulent. Indeed, they serve to 
draw some of the wealth from the clutches of the Prince, 
which is distributed among those who would otherwise 
most probably be in want of employment." Dairy mple's 
view is of that strictly utilitarian character which may 
be still heard in councils and other deliberative assemblies 
where they talk. In his opinion, the sustenance of mere 
artists was no duty of the state. Apart from the labour 
employed at the china factory, the designing of -car- 
toons for tapestry kept quite a number of artists alive. 
Amongst them were Andrea de Calleja, Jose del Castillo, 
Salvador Maella, Antonio Gonzalez, and an artist who 
had now taken an important place in the art circles of 
Madrid, Francisco Bayeu. It will be noted that Mengs 
made use of native talent. 

Goya's name is mentioned for the first time in con- 
nection with Mengs and the tapestry cartoons on June 
18, 1776. Working with characteristic energy, the young 
artist appears to have delivered his commission by 
October 30 of the same year. Mengs had formerly 
employed artists at a fixed salary, but difficulties had 
arisen which are not hard to imagine, and henceforth 
each cartoon was paid for separately upon delivery, after 
it had passed the scrutiny of a committee of painters 



102 FRANCISCO GOYA 

attached to the Court. Goya's cartoons were inspected 
and approved of by his brother-in-law Francisco Bayeu, 
and Mariano Salvador Maella. He was paid 7,000 reals, 
or about 75.* 

During the succeeding four years he continued to work 
for the factory without intermission, the only break in 
the steady production of designs being occasioned by one 
of his mysterious illnesses in April, 1777. By January, 

1778, he had delivered ten cartoons of various sizes, 
mostly intended for the decoration of the dining-room 
of the children of the royal family. For these he was 
paid 46,000 reals (about 478). Before April 27, 1778, 
he had delivered seven more for the bedroom of the 
Princess of the Asturias at El Par do. On January 5, 

1779, an additional seven had been completed for the 
bedroom of the Prince of the Asturias, and, by January 
27, 1780, twenty cartoons had been done. In all, he 
was responsible for thirty, of which four have been 
lost.f No other artist in the employ of the factory 
worked so hard. His younger brother-in-law, Ramon 
Bayeu, was responsible for twenty, Antonio Velazquez 
did twenty-three, and Jose del Castillo, who always 
admired Goya's cartoons, but sixteen. Goya's cartoons 
brought him an almost immediate celebrity, not only 
amongst the aristocracy, but also with the lower classes. 

* The chief authority upon Goya's connection with the Santa Barbara 
factory is G. Cruzada Villaamirs Los tapices de Goya, Madrid, 1870. 

f A missing cartoon from the second series of tapestry designs (see 
chapter XI.) appears to have turned up at the Nemes sale, held in 
Paris, June 18, 1913. " At the close of the sale," writes The Times 
correspondent, " the announcement was made that the Spanish 
government had lodged a protest against the sale of Goya's Las Gigan- 
tillas . . . The Spanish government alleges that it was stolen in 
1869 from the tapestry gallery of the Prado Museum." 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS 103 

Their success is simple to explain. They are frankly 
nationalist, and nationality in art is always a sure 
card for even a moderately gifted artist to play. 

These large cartoons are now preserved in the base- 
ment galleries of the Prado. For years they rotted 
away in a forgotten garret until Carderera rescued them 
in 1869. Age and neglect have toned their crudities, 
and this is no drawback to an appreciation of their 
merits. But the rooms do not form an ideal gallery, 
and the cartoons deserve a better resting-place. Yet 
in every way they justify the abundant commissions 
Mengs showered upon Goya, and they prove that Mengs 
was ready to set aside his own prejudices and recognise 
a man of talent, even one who neglected to follow the 
dogmas of Winckelmann and the example of the antique. 

Mengs's greatest decorative effort was the dull and 
sedate Parnassus which Goya must have seen in the 
Aldobranini Palace at Rome. Apollo stands with his lyre 
in the centre of the stage like an actor-manager basking 
in the limelight. Round him pose attendant deities. 
The stiffness of the composition at first sight recalls 
a Roman pavement mosaic, and the figures awake more 
than one reminiscence of the statues in the Vatican 
gallery. It is interesting to compare this staid decoration 
with the gorgeous imaginative fancies of G. B. Tiepolo, 
who was engaged upon the ceilings of the royal palace in 
Madrid from 1762 to 1770. Twenty years later Tiepolo 
profoundly influenced Goya's frescoes, but in the tapestry 
cartoons there is no sign that the young Aragonese had 
even seen the wonderful work of the last great Venetian. 

Had Goya been given a free hand in the selection of 
his subjects it is probable that he would have compounded 



104 FRANCISCO GOYA 

a dish of the stale mythology which had so well served 
Lebrun and all his imitators in Spain. Fate, however, 
was kind to him. Charles III. desired the compositions 
to deal with the daily life of the country over which he 
ruled with a truly paternal affection. Spain was begin- 
ning to awake from her long slumber, and the old King 
himself was largely responsible for the reviving spirit of 
nationalism. Strange chance placed the commission in 
the hands of one of the most nationalist artists of the 
entire school of Spanish painting. 

Goya had never succumbed to the decadent styles 
which, coming from Bologna, Naples, and Rome, com- 
pleted the ruin of Spanish art. His earliest cartoon 
reveals a decided analogy to the frescoes of the Floren- 
tines. In more senses than one he was a real Pre- 
Raphaelite. La merienda (" A picnic on the banks of 
the Manzanares "), the first of the tapestries, was executed 
in 1776, and is therefore one of the earliest canvases 
we can definitely date. The artist was not restrained 
by any consideration for the material into which his 
brushwork was to be translated. He simply put together 
an easel picture of size sufficient to cover the large space 
required. This picnic party is somewhat confused in 
composition. Had Goya travelled in France during his 
wanderjahre we would say that his youthful eye had 
nebulously remembered the fetes champetres of Watteau 
and his school. These cartoons are often called Wat- 
teauesque, but Goya could only have received his 
impressions at second-hand. There are two small 
Watteaus in the Prado, but whether or no he saw them 
when they were in the royal collection is doubtful, and 
they are hardly of sufficient importance to influence his 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS 105 

design. But there were several French decorators at work 
in Madrid, who had been steeped in the traditions of the 
French school of the early eighteenth century, and Goya, 
as a young artist seeking a safe path, would not un- 
naturally turn to them for inspiration, 

In La merienda considerable attention was given to 
the landscape, and the trees and foliage are set down 
with a care which cannot fail to recall the methods 
of the earlier Italian masters. But this background was 
unsuitable for tapestry. The colour is too black, and 
tends to absorb the figures. In the succeeding car- 
toons this defect was remedied, and the figures are 
generally sharply silhouetted against a light sky. The 
Dance at San Antonio de la Florida (1777) shows a 
tremendous advance as a piece of decoration. The 
river and landscape background are only slightly in- 
dicated, being broadly placed upon the canvas with 
a dawning sense of atmospheric effect. Instead of loading 
the single tree with a blotch of dark foliage, the almost 
naked branches are revealed in their exquisite pattern. 
Goya concentrated all his skill upon the four men and 
women, who, in old Spanish costume, tread a stately 
dance to the music of the sequedeilla. In the same 
year came a scene outside a village inn, to a certain 
degree conventional, but with much life and character, 
and also the very delightful Andalusia, in which the 
five principal figures are treated with considerable 
dexterity. This is indeed a true Watteau subject as 
seen by Spanish eyes, and the subtle intermingling of 
the distinctive characteristics of the two great Latin 
races is a fascinating problem to disentangle. The scene 
is evidently an interlude in a bal masque. In one of 



io6 FRANCISCO GOYA 

those groves that Watteau loved, a maja in lace and silks 
is laughing with a surly individual who appears to have 
stepped out of Beaumarchais' most celebrated comedy. 
He boasts a portentous cocked hat, and owns the most 
wonderful legs encased in white stockings. The conversa- 
tion galante arouses the jealousy of other cavaliers. But 
such impeccable calves would arouse the dormant envy 
of a saint. On the left, a cloaked hildago glares at 
the couple from beneath a huge white sombrero. In 
the background are two more masqueraders, who con- 
template the little coquette with equal displeasure. It 
is an interlude of melodrama. " Love gilds the scene, 
and woman guides the plot." This is the earliest com- 
position in which Goya revealed his dramatic gifts, 
that innate faculty for telling a story to be seen at its 
best in the etchings and some of the historical paintings. 
In 1778 followed in rapid succession the Blind beggar, 
the Crockery market, the Promenade, and La acerolea. 
The Blind beggar was the most popular, and Goya 
etched the subject shortly after, but the Crockery-seller 
(El cacharrero) has a charm not fully appreciated in his 
own day, perhaps because it represented a daily sight 
in the Madrid streets which did not interest the crowd 
because it lacked a sentimental appeal. Goya found 
his subject in a corner of the public market. One of 
the huge, springless coaches used by the nobility occupies 
the centre of the canvas. Three magnificent footmen, 
in liveries and powdered wigs, hang on to the rear of 
the carriage, and an equally gorgeous coachman holds 
the reins. The edge of the frame cuts off our view of 
the horses, and thus Goj^a eluded his usual difficulty. 
The enormous wheels of the coach give an air of move- 




1778 



Photo. Anderso 



THE CROCKERY SELLER 

"El Cacliarrero. " Tapestry Cartoon ,\ 1 1 1. P ratio, Madrid. 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS 107 

ment to a composition which radiates from their spokes, 
and the tiny procession moves forward with an air of 
triumph. In the foreground the market-women squat 
on the pavement, with an attendant man, a sleeping 
dog, and a large stock of earthenware, painted with all 
the fidelity of an old Dutch master or a bodegone by 
Velazquez. In many respects the Crockery-seller re- 
minds the English student of Hogarth, although it must 
be admitted that Goya was technically in advance of 
the English artist. Both used that peculiarly nervous 
brush work with accentuated high lights which may 
probably be traced home to the later Venetians. Indeed, 
we find it in all mid-eighteenth century work, particu- 
larly with Guardi, Longhi, and in the sketches of Tiepolo. 
Hogarth, however, was too ready to point a moral, and 
thus did not always adorn his tale. He found his types 
in the lower circles of the metropolis, and his good men 
are sanctimonious whilst his rogues are degraded. He 
was perfectly able to paint a handsome figure or a pretty 
woman, but he did not search for beauty, only dealing 
with good looks when they casually passed his way. Had 
Hogarth travelled through Italy to Rome his art might 
have lost in individuality but probably would have 
gained in beauty of colour and form. As it is, his fine 
natural genius is too exclusively insular. Goya, in his 
tapestry cartoons, had a simpler aim which did not result 
in compositions so ruthlessly overcrowded as those of 
Hogarth. The first ideal of the Spanish artist was to 
provide an acceptable wall decoration for a royal palace. 
By chance he was allowed or commanded to select his 
subjects from the life which appealed to him most. 
As a decorative artist he was practically untrained, and 



io8 FRANCISCO GOYA 

it was only gradually that he learned that large flat 
masses were more important than accumulations of 
detail. In order to meet the demands of the material 
for which he was designing, he exaggerated his colour 
schemes, and this was an advantage, for throughout 
his life his palette was inclined to a sombre and low 
key. In all these tapestry cartoons there is an 
evident effort to extract the utmost value from the play 
of light on silk and satin. Some critics have called 
his work crude, but the real crudity is in the tapestries 
themselves,* and not in the cartoons. As a whole the 
tones are dark. The handling varies ; in some cartoons 
it is meticulously careful, in others we can note a feverish 
and hurried brush. Many of these cartoons are experi- 
ments. As Von Loga points out, Goya understood at last 
that a strong contrast, although often producing a harsh 
and rough colour, was a considerable help to the looms. f 

* Now hanging in the palace of the Escorial. 

f Mr. Thomas Cole, the well-known wood-engraver, writes in his 
Old Spanish Masters : " While a few of the cartoons possess great 
charm and brilliancy of tone, the majority are harsh and crude in 
colouring, owing possibly to the commercialism of the time, which 
may have demanded something gay and catching. Certain it is that 
in black and white they have greater dignity and simplicity. Know- 
ing them only from reproductions in this medium, I could not help 
marvelling, on seeing the originals, that the artist should have spoiled 
the nobility and repose of his works by staining them with hard and 
spotty colours. Their unnaturally bright hues are accounted for by 
the fact that they were done for copying in tapestry, as though it were 
the nature of the texture of tapestry to soften them. But in fact the 
reproductions, instead of ameliorating the tints of the originals, have 
accentuated their defects, and this so deplorably that they present a 
garish spectacle of pigments, ill-suited to the quiet, unobtrusive flatness 
so becoming to the walls of an interior." Whilst not agreeing wholly 
with Mr. Cole's criticism (for commercialism had little to do with the 
Santa Barbara factory) his remarks about the hardness of some of the 
cartoons is perfectly correct. There have probably been many 
chemical changes in the pigments, for Goya was careless about the 
permanency of his palette. 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS 109 

As Goya advanced with the series he endeavoured 
more and more successfully to fulfil the requirements 
of the material into which his designs were translated. 
To those who have seen the tapestries in the private 
apartments of the royal family, it is a matter of some 
surprise that these charming domestic scenes are not 
better known and more widely appreciated. Their 
rococo fancy harmonises well with a setting of white 
and gold. The compositions suffer from a certain 
sameness of invention. The motive of a leafless trunk 
on the right or left of the scene is continually repeated. 
But the little groups of Madrilenas live and move with 
an enchanting vivacity. The large Game of pelota 
(1779) outside the walls of a city (probably Madrid) is 
a surprising contrast to the artificial combinations of the 
fashionable school which derived from Lebrun. In the 
Washerwomen (1779), and the Game of pelota (1779) we 
have scenes of low life, but painted with much grace, 
and without Hogarth's brutality and coarseness. The 
figures in the Promenade and the Fair of Madrid (1778) 
are beautifully drawn. Most of the figures in the cartoons 
it must be mentioned, are life-size. In La novillada 
(1779) Goya used as his background the Lonja, or Market 
Hall, of Zaragoza. 

Artistically the tapestry cartoons furthered Goya's 
reputation. He painted with more vivacity than any 
of his companions, and his popular subjects appealed 
to a dawning national spirit. Financially the cartoons 
placed him beyond any feeling of poverty, for, at the 
time of his marriage, Goya must have been an extremely 
poor man. Socially they introduced him to the most 
exalted circles. Early in January, 1779, he was 



no FRANCISCO GOYA 

presented to the King and the heir apparent, and kissed 
hands. He wrote to Zapater, describing the incident 
in the most enthusiastic terms. " I tell you that I have 
nothing more to wish for. They were extremely pleased 
with my pictures, and expressed great satisfaction not 
only the King, but the Prince as well. Neither I nor 
my works deserve such recognition." * This is hardly 
the language of a revolutionary, and indeed Goya's 
republicanism exists largely in the imagination of some 
of his later biographers. He was like most of the 
Spaniards of his time, intensely democratic,! but with an 
inherited veneration for the crown. This is an aspect of 
his character which must be discussed later. 

Besides, as a young painter with his career to make, 
he could not shut his eyes to the advantages of royal 
patronage. There is much evidence that he invited the 
support of the privileged classes. On July 24, 1779, 
he petitioned the King for an appointment as one of 
the Court painters. He recapitulated his work in 
Zaragoza, laying stress on the fact that he travelled to 
Rome at his own expense, and citing the name of Mengs 
as a man who had encouraged him. His petition was 
refused, and it is easy to give a reason. His association 
with the royal family had not been of long duration. 

* Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 14. 

t That Spain is in reality a democratic country has been noted by 
two travellers so very different in ideals as Chateaubriand and George 
Borrow. The author of Rene said : " This nation has no servile airs, 
none of those phrases which stand for abject thoughts and degraded 
souls. The great lord and the peasant speak the same language. 
Their salutations, their compliments, their habits, and their manners, 
are the same." Borrow was more direct. " One of the few countries 
in Europe where poverty is not treated with contempt, and, I may 
add, where the wealthy are not blindly idolised." 



THE TAPESTRY CARTOONS in 

The natural resistance of two successful artists like 
Mengs and Bayeu to foster the growth of one who prom- 
ised to be their most powerful rival may have had some 
effect upon the King's councillors. Lastly, Goya's tem- 
perament must not be forgotten. He was naturally iras- 
cible, and sharp-tongued. Although he could rapidly 
make good friends, it was even quicker to make enemies. 

From June 1776 to the early spring of 1780 Goya 
executed ten panels. Six large cartoons and four panels 
brought him 46,000 reals, and he was actively at work 
in other directions. He accepted commissions for por- 
traits in 1777, he was etching plates after Velazquez, 
and he was also travelling to and fro between Madrid 
and Zaragoza in connection with decorations he had 
undertaken for the cathedral El Pilar. In three years 
he is said to have earned 114,000 reals (about 1,200), 
a not inconsiderable income for an artist of little over 
thirty. His early etchings did not count for much in 
this total, and must be dealt with in another chapter. 
His troubles at Zaragoza also require separate mention. 

In addition to the tapestry cartoons, the portraits, 
and the etchings, some of his smaller genre compositions 
must also be dated about this period. Mr. Rothenstein 
attributes the five small canvases in the Academy of 
San Fernando to a year shortly after Goya's return from 
Italy.* But the " delicate and silvery key, with ex- 
quisite lightness of touch," which fascinated the English 
artist, f the " grande delicatesse de ton " which Charles 

* They have all been moved to the Prado, and may be identified as 
the Little bullfight, The ma.ihouse, A tribunal of the Inquisition, The 
flagellants, and The burial of the sardine. 

f William Rothenstein : Goya, p. 6. 



H2 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Yriarte* could not refrain from noting thirty-three 
years earlier, point to a maturer development of Goya's 
genius. During the period under discussion he 
painted in a hard and tight manner. In the collection 
of Sir John Murray-Scott was a small canvas entitled 
Spaniards dancing a bolero, not unlike the large Dance 
amongst the tapestry cartoons. Many of its motives 
can be found in the first or second series of cartoons, 
and its date is perhaps about 1778. There is plenty of 
grip and movement in this little piece, and a suspicion 
of indecision in the handling suggests that here we 
have one of those lost studies of national life which 
sold so readily to the foreign visitors in Rome.f Cer- 
tainly the silvery tones of the pictures from the Academy 
of San Fernando are not visible. 

Goya was also executing church works. The Cruci- 
fixion and a St. Francis for the church of S. Francisco el 
Grande brought great applause. The Crucifixion is now 
in the Prado, and, although like all Spanish subjects of a 
similar nature, most realistically and painfully drawn, 
does not alter our conviction that Goya's talent was 
not at its best when employed upon religious subjects. 
In this case his inspiration can be clearly traced. The 
Crucifixion is a direct challenge to Velazquez's wonderful 
Crucifixion of San Placido, and a comparison of the two 
works is not to Goya's advantage. Velazquez's figure 
is described by Thore-Burger in one word " terrible." 
The body is emaciated, the muscles are knotted and 

* Yriarte : Goya, p. 131. 

f This interesting canvas was originally in the collection of Sir 
Richard Wallace, but whether he acquired it, or the Marquis of Hert- 
ford, cannot be stated. At the sale of the Murray-Scott collection, 
June 27, 1913, at Christie's, it changed hands for 250 guineas. 



distorted in agony.* The Crucifixion of San Placido, and 
the Christ at the column, in the National Gallery, prove 
that Velazquez's sluggish temperament was sometimes 
touched by the flame of religious ecstasy. The intense 
quivering humanity of this Christ could only have been 
realised by an artist whose soul vibrated in sympathy 
with the tragedy of the redemption. Goya lacked the 
spirituality of the old Spanish masters. They were 
mystics, surrounded by an invisible world. Goya could 
not escape the inherited tendencies of untold centuries. 
Aragon is a land of soothsayers and witches. He fought 
against superstitions which he could not wholly reject. 
He turned his back upon Heaven, and was haunted by 
Hell. There is no celestial peace in anything he produced. 
The Crucifixion of San Francisco el Grande is the repre- 
sentation of the body of a well-nourished model, better 
fitted to sustain the role of a youthful St. Sebastian. 
There is no trace of physical pain. In Velazquez's 
painting the head of the Christ has dropped. Goya 
follows the example of the older master line by line, but 
raises the head, and gives the features a conventional 
expression. With Velazquez the tortured body actually 
hangs on the Cross ; with Goya, the model calmly stands 
on a sustaining pedestal. The Crucifixion of San Fran- 
cisco is good studio painting, and shows that Goya 
could draw the human figure with a skill that certainly 
surpassed his contemporaries. More than that cannot 
be said. 

~" * " I suspect the Spaniards of finding pleasure in the sight of the 
sufferings of Christ," says Maurice Barres (quoted by Havelock Ellis). 
Some of Goya's etchings certainly suggest that Goya was interested 
in purely human suffering, which he draws with as little emotion as 
the Spanish crowd watches the most dreadful incidents of a bull-fight. 

I 



H4 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Probably these technical merits accounted for its 
success, despite the absence of feeling. Goya ,had not 
been led away into the wilderness of classicism by the 
plastic theories of Winckelmann. He painted his figure 
in a slightly realistic manner from the living model, and 
did not treat it as a piece of carved stone dug from some 
ruin of antiquity. His skill was appreciated by the 
members of his own profession, and on May 7, 1780, he 
was elected a member of the Royal Academy of San 
Fernando, this Crucifixion being cited as his qualifying 
work. Although he was always ready to scoff at the 
academical, he was proud of the distinction, which he 
frequently referred to in his subsequent dispute with the 
authorities of El Pilar. He still suffered from the King's 
refusal to create him a member of the Court. Academical 
recognition helped to heal the wound, and he was eager 
to make use of its commercial value to the utmost 
advantage. Self-confidence in his own abilities he had 
never lacked. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EARLY ETCHINGS, 1775-1779 

Philip Gilbert Hamerton on Goya. Interest of the early Etchings. The 
Flight into Egypt. Goya's first Etching. San Isidro and San Francisco . 
The Etchings after Velazquez. Studies for the Etchings. The Blind 
Street Singer. Hogarth and Goya. 

THE early etchings by Goya are interesting chiefly 
because they reveal the endeavours of his ardent 
spirit to conquer a new field of artistic energy. 
They are experiments, and must not be regarded in any 
other light. Goya himself was dissatisfied with them, 
and destroyed many of the plates. If we were to judge 
his skill as an etcher merely from the ability displayed 
in the copies after Velazquez we should be compelled 
to agree with Philip Gilbert Hamerton's curious verdict. 
That authority on etching wrote that Goya " never felt 
the real pleasures of an etcher," using the etching needle 
" without any idea of the artistic capabilities of the 
instrument and the art." * 

Had Hamerton based these remarks upon Goya's 
first attempts he might be excused, but apparently he 
never saw the early plates, and gave the slightest heed 

* The Portfolio, 1879, and reprinted in Portfolio Papers. As an alert 
journalist Hamerton noted that Goya's pictures in the Paris Exhibition 
of 1878 attracted considerable attention. Being a good editor it was 
necessary to refer to them in his magazine, but unfortunately he wrote 
the article himself, and an odd piece of criticism it is. 



n6 FRANCISCO GOYA 

to the Caprices, the Disasters of War, and the Tauroma- 
quia. Prints from the original plates of the Proverbs 
were appearing in that fine French periodical L'Art, and 
he honestly disliked them. Hamerton approached Goya 
without sympathy, and, although he disclaimed political 
feeling, evidently considered the Spaniard as a wicked 
radical who was trying to pose as a great artist. Of his 
paintings he admitted he knew little, and his criticism 
of Goya will fall more properly into place when we 
consider those extraordinary works of imagination which 
Baron Erlanger rescued and gave to the Prado. 

An almost complete set of the early etchings can be 
studied in the Print Room of the British Museum. 
Other examples will be found in the chalcographical 
collections of Paris, Berlin, and Madrid. Valerian von 
Loga has reproduced the rarest, and the worst, in a hand- 
some volume wholly devoted to the etchings, and further 
facsimiles will be found in Hofmann's catalogue.* The 
trouble was hardly worth taking. But they form a link 
in the development of the talent of a great artist, as, 
for instance, Turner's crude drawings of Folly Bridge 
and Nuneham Harcourt are essential in any comprehensive 
survey of that genius. They are useful for purposes of 
comparison. In themselves, Folly Bridge or an early 
etching by Goya are equally worthless. 

Goya's first etching was probably the Flight into 
Egypt, which must have been done somewhere about 
1775. In those days every painter etched, or tried to 
etch, and if the result was not always a masterpiece, 

* Valerian von Loga : Francisco de Goya, Meister der Graphik, 
Band IV., and also Goya's seltene Radierungen und Lithographien. 
Berlin, 1907. 



EARLY ETCHINGS 117 

it was at least a reduplication of personality which 
popularised his art and gave pleasure to his admirers. 
Modern artists, with a few notable exceptions, seem 
afraid to etch. If the rank and file seek for immortality 
let them start at once. Their pictures may be forgotten, 
but their etchings will wander from portfolio to portfolio 
for eternity. 

A chance remark by Carderera may be accepted as 
the reason Goya picked up the etching needle. The 
Flight into Egypt, he suggests, was drawn for exchange.* 
Maella, his colleague in the tapestry factory, did a 
Repose in Egypt, Bayeu a Holy Family, and other members 
of the Madrid School added to the common stock. Their 
engravings are lost to fame, and, if Goya had done 
nothing else, the Flight into Egypt would have suffered 
the same fate. Von Loga talks about Tiepolo and the 
Venetian idea in reference to this extremely slight 
sketch. | Actually there is very little idea in the Flight. 
The ass is badly drawn Goya never was happy with 
his animals. The Virgin and the Child are uncomfort- 
ably perched upon the beast in an attitude which por- 
tends disaster. Naturally St. Joseph looks ill at ease. 
The drawing is poor, although the etched line is firm 
and incisive. 

The next prints are more ambitious failures. Of San 
Isidro praying but a single copy exists in the National 
Library of Madrid. The Saint is typically Spanish, but 
the draughtsmanship is far from good, and the proof 
shows that Goya lost control of the plate. The " biting " 

* Gazette des Beaux- Arts, September, 1863, p. 239. 

f Von Loga : Goya, Meister der Graphik, p. 3. The etching is re- 
produced, together with the San Isidro and many of the Velazquez 
subjects. 



n8 FRANCISCO GOYA 

did not succeed, and the work was left unfinished. Per- 
haps it would have been better if the one copy had 
perished. With the San Isidro may be mentioned the 
San Francisco de Paula, of which the plate belongs to the 
Royal Chalcography of Madrid, and recent prints have 
been taken.* Goya was never disheartened by failures. 
He was closely studying the Velazquez portraits, and 
he decided to etch them. In 1778 he completed eleven 
large plates. During the same year he delivered fourteen 
of the tapestry cartoons, so that his energy must have 
been terrific. 

They show no sign of haste, and must have been 
undertaken as a pleasure. Goya may have received some 
vague promise of state support. The multiplication of 
these masterpieces was a patriotic duty, and Godoy did 
well to buy the plates. But this purchase did not take 
place until 1793, so that Goya's labour must have had 
little financial result in 1778.1 But as reproductions 
of Velazquez these etchings are not only singularly 
ineffective, but at times absolutely false. The equestrian 
Philip IV. is executed with a niggling delicacy which 
Goya rarely attempted in his painting. The etched 
line is scratchy and uncertain. In the later plates the 
line is deeper and richer, but in no case is it quite happy. 
A comparison of Velazquez's JEsop with the etching 
shows how strangely Goya lost the exquisite gradation 
of tone in the original, whilst the features lack the serene 
dignity of Velazquez's peasant philosopher and deteriorate 

* See Lefort's catalogue, p. 116. 

f Carderera states that Goya presented these plates to the King in 
1779. Another version asserts that they were purchased in 1793, 
which possibly was the date of payment. Otherwise it is difficult to 
reconcile the facts. 




THE GAROTTE 
After the etching in the British Museum 



EARLY ETCHINGS 119 

into the furrows and wrinkles of an ill-tempered old man. 
Goya was certainly aware of the deficiencies of his in- 
terpretation, for he did not trouble to carry the plate 
to an advanced stage, and probably looked upon his 
work as little more than an exercise in craftsmanship. 
Don Sebastian de Morra, one of the famous dwarfs, is 
more successful, but it compares feebly with the original. 
The Alcade Ronquillo (after a lost portrait) reveals an 
increasing mastery of the technique of etching, and the 
plate is almost overworked by the needle. Las Meninas* 
although it lacks all depth and beauty of tone, is a gallant 
attempt at a reproduction of the silvery atmosphere of 
an artist's studio in the old palace. The labour is 
conscientious, and Goya must have spent many hours 
over the plate. Some of the detail is most delicately 
set down, and it is interesting to reflect that the artist 
turned from the flowing brushwork of the tapestry car- 
toons to these minute exercises. Goya tried to strengthen 
the plate with aquatint, but the result was so displeas- 
ing that he destroyed the copper. But this, as Von Loga 
suggests, could not have been in 1778, at the time of the 
original etching, but about 17914 

The whole series hardly requires a detailed commen- 
tary. There is a Bacchus, the Cardinal Infante Ferdinand, 
the most indifferent of the set, a Don Juan of Austria 
(after Carreno) better in drawing, and a Barbarossa. 
Some of the early proofs were pulled in a brownish- 
red ink, and several of the plates were strengthened 
with aquatint. For most of the etchings careful pre- 
liminary studies were made in red chalk. Eight of 

* See Carderera, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1863, Vol. XV., p. 246. 
t Von Loga : Goya, Meister der Graphik, p. 9. 



120 FRANCISCO GOYA 

these drawings are now in Hamburg,* many of the 
others being probably intentionally destroyed, f A 
sketch of the Alcade is in the collection of the Marquis 
de Casa Torres, and is probably the one referred to by 
Cean Bermudez.J 

The largest plate Goya ever attempted was the Blind 
street singer, which dates from the early part of 1779. 
The subject has a close relationship to the tapestry 
cartoons, being a version of one of the large cartoons 
now in the Prado, and possesses a popular and sentimen- 
tal interest which gave it a certain vogue. A crowd is 
grouped in pyramidical form, the apex being formed by 
a man on horseback. Various types of Spanish citizens 
from the rich merchant to the black water-carrier 
stand and listen to the blind man singing to the music 
of the guitar. On the left a drover leads a yoke of oxen ; 
on the right is a small group of market people which 
recalls the crockery sellers in the tapestry cartoon. 
The background is only faintly indicated. A huge brick 
building may be a remembrance of one of the brick 
palaces of Zaragoza. As the representation of a city 
scene it may be placed by the side of one of Hogarth's 
London plates, and at once it must be noted that a close 
comparison of Hogarth and Goya is hard to draw. 
Both were keen observers, both were satirists with a not 
overwhelming belief in the ideal. Goya was the better 
painter, and had a richer imagination than Hogarth, who 
can hardly be called an imaginative painter, so exactly 

* Von Loga : p. 7. 

f Cean Bermudez : Diccionario historico, V., p. 178. 

J An interesting speculation as to whether Velazquez etched any 
plates after his portraits will be found in the Jahrbuch der Koniglich 
Preuszischen Kunstsamndungen, Vol. XXI., p. 177. 






EARLY ETCHINGS 121 

did he reproduce the life around them. In many respects 
their temperaments were akin, although their work was 
different. They found the world rather gross and earthy. 
Mercilessly they castigated their contemporaries, making 
fun of poor humanity's weaknesses, blunders, hypocrisies, 
and sins. They so concentrated their attention upon 
the coarser aspects of life, that their efforts arouse 
a suspicion that Dryden was not far from the truth 
when he declared that " none but the base in baseness 
do delight." In turning over the leaves of Hogarth's 
Rake's progress, or the seventy-six plates of Goya's 
Caprices, which we have yet to consider, it is difficult 
to dismiss the feeling that sometimes the satirist is lower 
than the creature he flays. 



CHAPTER IX 

ZARAGOZA AND MADRID, 1775-1785 

Goya neglected in Zaragoza. The Decorations of El Pilar. His Sim- 
plicity of Life. Further Work upon the Cathedral. The Quarrel with 
Francisco Bayeu. A Discussion with the Committee and Canon Allue. 
The new Frescoes. Goya's Letter to the Committee. Prior Salzedo. 
Goya returns to Madrid. Family Affairs. A Commission for the Church 
of San Francisco el Grande. Trouble with Florida Blanca over the 
Payment. Goya's Friendship with the Infante Don Luis. He is again 
refused a Court Appointment. Elected Director of the Royal Academy 
of San Fernando. Two Portraits of the Artist. 

THAT a prophet hath little honour amongst his 
own kindred is a proverb of eternal and cosmo- 
politan application. Goya loved Zaragoza. 
Throughout his life he was always ready to revisit his 
family home, and he remained in unbroken correspon- 
dence with Martin Zapater. But that Zaragoza displayed 
any pride at the growing renown of her talented son there 
is not the slightest evidence. In the earlier years of his 
fight for success the citizens seem to have used him rather 
badly. 

He had already been employed upon the internal de- 
coration of the new cathedral on the banks of the Ebro. 
In April, 1774, negotiations were resumed, and the com- 
mittee in charge of the building decided to commission 
him to paint two of the domes and the four smaller 
cupolas. Goya was in residence at Madrid in the spring 
of 1775, and before he could start the work his name 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 123 

had to be ratified by certain authorities in the capital. 
He commenced his task in May, making himself respon- 
sible for workmen and scaffolding. Part of the com- 
mission a Coronation of the Virgin was completed in 
February, 1776, and received general commendation. 
He was paid the agreed sum of 5,500 reals, and in March 
returned to Madrid. Probably the chance of employment 
by Rafael Mengs in the tapestry factory offered a better 
prospect than remaining in Zaragoza to decorate El 
Pilar. Even the brightest provincial centre cannot offer 
such opportunities to the ambitious man as a capital 
city with a royal court in residence. Besides, the works 
at El Pilar were intermittent, and largely depended upon 
the funds under the control of the committee. During 
the next few years Goya was invited back to Zaragoza, 
but he refused these appeals with the apology that he 
was busy with numerous commissions in Madrid and 
Toledo. 

Not until 1780 was the artist ready to continue the 
decorative scheme of the cathedral. In the summer of 
that year a chance note proves that he was about to 
settle in Zaragoza. It is a characteristic letter. He 
tells his correspondent that he requires very little furni- 
ture, merely a table, five chairs, some crockery, a lamp, 
a little wine, a violin, and a draught-board. Everything 
else is superfluous, and the painter is revealed as a 
wholehearted adherent to the simple life. Most artists 
love to gather round them objects of beauty, arms, 
china, drawings by the great masters, rich carpets, fine 
furniture. Rembrandt's house in the Breestraat must 
have been a veritable museum pictures and drawings 
by all the old masters, Roman statuary, armour, rare 



124 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Chinese porcelain, Japanese and Indian vases, furniture 
in cedar and mahogany, portfolios of engravings, brocaded 
curtains, elaborate musical instruments. But we never 
read that Goya collected anything, and the fact agrees 
with what we know of his temperament. He was a 
terrific worker, and he earned large sums of money, but 
he sought recreation outside the practice of his art. 
When the leisure hour came he did not meditatively 
dream through a portfolio, or argue with a friend over 
the merits of a canvas. Instead, he threw himself into 
fresh action, dived in the pot-houses of Madrid, crossed 
foils with the latest maitre d'epee from Paris or Rome, 
sought an adventure in the groves of the Prado, spent 
scented hours in an aristocratic boudoir, or fraternised 
with the gipsies who camped on the outskirts of the town. 
Goya was essentially a man of action. 

In October, 1780, he was busily engaged on the sketches 
for the frescoes, and appears to have been working in 
conjunction with his younger brother-in-law, Ramon 
Bayeu. The sketches were submitted to the committee, 
October 5, 1780, and the members approved of them 
with the remark that they were executed with much 
good taste. 

These worthy men, however, were not wholly free 
agents. They were acting under the advice of Francisco 
Bayeu. The position is somewhat difficult to unravel, 
for Bayeu had undoubtedly brought Goya's name to the 
notice of the committee, and had spoken very highly 
of his talents. But many events had happened in the 
interval since Goya's first commission. He had found 
a certain amount of popular success in Madrid, and he 
was still smarting at the King's refusal to appoint him a 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 125 

Court painter. Probably Bayeu was not altogether 
unresponsible for that failure. In Zaragoza, Goya and 
Bayeu were soon at loggerheads. A recent biographer 
states the true source of the trouble when he sug- 
gests that the committee refused to accept Goya at 
his own valuation.* He wished to be treated as 
Bayeu's superior, although Bayeu was the older man 
with an acknowledged official position. But how were 
provincial ecclesiastics to know that one was a genius 
and the other a mediocrity ? Goya had realised the 
worth of his own powers whilst working at the 
tapestry cartoons. In Zaragoza he had not only to 
listen to the captious criticism of his brother-in-law, but 
was compelled to submit to it. 

Open revolt quickly followed. On December 14 
Bayeu complained that Goya refused to recognise his 
authority as artistic adviser to the committee and 
director of the decorations. ' He accordingly asked the 
committee to relieve him of any responsibility with regard 
to Goya's designs. f No request was more calculated to 
throw the committee into dismay. The members had 
little taste, which is a rare enough quality in any case, 
although the most ignorant fool deems himself fully 
competent to pass judgment upon a work of art. But 
the committee had charge of one of the most famous 
churches in northern Spain, and could be called to account 
by their fellow citizens. Bayeu was their artistic sheet- 
anchor, and if they followed his lead they could not go 
far wrong. Bayeu's complaint was solemnly discussed, 
and the deliberations summed up in a minute. ' The 

* Calvert : Goya, p. 36. 
f Vinaza : Goya, p. 37. 



126 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Committee, taking into account that Goya had come to 
paint owing in a great measure to the pressure and eulogy 
of Bayeu's letters, agreed that Canon Allue, the director 
of the building, should frequently see the artist and his 
work, and should also mention any defects he might 
notice, and should impress upon Goya how grateful he 
ought to be for the good offices of Don Francisco Bayeu 
in engaging him as his assistant/' 

No more unfortunate resolution could have been passed. 
Canon Allue, in his efforts to make peace between Josefa's 
husband and brother, probably never conveyed to the 
passionate artist the full terms of the committee's 
recommendation. In the meanwhile, Goya, relieved of 
all brotherly control, continued to work, and in February 
completed the dome. He then at once prepared his 
designs for the four pendentives, the subjects being 
Faith, Courage, Charity, and Patience.* His courage 
was unquestionable, but faith and patience he con- 
spicuously lacked. 

He had frankly not endeavoured to harmonise his 
frescoes with those of Francisco and Ramon Bayeu. To 
those who enter the cathedral El Pilar with a recollection 
of the glowing phrases of some of his biographers these 
decorations will be found disappointing. Goya undoubt- 
edly worked under the influence of Correggio. He 
had not forgotten his Italian wanderings. Tiepolo too 
had crossed his path, but not the Tiepolo who inspired 
the coquettish crowds which gaze from the roof of the 
church of San Antonio de la Florida. There is a blight 
upon the decorations of El Pilar, and, although Goya 
proves himself more skilful and more modern than his 

* Vinaza, p. 38. 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 127 

associates, a visitor to Zaragoza's holiest spot must con- 
fess to a feeling of weariness. But the very qualities 
which give them the slight interest they possess to-day 
were their undoing in 1780. The committee and the 
townsfolk condemned them for this spirit of modernity, 
and praised the feeble excellence of the frescoes by the 
brothers Bayeu. They told Goya that his colours were 
too dark, which was probably true, for his palette was 
always inclined to be heavy. Their prudish minds were 
Disturbed by the insufficient drapery on his saints and 
angels. The committee, with the bright sketches in front 
of them, " fearing to expose themselves to fresh censure 
and an accusation of negligence and want of care, put 
this matter, by reason of the confidence he had won from 
the committee and the whole Chapter, under the direc- 
tion and in the hands of Don Francisco Bayeu, hoping 
that he will take the trouble to see these studies, and say 
whether the observations of the committee are just in 
deciding that the pendentives be painted in such a way 
that they may be shown to the public without fear of 
criticism." * In other words, the worthy Chapter, un- 
certain of its own taste, and quaking with the fear of the 
outside public, threw over Goya, and again attempted 
to saddle Bayeu with the responsibility. 

Bayeu was too clever a man to accept the risk. 
Considering himself offended, he refused to undertake 
the recommendation. Canon Allue tried to calm the 
storm by asking Goya to see "if there be any way of 
arranging the matter, knowing that the committee desire 
harmony, and do not wish to expose their conduct to 
censure,but wish only that the work be skilful and perfect." 
* Calvert : Goya, p. 39, Vinaza : pp. 37-40. 



128 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Goya's reply is dated from Zaragoza, March 17, 1781. 
Written with considerable skill, in the earlier pages the 
artist endeavoured not to get angry. But although he 
says that at the beginning of his work at El Pilar there 
was no motive for resentment against Francisco Bayeu, 
he becomes warmer as he proceeds, and makes definite 
charges of malice against his brother-in-law. He opens 
by complaining that the criticisms against the frescoes 
recently unveiled had been prompted by principles other 
than those of justice, and that the verdict was not 
governed by the authorised rules of art. Flattering the 
rectitude of the committee he assures them that honour 
is a very delicate thing for an artist. " He is sustained 
by opinion, his whole subsistence depends upon his 
reputation. When that is obscured, even by the lightest 
of shadows, his future is gone." 

The letter then recapitulates the conditions upon which 
he undertook the commission. He admits that the 
invitation came originally from Bayeu, but denies any 
implied control, citing his membership of the Academy 
of San Fernando, his reputation in Madrid, and the 
work he had done for the King. Holding such qualifi- 
cations, submission to another artist would be detrimental 
to his honour. 

However, wishing to be on terms of good-fellowship 
with Bayeu, he showed his sketches to his brother-in-law, 
who entirely approved of them. In one detail he sub- 
mitted to Bayeu's judgment, and the completed work 
was simply an enlargement of the sketches Bayeu had 
seen and the committee passed. Goya denied that in 
any way he had lacked the respect due to his senior. 
" There are those who think so, because, when the work 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 129 

was well in hand they wished to make me understand 
that the agreement with Bayeu was that he might inter- 
fere as much as he liked with the work, and that I 
must obey him, as a subordinate, in execution, com- 
position, style, colour, and so forth in a word I was to 
be a mere assistant." This was a humiliation he would 
not suffer. " Don Francisco Bayeu's warning that he 
would not be responsible for my part of the work only 
shows that his object was to create a want of confidence 
that should cause coercion to be exercised." 

Underground intrigues are revealed. " Things were 
artfully circulated against the conduct of the expositor 
(Goya), concerning his temper, proceedings, and dealings 
with Bayeu, he being accused of hauteur, pride, and 
stubbornness. Malice prepared the long premeditated 
blow, by first creating personal disaffection with his 
work." Goya refers to his patience whilst Bayeu went 
about impairing his credit "with insinuating words," 
and repeats that Bayeu approved of the sketches when 
they were submitted to him in Madrid, by Goya, " as an 
act of condescension arising from a desire for peace." He 
accuses Bayeu of working against him, with a deliberate 
motive of arousing public censure, and depriving the 
artist of any of the merit to be won from the frescoes. 
The letter clearly shows that the quarrel did not begin 
with the decorations for El Pilar. Goya told the com- 
mittee that he had given way to make peace, and indeed 
had paid many visits to his brother-in-law's house. 
These visits were not returned. Bayeu had also been 
offered every facility to inspect the work in progress. 

Then Goya opened the flood-gates of his wrath, drawing 
the attention of the committee to the " torrent of 

K 



130 FRANCISCO GOYA 

provocation, insulting to his honour and his fame . . . 
the only object of his enemies is to do him harm." He 
had endured calumny, slights, and contempt. Now he 
was told that some of his figures in the decoration of the 
dome must be altered. This was more than any artist 
could endure. The Chapter were masters in their own 
church, but, before they suffered any dauber to distort 
the frescoes Goya begged them to take the opinion of an 
expert in art whose verdict would be impartial. ' When 
his criticism detects unskilfulness and error, or testifies to 
sufficiency and skill, then he (Goya) will watch with in- 
difference the mutilations that may be executed." For 
arbitrators the letter named two members of the Academy 
of San Fernando, Mariano Maella or Antonio Velazquez. 
Goya offered to pay all the expenses of their investi- 
gation. 

The closing paragraphs of this remarkable letter* 
exhibit such deep feeling that they prove the quarrel 
to be one of long standing, and that the differences over 
the decorations of El Pilar were merely a pretext for open 
hostility. Canon Allue was evidently sick of the affair, 
and he turned for help to Father Salzedo, who may be 
identified as the priest who first set Goya's steps on the 
road of art. 

Prior Salzedo was probably one of the few men who 
had any personal influence over Goya. On March 30, 
1781, he wrote a long letter to the artist,f in which he 
begged him to exercise his judgment, and to recollect 
the humility of his Saviour, drawing a vivid picture of 

* A translation of the whole letter will be found in Cal vert's Goya, 
and the original is reprinted in Vinaza. 
f Vinaza : p. 40. 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 131 

the troubles that might follow from an open quarrel 
with the committee of El Pilar. " With all generosity 
and Christian charity submit your studies to Bayeu's 
opinion, please God with your humility, edify the public, 
and give pleasure to your friends . . . My advice, as 
your greatest admirer, is that you submit to the demands 
of the committee, have your sketches taken to your 
brother's house, and say to him in the best possible 
manner, ' This is required by the Chapter. Here they 
are. Examine them to your satisfaction, and put your 
opinion in writing, doing as God and your conscience 
shall dictate.' Then await the result." 

Goya was a man of hot and impulsive temper, but he 
took the unpalatable advice of Salzedo without hesitation. 
A letter, dated April 6, was sent to Canon Allue, in which 
he announced his intention of preparing a fresh set of 
sketches in conjunction with Bayeu, and at the same time 
he begged Allue's pardon for all the trouble which had been 
caused. On April 17 the sketches had been passed by 
Bayeu and the committee, and the work recommenced. 

Peace did not last for long. Within a month enmity 
again broke out between Goya and Bayeu, and the first 
declared that he was sullying his honour as an artist. To 
remain in Zaragoza was impossible, and he asked for im- 
mediate permission to return to Madrid. The committee 
received the news with considerable irritation. Goya, they 
considered, had not only been discourteous to Canon Allue, 
but to them also. They requested him to send in his ac- 
counts for settlement. The latter part of their resolution 
was calculated to affront and wound the irritable artist 
in the most galling manner. " Under no circumstances 
would he be permitted to continue to paint any more 



132 FRANCISCO GOYA 

in the church, but this was not to deter the Director 
from giving some medals to his wife, in virtue of her 
being the sister of Don Francisco Bayeu, a man so 
worthy of this and other considerations from the com- 
mittee, by reason of his skilful work in the church." * 

This was an insult, and Goya shook the dust of Zara- 
goza from off his feet, arriving in Madrid before June 
was out. He received payment for what he had done, 
and his wife was bemedalled as a reward for having 
such a brother. An undated letter from Jovellanos to 
the Pater Fray Manuel Bayeu, youngest of the three 
brothers, refers to the incident, but throws no light upon 
the dispute.f Valerian von Loga suggests that Goya's 
irregular private life had led to this family squabble, 
and that Bayeu was upholding the cause of an injured 
sister. This sounds unlikely, for Bayeu was not helping 
his sister by destroying her husband's professional 
reputation. Other biographers assert that Goya had 
no real cause to disagree with his brother-in-law. Fran- 
cisco Bayeu had undoubtedly done his utmost to advance 
Goya's interests both in Madrid and Zaragoza, and a 
theory more reconcilable to the few known facts is that 
the growing importance of the younger man imperilled 
his own career. Jealousy was the root of the trouble, 
a jealousy of which Goya was again conscious when he 
was denied admission into the select circle of Painters to 
the Court. Five years later, in 1786, the feud was ended, 
if not healed, and Goya painted the portrait now in the 
Valence Museum, and, a little later, that masterly 
portrait of his brother-in-law in the Prado. He reveals 

* Resolution dated May 28, 1781. Vinaza : p. 40. 

f Jovellanos : Obras (Barcelona, 1840), Vol. V., pp. 242, 244. 




FRANCISCO BAYEU Y SUBIAS 
Prntio, Madrid 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 133 

Bayeu as a person of cold and severely critical character, 
with a strong undercurrent of querulous irascibility. 
It is a great portrait of a personality which has no 
attraction. Bayeu had a strong individuality, and in 
this respect was akin to Goya. But two such tempera- 
ments could not possibly live in agreement. Subjects 
of conflict were bound to arise at every meeting. Bayeu 
doubtless presumed upon his age and position to lecture 
a young relation. Goya did not take advice from any 
man, particularly from an artist whose talent was so 
inferior to his own. 

Josef a's part in the discussion is not clear. She ought 
to have spurned the medal from El Pilar if she agreed 
with her husband's standpoint. Yet she received the 
gift as a sister of Bayeu, and then returned with Goya 
ta Madrid. The affair rankled in Goya's mind. " Don't 
remind me of it," he wrote to Zapater. " It has given 
me too much cause for grief. I smile at your care of 
my interests, but I don't want to hear anything more 
about the business." In another letter he says : " When 
I think of Zaragoza, and the decorations, my face burns." 
This sense of injustice was probably the initial cause 
of the continual bad health which racked him from 1780 
to 1790. He developed a nervous and morbid state of 
mind which looked for opposition from every point of 
the compass, with Bayeu at the head of his innumerable 
enemies. His brother the priest Camillo (for whom he 
had begged and obtained a benefice at Chinchon*) wrote 
to Zapater, October 18, 1783 : " God has given him 
luck and capacity, but he loses all patience." f 

* Vinaza : p. 41. 
f Zapater : p. 26. 



134 FRANCISCO GOYA 

The death of his father broke up the paternal home in 
Zaragoza, soon after the unfortunate quarrel. The son 
was so upset that he refused food. Jose Goya died 
December 17, 1781, and was buried in his parish church 
of San Miguel de los Navarros. He left no will because 
he possessed no goods. In November, 1782, Goya's 
sister died. " I find consolation in the fact that she did 
nothing but good, and will surely have her place in the 
Eternal Glory. We who lead a vagabond existence must 
try to improve our lives during the short time that remains 
to us." In September, 1783, the widowed mother joined 
her son in Madrid, but she could not rest in the capital. 
Probably she did not agree with Josef a, although there 
was plenty to be occupied with, for the house was full 
of young and evidently ailing children. She soon 
returned to Zaragoza, and Goya paid her an annuity 
for the rest of her life. 

His mood did not alter, and he suffered from the 
deepest depression. On June 2, 1784, he wrote : "I 
have lost all strength, and work very little. . . . Pray 
to the Madonna that she may give me pleasure in my 
work." When a man of Goya's ardent temperament 
loses interest in his work the outlook is ominous. And 
there was plenty of work waiting to be done. 

One reason why he had precipitately left Zaragoza 
after the quarrel with the committee was the knowledge 
that important commissions were being shared amongst 
the artists of Madrid. Ventura Rodriquez, chief of the 
architects of his age, was building the church of San 
Francisco el Grande. Pictures would be required for the 
seven altars, and, as a member of the Academy, with 
his Crucifixion still fresh in the memory of the public, 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 135 

it was hardly possible that the strongest opposition 
could exclude him. Although he left Zaragoza in June 
he was able to send good news to his friend Zapater in 
August. " It has pleased God to comfort me," he writes 
with a slightly smug self-satisfaction.* There was a 
kind of competition for the work, and the Mengs clique 
was not forgotten. Goya was too passionate a spirit to 
remain in any circle, and he now like Ibsen's strongest 
man was standing alone, f His commission came practi- 
cally from the royal family through the Count de Florida 
Blanca. After the wounds of El Pilar it acted like 
a healing balm. In the following autumn his sketches 
were ready, and the work was in position during the 
summer of 1784. On December 8, 1784, the altar-pieces 
were ceremoniously unveiled in the presence of the 
King and his Court. J The church was crowded with 
the society of Madrid, and Francisco Bayeu, to whom 
had been allotted the high altar, travelled from Toledo to 
be present. The other artists were Goya, Mariano Maella, 
Gregorio Farro, Antonio Velazquez, Jose del Castillo, 
and Andrea Calleja. Goya had taken for his subject 
St. Bernardino de Siena, crucifix in hand, preaching 
from a rock, by the light of a star, to King Alfonso of 
Aragon and his courtiers. Goya's success may be 
chronicled in his own words, December n, 1784 : 
" I have had luck with my St. Bernardino, not only 
with the experts, but with the public as well. Without 
any reservation, everyone is on my side. The King 

* The royal order came through Florida Blanca, July 20. 
f An Enemy of the People. " The strongest man is he who stands 
alone." The last words of Dr. Stockmann. 
} Vinaza : p. 42. 
Vihaza gives a detailed description of these altar-pieces, p. 42. 



136 FRANCISCO GOYA 

expressed his satisfaction before the whole Court." 
The joy of the artist was almost childish but the 
true artist has usually much of the child in his 
nature. 

When a question of payment arose, however, all 
manner of difficulties were set in the way. On April 25, 
1785, three of the artists, Goya, Farro, and Castillo, 
petitioned the Count de Florida Blanca. The work 
had engaged them for two years. Their livelihood 
depended upon their exertions. ' They possessed no 
fixed income, as did those artists who have the happiness 
to work for the King." Goya had not forgotten his 
previous rebuff over the coveted Court appointment. 
When the petition was sent to the minister, with it was 
taken a covering letter from Antonio Ponz, the secretary 
of the Royal Academy of San Fernando, who laid stress 
upon the difficulties of the artists, and asked for a 
favourable reply " so that these poor men may not lose 
heart, and that reward shall inspire them to fresh 
efforts." Florida Blanca's reply was grudging. After 
three months' delay the sum of 6,000 reals was paid 
on account, and a later marginal note on the memorial 
reads, in far from flattering language : " Pay another 
4,000 reals to each. The pictures are not of great 
value, but these three are not the worst." * 

Despite his continued nervous ailment, Goya's life 
was exceedingly busy. He had been commissioned to 
paint several devotional subjects for a college at Sala- 
manca, and Jovellanos was asked to tell the artist how 
singularly satisfied the patron was at the care and dili- 
gence with which he had finished the paintings, and also 
* Vifiaza : p. 44. 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 137 

at their eminent merit.* Portrait commissions com- 
menced to come to his studio in increasing numbers, 
and as a result of his acquaintance with Florida Blanca 
he was introduced to the Infante Don Luis, brother 
of the King, and husband of the beautiful Maria Teresa 
Vallabriga. Don Luis was a man of unconventional 
character, noted for his easy temper, his easier morals, 
and his artistic tastes. Jovellanos truly called him 
" a benefactor of art and artists." j In Goya he found 
a sympathetic soul. Maria Teresa came from Aragon, 
and her romantic history was common property. The 
artist was invited to the palace of Arenas de San Pedro, 
in the province of Avila, where he painted portraits 
of the Prince and his family and also spent much time 
hunting with his host. For Goya was not only a musician, 
a fine swordsman, and, if not a toreador, at any rate an 
enthusiast in all questions of tauromachia, but also 
a keen sportsman. During the period 1780-1785 he 
found the surest relaxation for his overtaxed nerves 
in hunting in the environs of Madrid. 

* October n, 1784. 

f Don Luis was the last son of Philip V. and Elisabeth Farnese. 
In 1735, when he was barely ten years of age, he was created a cardinal, 
but he later renounced all his ecclesiastical dignities and lived with his 
mother at San Ildefonse. Charles III. allowed him to marry the Dona 
Maria Teresa Vallabriga y Rozas, a young woman of great beauty 
who belonged to a noble family of Aragon. The marriage took place 
June 27, 1776, but the ceremony was not allowed at the Court. The 
Infante was conducted in the royal carriages as far as the Tagus. 
When he crossed the river he relinquished his royal privileges, and was 
met by his own servants in gray livery with red facings and silver 
lace. He lived as a private gentleman at Las Arenas. After his 
death, August 23, 1785, his wife was forbidden to live in Madrid, in 
the provincial capitals, or at the royal residences, although her family 
boasted its descent from the ancient Kings of Navarre. One daughter 
married Manuel Godoy, the other the Duke of San Fernando. The 
son, known as the Cardinal de Bourbon, became Archbishop of Toledo. 



138 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Goya's visit to Don Luis was one of the most note- 
worthy events of the earlier portion of his life. In 
writing to Zaragoza, he described the Prince's family as 
" simply angelic." He hunted almost every day with 
the Infante, and the game they shot he commemorated 
in several very clever studies of still-life. After a month 
host and guest reluctantly parted. Goya was given 
a handsome present, and a costly brocade dress was 
despatched to his wife. Don Luis and Maria Teresa 
made him promise to return the following year, and so 
careful were they of his personal comfort that they sent 
him home to Madrid by a special courier. Unfortunately 
the friendship was not destined to grow old. The Infante 
made a yearly visit to his brother the King in Madrid, 
but Goya kissed the hand of his patron for the last time 
early in 1785. At Las Arenas he painted many family 
portraits, which are described as being dry in colour 
and not well composed. He also executed life-sized 
portraits of the children, and Court portraits of the 
Infante. These were afterwards removed to Boadilla 
del Monte, a palace built by Rodriguez near Puerta 
Segovia, where they filled a gallery on one of the upper 
floors. 

Upon the success of his altar-piece at San Francisco 
el Grande he built great hopes. The death of Andrea 
Calleja again opened the path to Court favour. On 
January 14, 1785, in writing to Zapater, he referred to 
" a public secret in the palace, yet I must speak only 
about the accomplished fact." But Goya was not to 
receive the coveted appointment. The old King, 
Charles III., remained obdurate, and Goya was not made 
a painter to the Court during his reign, having to wait 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 139 

an additional four years. No reason can be advanced 
for the second refusal, for Goya's own friends were 
eager to do him honour. Calleja's death left vacant 
the directorship of the Academy of San Fernando, and 
Goya was elected to the office of the president. " Little 
profit but much honour," he told Zapater in one of his 
letters, the salary being merely twenty-five doubloons. 
However, it practically created him one of the most 
important artists in Madrid, and official head of the art 
world. Ponz's reference to him as one of the " poor 
men " could hardly have been justified by the facts, 
for Goya's fortune must have been rapidly growing. 

With his fortieth year he entered upon the most 
brilliant period of his career. He had quickly consolidated 
his position, for up to the age of twenty-five he had done 
nothing. Of his personal appearance about this time 
we can obtain a good impression from two portraits repro- 
duced in Charles Yriarte's biography.* In the first he 
is dressed in the height of fashion. His face glows with 
a wilful obstinacy, a passionate energy. If there be any 
truth in the laws of Lavater we have here a man ready to 
enjoy life's pleasures to the uttermost. In a portrait, 
painted by himself, at the age of thirty-two, he stands 
in front of his easel, and gazes from the canvas in a posi- 
tion almost identical with that of Hogarth in the portrait 
of the English artist and his dog in the National Gallery. 
If we reverse the Hogarth portrait we can compare the 
lines of the face, feature by feature, to those of Goya. 
There is a striking physical resemblance between the 
two men. They possess the same heavy cheeks, clean 

* Yriarte : Goya (1867). The first portrait is on p. n, "after 
a miniature " ; the second, on p. 27, in the collection of F. de Madrazo. 



140 FRANCISCO GOYA 

shaven, full-blooded, with strongly marked chins 
perhaps Hogarth's is the more determined, but there is 
little to choose the eyes are equally alert, the two fore- 
heads high but square. There is no idealism in these 
men. Their outlook is cynical. They do not believe 
very much in the nobler attributes of human nature. We 
must not accuse Hogarth of vulgarity,* yet there is always 
the strident echo of the London guttersnipe lurking in 
his moralities. This is absent from Goya, who, though 
a townsman, was country bred. Hogarth was coarse, 
because he belonged to a coarse age. Goya was coarse 
for the same reason. But Goya was a sceptic in an 
age of free-thinkers, whilst Hogarth, although a latitudi- 
narian in a century of Trullibers, was sound at the 
core. 

The portrait of Goya at the age of thirty-five, after a 
miniature, repays our study. The features have changed 
very little, but the dress is more distinguished, with fine 
linen ruffles round the neck. The hair has been care- 
fully curled, and tied at the back in a ribbon it is 
difficult to say from the wood-engraving whether or no 
powder has been used, but it is probable. As a whole 
the miniature carries a look of greater determina- 
tion, the eyes have an ardent fire, not to be found in 
the earlier portrait. Goya now has the confidence of 
success, the joy of a granted ambition. His position 
is secure. His patrons are the rulers of the land. His 
closest friends are to be found in the salons of the capital. 

* Charles Lamb refers to the critics who term Hogarth inferior and 
vulgar. " These persons seem to me to confound the painting of 
subjects in common or vulgar life with the being a vulgar artist. 
The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every picture 
would alone unvulgarise every subject he might choose." 



ZARAGOZA AND MADRID 141 

The artist has fought his way through every obstacle, 
and reached his desire. 

Like Rembrandt he loved to paint his portrait, and 
a number of these miniatures and canvases still exist. 
They form a running commentary upon his life. With 
this drawing before us we need no other help to recon- 
struct the personality of the artist at his period of 
success. 



CHAPTER X 

TRANSITION 

Goya not a ferocious Revolutionary. Hamerton's Explanation of the 
Artist's Renown. Spain passing through an Age of Transition. 
Ferdinand VI. Charles III. His Portrait by Goya. The Plot against 
the Jesuits. The Count d'Aranda. Influence of the French Philosophers 
upon the Spanish Nobility. Moral as well as Political Changes. Bad 
Example of the Heir to the Throne. Maria Luisa of Parma. Accession 
of Charles IV. Goya appointed a Painter of the Chamber. His 
Portraits of Jovellanos and the Count de Florida Blanca. Commence- 
ment of his best Period of Portraiture. 

IN most biographies of Francisco Goya it is usual to 
depict him as a ferocious revolutionary, who fawned 
upon the members of a monarchy he sought to 
destroy. Historians of conservative and monarchical 
views have gloated over the story of this artist-republican, 
who was always ready to set aside his most cherished 
beliefs immediately his pocket was imperilled; this 
libertine who rebelled against all the laws of human 
morality, and preached equality whilst he made love 
to duchesses; this atheist who willingly accepted com- 
missions to paint altar-pieces and decorate churches ; 
this patriot and nationalist who was one of the first 
to greet Joseph Bonaparte upon his usurpation of the 
throne of Spain. Such a many-sided temperament 
lends itself to those rapid contrasts of light and shade 
which delight the biographer. French critics have 



TRANSITION 143 

revelled in the picture of a man who flattered France 
by embracing the free-thinking teaching of the Encyclo- 
paedists, and was converted by David himself to those 
political theories which heralded the great revolution. 
Spanish authors have felt it necessary to protest against 
this point of view. They would have us believe that the 
artist lived a quiet life in the midst of a happy family, 
was a good son of Mother Church, and seldom allowed 
his heart to be disturbed by the flutter of a petticoat. 
One English art critic, who failed to appreciate Goya 
as an artist, elaborated a most amazing theory that his 
renown as a painter was almost wholly political. " The 
celebrity of the artist is in great part political, and not 
artistic, in its origin ; it is also partly a protestation 
against religious tyranny, which Goya hated and resisted 
in his own way with considerable effect in Spain. In 
a word, Goya, besides being an artist, was a great Spanish 
Liberal. . . . The friends of liberty, both in Spain 
and France, are therefore strongly prejudiced in his 
favour, and it is a most powerful element of success, even 
in art, to get an active and growing political influence 
on the side of one's private reputation. . . . Goya 
was on the side of the Revolution, an audacious enemy 
of tyranny, hypocrisy, stupidity, and superstition ; 
consequently he was a great painter, and one of the 
most accomplished etchers who ever lived ! " * Only 
one comment is necessary upon this extraordinary 
verdict. Political activity has never immortalised the 
work of a single mediocre artist. To this fact there is 
not a single exception, for art can only live through the 
ages upon its own inherent merit. 

* P. G. Hamerton : Portfolio Papers Goya, p. 126. 



144 FRANCISCO GOYA 

The truth about Goya is not to be arrived at by 
conscientiously following the pictures drawn by Zapater, 
Matheron, Vinaza, Yriarte, or even Hamerton. Goya's 
fame is based upon his art, and his art alone. His 
private life was possibly not so free as the French writers 
would have us believe, but it was certainly not so staid 
as Zapater asserts. Goya was no Benvenuto Cellini ; 
neither was he a Fra Angelico. He was more akin to 
Lippo Lippi, whose example he followed when he broke 
into the Roman convent. Immorality alone never leads 
to celebrity. Men like Aretino, Casanova, Cellini, de 
Sade, and fifty others, gained their notoriety more from 
their literary and artistic works than from their deeds 
however much the latter appealed to popular fancy. 
When Goya's political ideas are calmly considered, we 
find that there is little novelty in them. He was a 
child of Aragon, a province distinguished for its equal 
love of liberty and respect towards the crown.* These 
qualities were engrained in Goya's blood. He could not 
have thrown them off had he so desired. There is no 
evidence that he ever had such a wish. 

The secret is to be found in the history of the period. 
It was an age of transition. His interest in politics 
was probably not greater than that of any ordinary 
intelligent Spaniard who loved his country and longed 
to see it better governed. But he could not escape 

* The address to Charles III. from the nobility of Aragon after the 
campaign of 1762 forms inspiring reading. " The nobility of your 
kingdoms attached to the throne of Aragon supplicate your majesty 
to intrust to their zeal the defence of the coasts. . . . We have 
little concern in regard to the quality of the posts which your majesty 
may assign us, less for the climate whither we may be sent, and none 
for pay. . . . He is not a gentleman who has not acquired his title 
by illustrious deeds in defence of his country." 



TRANSITION 145 

influences which were working on every side. Almost 
for the first time in Spain men were beginning to think 
for themselves and were free to express their unguarded 
opinions without mental reservation. Under the House 
of Austria, with a government so centralised that 
Philip II. was able to control the machine of state to 
its minutest detail, personal liberty of thought and 
action was practically suppressed. Whilst admitting 
the value of the Inquisition as a censor of morals, the 
power of the Holy Office was directly opposed to intel- 
lectual development which did not proceed upon lines 
agreeable to its policy. Individuality was dangerous ; 
only the weaklings and time-servers could rely upon an 
unchallenged personal peace. When Charles II., last of 
his House, died, and Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., 
ascended the throne, the old order was bound to decay. 
The Bourbons did not encourage criticism any more 
than the Hapsburgs, but there is an inherent logic in 
the Gallic race they could never suppress, and it 
crossed the Pyrenees in their train. The change did 
not come at once. In some respects it was antagonistic 
to the spirit of southern Spain, and Philip V., who had 
learnt the art of government as elaborated by Louis XIV., 
knew his duties too well to allow much scope for an 
educative liberalism. 

His successor, Ferdinand VI., only surviving son of 
Philip by Maria Luisa of Savoy, was just and benevolent. 
Little more can be said of him. His constitution was 
delicate, his temper placid although he was subject to 
those sudden fits of violent passion which were almost a 
family inheritance. Extremely parsimonious, he was 

at the same time noted for his punctilious truthfulness. 

L 



146 FRANCISCO GOYA 

After the fashion of another historical character, and 
probably in more strict accordance with historical fact, 
he was never known to tell a lie. Like his father he was 
hypochondriacal, and lived in the perpetual fear of death. 
The minutiae of government he deputed to his ministers ; 
hunting and music formed his only distractions. He was 
indolent and incapable, and his solitary virtue was that 
he recognised and admitted his faults. Complimented 
on his prowess as a sportsman, he answered : "It would 
be extraordinary if I could not do one thing well." 
During his reign Spain enjoyed a longer period of in- 
ternal peace than had occurred since the days of Philip 
II., and at least one of his ministers endeavoured to en- 
courage the arts and sciences of the land.* The school of 
painting, sculpture and architecture, founded by Philip 
V., was erected into a royal academy, and endowed with 
funds for sending the most promising students to Italy. 
The death of his Queen in 1758 drove Ferdinand into a 
despair which was not far removed from madness, and 
the English ambassador reported that " the monarch, 
besides great indispositions of body, is in some sort 
disordered in mind." On August 10, 1759, his melancholy 
ended in death, and his half-brother crossed the sea from 
his kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and ascended the Spanish 
throne. 

Amongst the royal portraits in the Prado is one by 
Goya of Charles III., painted towards the end of his 
reign. The touch has all the hardness of some of the 
tapestry cartoons, and the composition is obviously 
based upon Velazquez's portrait of Philip IV. Indeed, 

* Don Zeno Somo de Villa, Marquis de la Ensenada, a man of humble 
origin, who, like Colbert, started life as a bank clerk. 



TRANSITION 147 

the attitude of the two figures is almost exactly the same, 
and both sovereigns are shown in hunting costume. 
But the later Bourbons never possessed the absorbing 
personal fascination which enveloped every member of 
the House of Austria. The eighteenth-century Bourbons 
were a dull and bored race, though some amongst them 
Charles III. endeavoured to carry out their kingly 
duties with earnestness and sincerity. The Earl of 
Bristol, British ambassador at Madrid, wrote to Pitt 
that the Catholic King " has good talents, a happy 
memory, and an uncommon command of himself on all 
occasions. His having been often deceived renders him 
suspicious." The description adds to our appreciation 
of Goya's skill in the delineation of personality. For 
suspicion lurks in the great black eyes of this old and 
disillusioned monarch, who, in a most dignified cocked 
hat and wig, peers forth from the canvas as if the very 
animals he is about to slaughter with his gun are waiting 
to take advantage of him. Goya's portrait also tallies 
with the vivid description of Major Dalrymple. " The 
King has a very odd appearance in person and dress. 
He is of diminutive stature, with a complexion of the 
colour of mahogany. He has not been measured for a 
coat these thirty years, so that it sits upon him like a 
sack ; his waistcoat and breeches are generally leather, 
with a pair of cloth spatterdashes on his legs. ... He 
goes out a-sporting every day of the year, rain or blow, 
whilst at Madrid, once a day, in the afternoon ; but in 
the country, at the sitios, morning and evening ; he often 
drives six or seven leagues out, and back again, as hard 
as the horses can go." Dalrymple added that life was 
rough for the royal attendants, who often received falls 



148 FRANCISCO GOYA 

from their horses, resulting in dislocated shoulders, 
broken arms and legs, and numberless contusions. The 
whole of the country around the palaces was enclosed for 
sport, so that, in painting him in hunting costume, Goya 
seized a more characteristic pose than if the King had 
stood in imperial robes. 

The Earl of Rochford wrote to the Earl of Halifax, 
January 13, 1764, saying : " With regard to his Catholic 
Majesty, who has been often, I know, represented as a 
weak prince, he is, in my opinion, very far from it. If he 
would deprive himself a little more of his darling passion 
of shooting, and give himself time to look into the national 
affairs, he would, I am persuaded, manage them more 
wisely and better than any of his present ministers." 

This description is hardly true from every point of 
view. Charles III. was heavy, and, though virtuous, far 
from brilliant. But he believed in the sacredness of his 
office, and devoted much of his day to the affairs of state. 
Unlike his brother, he refused to delegate his authority to 
his ministers as he grew older, and scrupulously attempted 
to fulfil a task for which he had insufficient ability. 

In other respects Rochford's judgment of Charles' 
character was a tribute to the ambassador's gifts of 
intuition, for the King carried out a coup d'etat which 
made Spain rock. Goya is accused by some authors, 
and praised by others, for his anti-clerical views. But 
there was an active movement in the highest circles for 
limiting many of the excessive powers of the Church. 
Even under Ferdinand VI., dominated as he was by 
Father Ravage, his Jesuit confessor, a Concordat was 
concluded with Benedict XIV.,* foreshadowing a 
* January n, 1755. 



TRANSITION 149 

change of policy towards the Church, and commencing 
by abolishing a bad system of ecclesiastical patronage 
which transferred vast sums of Spanish money to Rome. 
Charles III. went much further. The members of the 
Society of Jesus had been attacked in Portugal and 
expelled from France, but it was almost impossible to 
believe that Spain would turn against the wonderful 
organisation which had been born on its soil. The 
Jesuits were not loved by any state. ' Their spirit of 
intrigue, dangerous maxims, bond of union, and persever- 
ing ambition, had long rendered them an object 
of fear and jealousy to many of the European govern- 
ments, and there was scarcely a political intrigue, or 
public commotion, in which they were not actually im- 
plicated, or supposed to be engaged." * Whether it was 
true or no that they promoted the Madrid insurrection 
in 1765, and (according to the despatch of the English 
ambassador) " formed a design on the Thursday of the 
Holy Week to exterminate his Catholic Majesty and all 
his family," cannot be proved and is hardly possible to 
credit. We have already suggested that the youthful 
Goya was interested in that emeute, although certainly 
not as a partizan of the Jesuits. But Charles un- 
doubtedly had suspicions based on exact information. 
Besides, he belonged to the Franciscans, a rival order. 
In conjunction with his minister the Count d'Aranda, 
he plotted against the watchful order with such skill and 
secrecy that on March 31, 1767, the six colleges of the 
Jesuits in Madrid were surrounded at midnight, and the 
inmates conveyed under escort upon a journey to the 
coast, before the inhabitants of the capital were awake. 
* William Coxe : Memoirs of the Kings of Spain, Vol. IV., p. 351. 



150 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Every college in Spain and her colonies was treated in 
the same manner, and the unfortunate Jesuits despatched 
to Civita Vecchia and the papal dominions under 
conditions of extreme barbarity. The edict which 
ordered their expulsion also notified that if any Spaniard 
should presume to publish a pamphlet apologetic or 
otherwise, either for or against the dreaded order, he 
should be punished as if guilty of high treason. 

With the aid of the King, Aranda had struck the blow 
almost single-handed, and there was the slightest protest 
from the country. The minister led the anti-clerical 
party. " His administration is marked by a series of 
salutary regulations which form a memorable era in the 
history and government of his country ; as well from the 
diffusion of new and more liberal principles, as from the 
attempts to confine the overgrown power of the Church, 
and to naturalise a spirit of toleration hitherto unknown 
in Spain." * The ecclesiastical courts, which decided 
both criminal and civil causes in which the regular clergy 
were concerned, were abolished. Many of the religious 
processions and feasts were suppressed. Rights of 
sanctuary were restricted. Regulations were enacted 
to reform the scandalous abuses of the monastic bodies. 
Aranda was able to deprive the Inquisition of its control 
over the press, and forbade the Holy Office to interfere 
in the proceedings of the civil courts. He warned that 
powerful body that it must confine its activities to its 
proper functions, the prosecution of heresy and apostasy, 
and must imprison no subject of the Crown without the 
clearest proofs of guilt. 

Aranda was a statesman of outstanding talent, whose 
* Coxe : Memoirs of the Kings of Spain, Vol. IV., p. 404. 



TRANSITION 151 

personality and views directly appealed to Goya. They 
both came from the same province, and, when Goya 
first arrived in Madrid, the young artist had attached 
himself to the Aragonese band of which Aranda was 
the titular leader. Aranda's history explains many 
aspects of Goya's character, and cannot be omitted from 
any consideration of the painter's career. He had lived 
in France, and " imbibed that freedom of sentiment which 
then began to be fashionable." * The case can be stated 
in far stronger terms. Aranda had travelled extensively 
through Europe, had met most of the philosophers who 
were shaping the thought of his time, and his own ideas 
were based upon their political and social theories. He 
had talked in the Parisian salons of Madame Du Deffand 
and Mdlle. de Lespinasse, and visited Ferney to interview 
Voltaire. In Paris he mixed with the Encyclopaedists, 
and formed a close friendship with Alembert. The 
nobility of Spain at this moment were separating into 
two distinct classes. On the one hand, a large number 
were devoting their otherwise idle days to bull-fighting 
and sport, under the leadership of the herculean Prince 
of the Asturias. The more thoughtful were breaking 
through the old restraints. Many travelled to Paris 
and London, and remained in correspondence with their 
new acquaintances. One of Goya's sitters, the Duke 
de Villahermosa, who was closely related to the Aragonese 
Count de Fuentes, followed Aranda's example, and 
called at Ferney upon Voltaire, where he was warmly 
welcomed by the old poet. Letters have been preserved 
addressed to the Secretary of the Spanish embassy in 
London asking for books of philosophy which were 
* Coxe : Memoirs of the Kings of Spain. 



152 FRANCISCO GOYA 

forbidden in Spain. Hobbes, Spinoza, Voltaire, Diderot, 
Alembert, and Rousseau although on the Index were 
freely passed from hand to hand amongst the cultured 
nobility.* The change was coming from above and not 
from below, and Goya was in the thick of a movement 
which he could not resist. 

Aranda's passion for reform was reinforced by typical 
Aragonese obstinacy. " You are more obstinate than 
an Aragonese mule," his master once told him. When 
the minister went out of office, and retired to Paris, 
the Inquisition, in a last flutter of dying power, seized 
Olavide, who had actively engineered Aranda's schemes 
of education. Accusing him of heresy, one of the 

* Diderot's writings on Art must have been familiar to Goya, who 
can be exactly described by Diderot's own phrase : " Les esprits 
superieurs sont toujours curieux." Diderot was associated with 
D'Alembert from 1748 to 1772, and lived long enough to be on friendly 
terms with David. Like Rousseau he preached the doctrine of a 
return to Nature, he rebelled against the classical school, and called 
Winckelmann a fanatic. " The antique should be studied to teach 
us how to observe Nature." In another essay he writes : "I have 
been tempted a hundred times to say to the students whom I passed 
on their way to the Louvre, with their portfolios under their arms, 
' How long have you been studying there ? ' ' Two years ! ' ' Well, 
that is quite long enough. Give up all that artificial work. Go to 
Chartreux, and there you will see the real attitudes of devotion and 
repentance. To-morrow go to the wineshop, and you will see the 
true gestures of an angry man. Frequent public places. Observe 
what passes in the streets, in gardens, in markets, in houses, and you 
will thus learn what are the real gestures in the actions of daily life. 
Just look at those two companions of yours who are quarrelling. See 
how their quarrel places them, without their knowledge, in certain 
attitudes. Examine them carefully, and you will be ashamed of the 
teaching of your insipid professor, and you will despise the imitation 
of your vapid model." Of course Leonardo da Vinci said much the 
same, but his manuscripts were unknown to either Diderot or Goya. 
We can easily imagine the young Spaniard reading the famous Salons, 
overjoyed to find his ideas of artistic education and development 
upheld by the famous French critic. 




PORTRAIT OF A LADY 
Collection of Don R. Garcia 



TRANSITION 153 

charges being the possession of a letter from Voltaire, 
Olavide was sentenced to eight years' confinement with 
monastic discipline. Under another monarch the pri- 
soner would have been committed to the flames. But 
in a few years Spain had thrown off the shackles of 
centuries, and we require no other explanation of the 
Liberal tendencies of Goya, for they were the aspira- 
tions of every educated man of his time. To call them 
revolutionary is an exaggeration of terms. 

With this intellectual and political transition coincided 
a vast social change. The circles of Ferdinand VI. and 
Charles III. had been exceedingly staid. The orgies of 
Louis XV. at Versailles were not repeated in Madrid or 
Aranjuez. Charles III. expressed considerable indignation 
and disgust at the personal iniquities of his royal cousin. 
His own private life set an example which he expected 
his courtiers to follow. Towards the end of his reign his 
influence weakened. His wife had been dead for years, 
and he was unable to control the younger men and 
women who surrounded the Prince of the Asturias and 
Maria Luisa of Parma. Their standards of decorum were 
lower, and the tone of the Court rapidly degenerated. 
" Gallantry and intrigue are terms too refined for this 
period," wrote Major Dalrymple in 1776. 

Charles III. was a martinet who insisted that his 
courtiers should perform their duty to the country, and 
behave with decency, at least in public. He attached 
the greatest importance to form, ceremony, and prece- 
dence. Charles IV. was a weak-minded but amiable fool, 
with the instincts and inclinations of a stableman. Maria 
Luisa can be described in Richard Muther's racy but 
truthful phrase as " a courtesan seated on the throne 



154 FRANCISCO GOYA 

of Spain." Until the death of her father-in-law she had 
been compelled to submit to his will. She protested in 
vain. One of the recurring sources of argument between 
Charles III. and the Italian Princess was his methodical 
journey from one palace to another throughout the year, 
on dates fixed with the regularity of a clock which neither 
weather nor illness could alter.* A royal progress 
through a winter storm hastened the death of the well- 
meaning but self-willed monarch. 

Although Charles III. admired the tapestry cartoons, 
Goya was probably not in the good graces of the old King, 
who could not have listened to the current gossip con- 
cerning the artist's disorderly existence with any degree 
of leniency. The Prince of the Asturias was two years 
younger than Goya, and owned many tastes in common 
with the artist. Maria Luisa had considerably more 
dignity. But she was even freer from moral scruples 
than might be expected from a Parmese Bourbon. 
When Charles IV. ascended the throne in 1788, Goya 
was immediately received into the royal favour, with 
a hearty welcome to the Court and freedom to behave 
as he wished. Upon the death of Cornelius van der 
Goten he was appointed a painter of the Chamber with a 

* " On the 26th [July, 1774] the Court set out for San Ildephonso. 
The troops were under arms, lining the road from the palace, as far 
as they could reach ; exclusive of the horse and foot guards, there 
were three regiments of infantry, and one of cavalry. The coaches 
were attended by the guardia de corps, and drove as hard as they could 
go. The Court resides from the middle of January, till a little before 
the Holy Week, at the Pardo ; then at Madrid till after Easter, assisting 
at the religious ceremonies of the Holy Week ; at Aranjuez till the 
middle of June ; again at Madrid for three weeks or a month ; at 
San Ildephonso till October ; at the Escorial till December ; once 
more at Madrid till January, and so on annually." Major Dalrymple's 
Voyage (1776). 



TRANSITION 155 

salary of 15,000 reals, and thus his chief ambition was 
attained. 

Goya had already visited members of the royal family, 
although the Infante Don Luis was not allowed to 
assume an official position out of Madrid. With one of 
that Prince's friends he entered into warm friendship. 
Jovellanos, the author and politician, was a few years 
younger than the painter, over whom he soon com- 
menced to exercise much influence with a stimulating and 
healthy effect. The portrait of Jovellanos may be dated 
between the years 1780 and 1790. The goodwill of the 
philosopher brought a commission which Goya regarded 
with considerable pride. On January 12, 1783, Goya 
wrote triumphantly to Zaragoza, stating that he had a 
secret he could only share with his wife Josefa and his 
friend Martin Zapater. He had been asked to paint a 
portrait of the Count of Florida Blanca, the prime 
minister, who had already seen him and displayed a 
gratifying friendliness. 

Florida Blanca was the most important man in Spain 
after the King, and the power he exercised was infinitely 
greater. Not until April 26 was he able to find time for 
the first sitting. Goya's charm of manner produced its 
usual effect. Artist and minister became so engrossed 
that they talked for hours, to the jealousy and anger of 
the sycophants who surrounded the statesman. The 
portrait was not completed until January, 1784, and 
received much praise. The paint is thinly laid on, the 
impression being cold and unsatisfactory. Though Goya 
was in sympathy with Florida Blanca the portrait cannot 
rank with his masterpieces. That Florida Blanca was 
pleased is uncertain. Perhaps the delay in payment was 
due to his financial embarrassments, for, like all honest 



156 FRANCISCO GOYA 

men, he found political life far from a monetary success. 
A second portrait shows him holding a document relating 
to the foundation of the Banco de San Carlos. This is 
happier, and led to commissions from several of the 
directors of the bank, notably Don Jose y Zambrano and 
the Marquis de Tolosa. The praise of the Infante Don 
Luis paved the way for the portrait of Charles III., which 
has already been spoken of. 

In these relationships with some of the brightest spirits 
of the land there is no sign of that ardent republican and 
revolutionary spirit with which Goya has generally been 
credited. When Richard Muther writes that " to cleanse 
the augean stable of Spain became the great aim of Goya's 
life," he advances a supposition for which there is not 
the slightest foundation in fact. Far better history is the 
German author's statement that Goya not only painted 
Rococo but lived to the full the wild life of that rococo 
period, which may be said to commence about the years 
1785-86. Portrait-painting had now become his most 
important professional activity. His earliest dated 
portrait is that of the Count de la Miranda, which can 
be assigned to the year 1777, and in quality much sur- 
passes some of his later examples. It must not be 
forgotten that throughout his career Goya was an artist 
of unequal standards and varying technique, which makes 
it exceedingly difficult to date many of his canvases. A 
portrait of Cornelius van der Got en, the director of the 
tapestry manufactory, belongs to 1782, and Von Loga 
ascribes to the same time a charming sketch of a boy 
dressed in red, belonging to Madame Bernstein of Paris. 
Earlier examples, such as the portrait of Josef a Goya y 
Bayeu, have already been cited. But the period of 
fine portraits did not actually commence until 1786. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE LATER TAPESTRY CARTOONS, 1786-1791 

Goya's growing Success. His Household. New Blood required at the 
Tapestry Factory. The " Second Series." Criticism by P. G. Hamerton 
and Richard Muther. Description of the Designs. Genre Pictures for 
the Osuna Family. Goya and Gainsborough. Some Portraits belong 
ing to this Period. The Marquesa de Poniejos. Goya's Prices. Re- 
ligious Pictures. 

TV T OTWITHSTANDING all my work, I receive no 

^Wl more from my Bank shares, and from the 

Academy, than an income of 12,000 or 13,000 

reals a year. With this sum I am the most contented, 

and the happiest man in the world." * 

Goya wrote these lines March n, 1786,! and they 
indicate that he was not only successful but happy. The 
family quarrel had ended. In this year he painted the first 
portrait of Bayeu, now at Valence. His domestic life 
seems to have resulted in a compromise, for he was in 
every respect, self -indulgent to his vices. For the coming 
ten years scandal made free with his name, although 
doubtless some of the exploits with which he was credited 
are mythical. Josefa Bayeu probably recognised that 
her husband must be allowed to follow his inclinations. 

* This must be a reference to his fixed income only, apart from his 
professional earnings, for 12,000 reales vellcn does not amount to much 
more than 125. 

t Zapater, p. 37. 



158 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Besides, she was busy rearing the twenty children of which 
she was the mother, only one of whom reached adult age. 

Whatever time Goya spent in dissipation was not 
stolen from his working hours. During the thirteen 
years 1787-1800 his production was so incessant that it 
is difficult to know which activity first to chronicle. He 
was painting innumerable portraits, accepting commis- 
sions for charming little genre compositions as well as 
church altar-pieces, and he also renewed his engagements 
at the tapestry factory. He had not'set aside the etching 
needle, for he was preparing the seventy plates of the 
caprichos, for which he made a large number of drawings. 
Outside his studio he was building up that legendary 
reputation which credits him as being the most dangerous 
Don Juan in modern Spain, the terror of all husbands. 

His work for the tapestry factory may be taken before 
more important matters. When Cornelius van der Goten 
died in 1786 it was decided to employ native artists almost 
exclusively. Livinio Stuik, a cousin of Van der Goten, 
was appointed technical director, but Francisco Bayeu, 
now senior Court painter, appears to have taken an active 
part in the management. In a letter dated April 17, 
1786, to the minister Lerena, based upon a report made by 
Castello, Bayeu suggested that the establishment needed 
fresh blood, and a few days later he proposed that two or 
three clever artists should be invited to work upon a fixed 
salary for the factory. He proposed his brother, Ramon 
Bayeu, his brother-in-law, Goya, and Jose del Castello. It 
is noteworthy that although he praises Ramon very 
highly, he has not a single word of commendation in his 
letter for Goya. Without disparaging Bayeu's good 
faith, he could not easily have made any recommendation 



THE LATER TAPESTRY CARTOONS 159 

which omitted Goya's name. Maella also mentioned the 
names of Ramon Bayeu and Goya, and considered that 
they should be asked to prepare sketches of biblical and 
patriotic scenes. In June the appointments were made, 
and Goya announces himself to his friends as Pintor del 
Rey, although actually he had no right to that distinctive 
title.* He boasted that he had done nothing to gain the 
unexpected honour, which can be well believed, and that 
he could calculate his income at. about 28,000 reals. 
" More I do not want, thank the Lord," he added rather 
hypocritically. The tapestry appointment seems to have 
been the subject of some intrigue. Maella coveted one of 
the posts, but Bayeu is said to have secured it for his 
brother-in-law, if Goya did not receive it mainly on 
account of his own high favour at Court. 

Goya entered into his new duties with characteristic 
energy. His health had been completely re-established, 
although a fall from a carriage had torn the sinews of 
his right leg. During the summer he worked upon a 
series of cartoons for tapestry to decorate the bedroom 
of the Infante Don Gabriel Anton, the fourth and most 
gifted son of the King, who in 1785 had married Dona 
Victoria of Braganza. Both Prince and Princess died, 
within a month of each other, in 1788. 

His work upon the factory cartoons was continually 
interrupted by more pressing commissions from the Court, 
the Church, and the nobility, andjhis working hours must 
have been charged with unremitting toil. In a letter 
dated April 13, 1791,! Livinio Stuik complained that the 

* In a letter to Martin Zapater, quoted by Francisco Zapater in 
his Noticias biograficds, p. 37. 
f Quoted by Cruzada Villaamil. 



160 FRANCISCO GOYA 

factory of Santa Barbara was deteriorating into a hopeless 
condition. The workmen were in want, and had been 
discharged owing to lack of employment, and he laid 
the blame upon the artists who drew their salary but 
neglected to supply cartoons for the looms. Ramon 
Bayeu was as busy in other directions as Goya. There 
was some excuse for their conduct. Mengs, Maella, and 
Francisco Bayeu drew their Court salaries without 
pledging work in exchange. Probably they considered 
their emoluments in the nature of retaining fees. When 
the factory demanded cartoons, Goya advanced the plea 
of his duties as Court painter and the numerous com- 
missions he had in hand for the royal family. 

The ministers did not agree with the artist's point of 
view ; pressure was exerted, and gradually cartoons were 
delivered. In 1791 four were ready for the King's study 
in the state rooms of the Escorial, but Goya's health 
gradually collapsed, and after this date he does not appear 
to have added to what may be called the second or later 
series of cartoons for tapestry. They are usually classed 
with the earlier commissions, but in style they are 
thoroughly distinct. 

The second series of cartoons contains examples of 
some of the most charming fancies Goya ever created. 
In P. G. Hamerton's essay the critic affirms that the 
Spanish artist was coarse-minded and essentially vulgar. 
Hamerton admitted that he had seen very few of Goya's 
paintings, and he condemned his work chiefly upon a 
study of the decorations of his country house on the out- 
skirts of Madrid. Had he been able to examine, even from 
photographs or the roughest drawings, this second series 
of tapestry cartoons, he could never have applied such 



THE LATER TAPESTRY CARTOONS 161 

terms as " coarse " or " vulgar." At times Goya rises to 
a light-hearted grace which no other decorative artist of 
the eighteenth century surpassed, and, with Mr. Rothen- 
stein, it is " difficult to understand why they should not 
have commanded more interest outside Spain." * They 
are usually compared to Watteau and his school. " In 
point of style these works are very different from those of 
the Frenchmen, for they have all the local colour of the 
Peninsula. We miss that tender, delicate colouring, those 
dainty, capricious gestures which we have learnt to admire 
in the work of Watteau and Lancret. Boldly, almost 
coarsely, Goya paints side by side the strongest reds and 
yellows ; with brutal realism he depicts the rouge on his 
ladies' cheeks and the dark pencilling of their eyebrows. 
The stiff material of the dress conceals all the beauties 
of the form, and the black mantilla cuts off every pos- 
sible grace or piquancy of movement ; and through this 
essentially Spanish note Goya's works resemble far more 
those of his modern compatriot, Zuloaga, than those of 
his French contemporaries.''! Muther's clever description 
is only partially true. There is an exceeding grace in 
these cartoons, which in some respects recall the spirituelle 
elegance of Fragonard. 

In the earlier series Goya's hand was occasionally 
heavy, almost to clumsiness, and the designs were not 
well-suited for the material into which they were to be 
translated. The workers in the factory declared that the 
figures were " dandies and girls with so much decoration 
of coifs, ribbons, fal-lals, gauzes, etc., that much time 
and patience is wasted on them, and the work is unpro- 

* W. Rothenstein : Goya, p. 10. 
f R. Muther : Goya, p. 18. 

M 



162 FRANCISCO GOYA 

ductive." * In the second series Goya changed his 
methods, his chief aim being to mass his figures so as to 
silhouette them against a light and often empty back- 
ground. His success was complete, and in many cases 
the result is one of exquisite refinement. 

Hidden in the basement of the Prado, where the light 
plays odd tricks round the dark corners of the gloomy 
rooms, these cartoons are not well placed for a close 
examination. They were painted with extreme rapidity. 
Goya, like Turner, bent his material to his will, and was 
not always careful with regard to the permanency of 
his palette. In many cases the colours are sadly missing, 
and the cartoons remain but ghosts of their former 
brilliance. In the palaces hang the actual tapestries, 
which suffer from a certain crudity of tone.f The 
artist was greater than the craftsmen who carried out 
his designs. Yet both tapestries and cartoons are 
a monument of Spanish rococo style of the eighteenth 
century. " Le cri pousse par Goya est le cri national," 
wrote Charles Yriarte, alluding more particularly to the 
patriotic and satirical etchings. Goya, however, is quite 
as nationalist in spirit in these decorative schemes, 
which, in dignity and grace, are essentially Spanish. 

The subjects deal chiefly with rural life and the sea- 
sons. The Summer (1786) is one of the least satisfactory, 
with its conventional pyramidical composition of hay- 
makers, and its hasty, almost scamped, workmanship. 
A street scene (1787) reminds the English visitor of 

* A. F. Calvert : Goya, p. 26. 

f The factory of Santa Barbara was weaving tapestries from the 
cartoons up to 1802. Queen Isabella presented examples of the 
tapestries to Leopold I. of Belgium. In 1832 some of the designs 
had been reproduced four times. 



THE LATER TAPESTRY CARTOONS 163 

Hogarth, and is more an easel picture than a scheme for 
decorative tapestry. Other panels, such as the Water- 
carriers (Las mozas del cdntaro) (1787), are interesting, 
but quite hasty and slight. The painter's accomplish- 
ment varies, a striking characteristic of Goya's work. 
The Stilt-walkers (1788), the Dance (1791) and the Game 
of pelota, are exceedingly clever, but the attraction is 
mainly in the subject rather than the treatment. But 
when Goya paints childhood he picks up the brush 
Murillo dropped. The Boys climbing a tree (1791), and 
particularly El bebedor, could only have been painted 
by an artist soaked in the Murillo tradition. A couple 
of boys blowing bubbles recall the work of the lesser 
masters of the contemporary English school Opie, for 
instance but painted with a yielding softness only the 
great men of the north, such as Reynolds and Gains- 
borough, ever attained.* In turning over Goya's draw- 
ings we find sketches of children which indicate that he 
had all the qualities necessary for a successful portrayer 
of childhood. Several of the portraits of his own grand- 
children are exceedingly charming. 

He was an artist of many talents and varying aspects. 
Simply for grace and beauty, two of these cartoons are 
unapproachable in contemporary art. The first is El 
quitasol (The parasol), the second, La vendimia (The 
vintage). Both were painted in 1786. El quitasol pos- 
sesses a refinement which we associate with the best age 
of French eighteenth-century art. If we take the dictionary 

* Amongst the pictures in the Osuna collection was a portrait- 
composition of the children of the ninth Duke by Sir William Beechey, 
But when Beechey painted it, and how it got to Alameda, are puzzles 
difficult to explain. See Catalogo des los cuadros . . . de la antiqua 
casa ducal de Osuna (1896), p. 6. 



164 FRANCISCO GOYA 

meaning of the term " rococo "to be that applied to an 
excessively or tastelessly florid or ornate art, then the 
word cannot be applied to Goya's designs for tapestry, 
or in fact for any of his work. But rococo is a descrip- 
tion which it is useful to apply to the period into which 
the cartoons naturally fall, and El quitasol is indubitably 
rococo. A girl in a rich costume of silk or satin is stretched 
on the sward. Behind, an effeminate youth shades her 
with a parasol. The background is a suggestion of those 
fairy glades which Fragonard loved. The perspective 
of the parasol might be truer ; the arm of the young 
lady is slightly wooden. Yet the whole composition 
breathes a happy ease which reveals Goya's genius in 
a new light. In drawing, and the massing of colour, 
the scheme irresistibly recalls a Japanese colour print 
by Hokusai or Utamaro. More than once an atmosphere 
of the east seems to surround the work of Goya. His 
ladies in mantillas have a suggestion of the figures of 
the Persian draughtsmen. An ethnologist would point 
to the dormant influence of some far-back Arabic 
ancestor in Zaragoza. A more probable explanation is 
that the basic inspirations of fine art are the same in all 
quarters of the globe. 

The Vintage is a frank appeal to popular national 
sentiment. The seated youth in satin, fine laces, and 
diamond buckles, the lady with the grapes, the little 
boy, form a reminiscence of Goya's visit to Las Arenas 
or Alameda. These puppets are playing at Strephon 
and Chloe, in the picturesque costume of the Spanish 
peasant. The scene has no realistic actuality, but the 
people in bulk have never encouraged realism either in 
pictorial art or the drama, the only two forms of art 




i 7 86 



THE VINTAGE 
"La I'endimia" Tapestry Cartoon XXXI If. Praifo, Madrid 



THE LATER TAPESTRY CARTOONS 165 

they take the slightest interest in. No peasant cares 
to look at the works of Bastien-Lepage or L'hermitte, 
reproductions of a painful actuality carrying a thousand 
unhappy memories. Realism is only acceptable to self- 
conscious youth. Age will have none of it, and tries to 
drown its past in idealism, or, more probably, senti- 
mentalism. Goya painted a canvas which was untrue, 
insincere, false, and conventional. But it has a fascinating 
delicacy, the delicacy of Dresden or a piece of old Chelsea. 
And the landscape, the mountains, the swelling plains, 
are indicated with a most successful simplicity. This is 
rococo because it is artificial in essence. Goya could 
paint with the rudest strength. In these tapestry car- 
toons he found many of his themes in the exalted 
society which welcomed him as a guest. 

Goya's friendship with the ducal house of Osuna com- 
menced about 1785. The Duchess had married her 
cousin the ninth Duke, and brought considerable pro- 
perty to an already important family. She was celebrated 
for her good taste, as well as her enormous wealth, and 
she was undoubtedly attracted by the personal charm 
of the artist. Her name has not escaped the scandalous 
gossip which besmudged every patrician lady who 
entered Goya's studio, but there appears to be less truth 
in this legend than in most of the others. She gave 
Goya innumerable commissions, which extended over 
fourteen years, the first being a portrait of herself and 
her husband. 

The country estate of the Osuna family was at Alameda, 
south of Aranjuez. The portraits can hardly be accepted 
as the best of Goya's work in that direction. As a 
portrait-painter his genius did not burst into full blossom 



166 FRANCISCO GOYA 

until 1800. But from the opening of his career he had 
been executing small genre works of a wonderful subtlety 
of tone and atmosphere. It is difficult to believe that 
the Madhouse or the Bull-fight (formerly in the Academy 
of San Fernando, and now in the Prado) were painted 
so soon after his return from Italy as some critics state. 
The twenty subjects for the Duke and Duchess of Osuna 
can be dated more accurately. Seven were undoubtedly 
painted shortly before the spring of 1787, and eleven 
years later the Duchess again commissioned her favour- 
ite. The works he then delivered were evidently on 
hand during the whole of the intervening time. Some 
are painted on wood, others on metal. The brushwork 
is decidedly fresh, and the sparkling key of the colour 
is in remarkable contrast to the monotonous gloom of 
his later palette. 

It is impossible to refrain from comparing the Duke 
of Osuna and his family, in the Prado, with Gains- 
borough's magnificent Baillie family, in the National 
Gallery. The two subjects are so similar that one natur- 
ally calls the other to mind. Both were painted within 
a few years, but Gainsborough was nearly twenty years 
older than Goya, and the superiority in accomplishment 
of the Baillie family is manifest. Goya's family groups 
were rarely wholly successful, and the Family of the 
Countess de Montijo is one of the best. The group of 
Charles IV. and the royal family, finished in 1800, is a 
striking exception. 

Both the Osuna family and the Baillie family are made 
up of six figures, in each case the parents and four 
children. The costumes are almost identical in fashion. 
But Goya fails where Gainsborough achieves his greatest 



THE LATER TAPESTRY CARTOONS 167 

triumph. The masterly composition of the Baillie 
family is an example of that art which conceals its 
artifice. The effect created is absolutely natural. James 
Baillie leans against his wife's chair in the easiest of 
attitudes, and the two girls on the left rank with the most 
consummate figures Gainsborough ever breathed upon 
canvas. The Osuna group has received far more praise 
than it deserves. There are many of those clumsy 
awkwardnesses Goya was never able to free himself 
from. The Duke leans against the chair in an uncom- 
fortable manner, as if he were about to fall. The position 
in which he holds the child's arm is angular, and the 
bend is repeated without reason in the right arm of the 
Duchess. The children are happier, but far inferior in 
grace to the delightful ease of the Baillie sons and 
daughters. The Osuna faces are extremely feebly mod- 
elled, although the Duchess has an air of aristocratic 
distinction which the Duke singularly misses. It is in 
such a portrait as that of the poet Moratin (1799) that 
Goya more nearly approaches Gainsborough's feathery 
touch, and, in the Bayeu of the Prado, and the Dr. Peral 
of the National Gallery, the sheen of material recalls 
strongly the characteristics of the great English genius. 
The two state portraits of the Duke and Duchess 
(now respectively in the possession of Don Aureliano de 
Beruete and M. Gustav Bauer) belong to a formal school 
which based its methods on the portrait technique of 
Mengs. They were both painted in 1785. The Duke is a 
chubby-faced aristocrat, obviously well pleased with him- 
self, and of evident kindly disposition. The Duchess ap- 
pears less sympathetic than in the larger group. Both 
portraits reveal a steady advance in skill, and are 



168 FRANCISCO GOYA 

pleasing. But they cannot be called noteworthy. Goya's 
best period was not yet, although his portraits are of out- 
standing excellence. The portrait of his brother-in-law, 
in the Prado, dating from 1790, was a triumph in the new 
style towards which he was tending. The exquisite 
Marquesa de Pontejos, sister-in-law to the minister 
Florida Blanca, is a trifle earlier, and reverts to the 
Mengs tradition. It breathes the coquettish grace Goya 
had already incorporated in the second series of the 
tapestry cartoons, and remains the high-water mark of 
rococo art in Europe. 

One may search the galleries of Europe and not find 
a more perfect specimen of this style. The Marquesa 
de Pontejos is the personification of the grande 
dame who endeavoured to be in the fashion when 
Rousseau preached a return to Nature, and Marie An- 
toinette played at rusticity in the gardens of the 
Trianon. This young Marquesa, tightly laced, fluttering 
with furbelows, frills, and ribbons, a mass of vapid but 
engaging extravagance, chaperoned by a tiny pug which 
shakes the silver bells jingling from his collar, stares 
from the artist's canvas with a gaze half insolence, half 
challenge. Her eyes are beautiful, but they reveal the 
littleness of her soul and the poverty of her mind. 
In her left hand she nonchalantly holds a flower, and she 
slowly advances as if to dance not a fandango, but 
a formal minuet in the manner of Versailles. The Mar- 
quesa de Pontejos represents the influence of French 
fashion over the wealthier circles of Spanish society, 
exactly as her brother was moulded by the philosophy 
of D'Alembert and the intellectual life of Paris. 

There are so many female portraits by Goya which 




About 1785 Photo. I.acoste 

DONA MARIA ANA MONINO, MARQUESA DE POXTEJOS 
Collection of the Marqucsa de Martorell y i/e Pontejos, Madrid 



i6g 

late from 1785 to the end of the century that it is 
mnecessary to recapitulate them individually. They 
rary in accomplishment, and they follow a somewhat 
ormal type. Forming part of the social history of the 
eigns of Charles III. and Charles IV., they are of more 
nterest as historical documents, although they do not 
ack value as works of art. The Senora de Cean Ber- 
nudez (belonging to the Marques de Casa Torres) is 
L good example, and the fine portrait of an unknown 
ady, in the collection of Don R. Garcia, is perhaps 
he best of its class. How closely Goya followed Mengs 
an only be realised by studying such portraits by the 
>lder painter as those of the Queen Maria Carolina, in 
he Prado, and the Marquesa del Llano, in the Academy 
>f San Fernando. The bust of the Countess and Duchess 
f Benavente-Ossuna (No. 743 in the Prado) heralds 
, change of aim. The portrait is pleasing, but the 
nodelling of the features is so undecided that Goya 
nust have stayed his hand for fear of an over-accent- 
tated elaboration. 

The Osuna gallery, which was broken up in 1896, has 
LOW been scattered across Europe. Connoisseurs who 
Lo not know the Spanish collections are too apt to 
>ase their judgment of Goya upon the Osuna subjects. 
But they form only one aspect of his many-sided genius, 
md though exceedingly attractive are not fully charac- 
eristic. Many went to the Prado, two, La merienda, 
md the Bewitched, to the London National Gallery, 
rhe technique of these small panels varies considerably. 
>ome are broadly painted, others with an attention to 
letail which is more akin to Meissonier than any other 
aodern master. The best example of this style is the 



170 FRANCISCO GOYA 

remarkable La romeria de San Isidro, now in the Prado, 
the canvas only measuring 0*44 by 0-94. Goya him- 
self complained to Zapater that this work had occu- 
pied too much time, and that he did not intend in future 
to paint with such finish. 

Amongst the archives of the Osuna family are preserved 
accounts which give the prices Goya received for these 
delightful compositions. The sums range from 2,500 to 
4,000 reales vellon. Taking the real as worth approxi- 
mately 2d. of English money, these figures represent 
from 26 to 41, which cannot be called extravagant. 
In May, 1788, Goya receipted an account for 22,000 
reals (about 230), and he continued at intervals to 
deliver commissions to the palace of Alameda well into 
the new century.* 

The religious canvases of this period must be men- 
tioned, although they are the least attractive portion 
of Goya's output. About this time he painted an 
Assumption for the church at Chinchon, where his 
brother Camillo was priest. In 1784 he received the 
commission for the altar-pieces at Salamanca, through 
the agency of Jovellanos. These were delivered in 
October. Several of these paintings have been lost. 
One, sent to the church of Monte de Torrero, by Zara- 
goza, disappeared after the siege of 1808. Others, 
intended for Valladolid and South America, cannot be 
traced. In January, 1787, he promised to paint a 
Madonna for Zapater. " I am painting you a very fine 
Virgin," he wrote to his friend. But it was long delayed, 

* See the Catalogo de los cuadros, esculturas, grabados, de la antigua 
casa ducal de Osuna, Madrid, 1896 : also La Pintura en Madrid by 
D. Narciso Sentenach y Cabanas, p. 209. 



THE LATER TAPESTRY CARTOONS 171 

and he made many excuses. In June, 1787, he was 
commissioned by the King for work which was to be 
delivered by the end of the next month. He laboured so 
assiduously that he finished three important altar-pieces 
in less than eight weeks, and he appears to have done 
everything with his own hand, for it is not suggested 
that he had any pupils. On June 6 he wrote to Zapater : 
" Although I have not yet commenced the work it must 
be ready according to the King's command." Yet the 
pictures we can see to-day reveal no signs of haste. 
A Saint Anne at Valladolid has been described as sober 
and plain in colour, with little to distinguish it from an 
adjoining canvas by Ramon Bayeu. But the magni- 
ficent unfinished church of Valladolid does not show its 
decorations to advantage. Von Loga considers the 
Kiss of Judas (1788) at Toledo cathedral an improve- 
ment upon the Saint Anne. Gautier thought it as 
fine as a Rembrandt. To the impartial observer there 
is little distinction between any of Goya's ecclesiasti- 
cal commissions. They were honest " pot-boilers," they 
could not have been congenial, and they do not show 
the slightest trace of inspiration. That Goya prided 
himself on his energy for the Church is clear. " God 
let us live for His holy service," he wrote to Zapater, 
May 31, 1788 ; but some of his activities were not very 
commendable. 



CHAPTER XII 

CHARLES IV. AND MARIA LUISA, 1788-1792 

Character of Charles IV. His Amusements. Queen Maria Luisa. Her 
Independence and Extravagance. Goya's Portraits of the King and 
Queen. His Personal Friendship with the Royal Family. Letters to 
Zaragoza. Illness in his Household. His own bad Health. Visits to 
Valencia and Zaragoza. 

THE death of the old King during the last month 
of 1788, the result of his obstinacy in moving 
from one palace to another according to custom 
and despite the weather, led to many changes in the 
social life of Madrid. The new monarch, born in 1748, 
had few of the qualities of his father. His intelli- 
gence was extremely limited. Educated by German 
Jesuits, even those famous instructors of youth failed 
to impart in him more than the vaguest notions of 
geography and mathematics. For drawing and music 
he had some aptitude, although he never attained to 
more than mediocre accomplishment. His chief delight 
was in open-air exercise. As a hunter he surpassed the 
endurance of his sire, and he admitted that it was his 
main interest in life. 

Many years later, at Bayonne, he told Napoleon, with 
pathetic frankness, how he governed Spain. " Every 
day, no matter what the weather might be, summer 
and winter, I arose from breakfast, heard Mass, and then 




About 1790 



CHARLES IV 
Prado, Madrid 



CHARLES IV. AND MARIA LUISA 173 

went hunting until one o'clock. After dinner, I returned 
to the chase until sunset. In the evening, Manuel 
(Godoy) told me whether matters were going on well or 
ill. Then I went to bed, and began again next morn- 
ing, unless some important ceremony compelled me to 
rest." * No wonder the Emperor decided to supplant 
such a King by one of his own virile blood. 

As a young man Charles IV. found his happiness in 
the royal stables. Of immense physical strength, he 
excelled in all bodily exercises. He was a clever boxer. 
At night he sallied forth from the royal palace to seek 
distraction in the streets of Madrid, and when his more 
or less undignified adventures landed him in unpleasant 
situations his powerful fists cleared a passage to the door. 
Like most of the members of the House of Bourbon he 
had a terrific appetite. 

Such a man was born to be amongst the governed, 
and not amongst the governors. Quite incapable ot 
acting with any decision as head of the realm, he was 
completely dominated by his wife, who, if three years 
his junior, was in every other respect his elder and 
superior. The character of Maria Luisa was an extra- 
ordinary mixture of good and bad. She was a woman of 
remarkable will, and might have been of invaluable 
service to her adopted country had she exercised her gifts 
with more regard for the rules which control human 
conduct. But her vices were stronger than her virtues. 
Her pride was overbearing, and she exacted every 
deference due to a Princess of such exalted rank. At 
Parma, no sooner was she betrothed to the Prince of the 

* L. F. J. de Bausset : Memoires de Napoleon (Paris, 1829), Vol. L, 
pp. 223, 224. 



174 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Asturias (the bridegroom being under seventeen, and the 
bride only thirteen years of age) than she compelled her 
own family to give her precedence. The vexed question 
led to interminable quarrels with her brother. 

" I will teach you to respect me," she cried, " for one 
day I shall be Queen of Spain, and you can never be 
more than Duke of Parma." 

The boy retaliated by slapping her face. " At least 
I can boast that I have struck the Queen of Spain," was 
his not unnatural retort. 

She arrived in Madrid to undergo a severe educational 
course to fit her for her duties, and this girl who had 
barely left the nursery found herself the first lady of the 
Court. Charles III. had long been a widower, and the 
entreaties of his ministers to enter the marriage state for 
a second time were useless. Against the rocks of his 
obstinacy dashed the self-will of his daughter-in-law 
from Parma. In the two characters there was not a 
single point of common sympathy. Charles III. was a 
man of pure morals, bigoted (although not bigoted enough 
to endure the Jesuits), and reactionary. He had, how- 
ever, a stern sense of the duty he owed to the kingdom 
he governed, a quality which had not distinguished many 
Spanish princes. Like his ancestor, Louis XIV., of 
whom one of his secretaries said that no matter where 
the King might be his actions could be ascertained by 
looking at the clock, Charles III. was a martinet for order 
and precision. Maria Luisa's pleasure-loving tempera- 
ment was not to be checked by any such salutary regula- 
tion. She lived in an atmosphere of opposition and pro- 
test. At the age of fifteen she threw off the strict super- 
vision the King had ordained, and walked the streets of 



CHARLES IV. AND MARIA LUISA 175 

the capital unguarded and unattended. In asking for 
liberty she encouraged licence. When she ascended 
the throne she was already responsible in no small 
degree for the steady deterioration of the morals of the 
Court she ruled. 

There is no need to enter into the story of her relation- 
ship with Manuel Godoy, the handsome young lieutenant 
of the royal guards, who, under her patronage, became 
the most important man in the realm. The scandal 
was public throughout Spain, and only one person re- 
mained in ignorance. Charles IV. was either very stupid 
or most contemptible. His own people judged him, and 
decided that their monarch was a fool rather than a rogue. 
Goya's portraits confirm this decision, and agree in every 
respect with the character history has written for us. 

Coarse and hot-tempered, a King who got so angry 
with his ministers as to strike them across the face, or 
threaten them with his sword, he smiles from the painter's 
canvases with an air of inane fatuity. As he became 
older, increasing corpulence, added to asthma, weakened 
his activity and diminished his will-power. He was a 
weak, rather than a bad, man, and hardly deserves the 
abuse showered on him by various commentators. 
Richard Muther describes him as " a Moloch, an evil 
god who battened upon the life-blood of his people ! " 
The description is fantastic and inaccurate, and does not 
even apply to the equestrian portrait which Muther had 
particularly in mind : " A figure of serene stupidity, such 
as Wilke would draw to-day for the ' Simplicissimus ' 
journal . . . asthmatic and fat, upon his fat asthmatic 
horse, and with his fat asthmatic dog." Charles IV. 
was no Moloch, but merely a dull-witted individual 



176 FRANCISCO GOYA 

born to a position for which he was unfitted. And Goya, 
it must be insisted, was no caricaturist, but an artist of 
genius who was able to set upon his canvas not only the 
body but the innermost soul of his model. 

The magnificent portrait of Queen Maria Luisa, in the 
Prado, is a masterpiece which would rank as one of the 
world's great pictures if the subject were not so repulsive. 
Other Court painters had been confronted with the same 
problem, although not to such an unenviable degree as 
Goya. Rubens, when he drew Marie de Medicis, had to 
depict a Queen who was unlovely in life. Yet, if the Queen 
of France was not actually beautiful, she was far from 
ill-looking, and the clever Fleming gave his canvas a 
specious attractiveness. Velazquez had the trouble to 
contend against when he was commanded to paint the 
portrait of Maria of Austria. Both Rubens and Velaz- 
quez glossed the truth, as so many of their fellow crafts- 
men have also done. Goya painted what he saw, painted 
it without exaggeration and without caricature. The 
result is not pretty, but it is a human document of great 
importance. 

The finest portrait was painted in 1790, when the Queen 
was about thirty-nine years of age. She might be sixty. 
Her cold eyes are deep in their sockets. Across her 
painted cheeks are the slightest suspicions of ominous 
hollows and wrinkles. Her chin is hard and tight. Her 
lips are compressed like a vice. It is a masterful and 
unholy face. Over the head is thrown the light gauze 
of a black mantilla, and in her hand is a tiny fan. Most 
visitors to the Prado pass the canvas hurriedly, for it 
repels at first sight. Study it attentively, and the face 
will be found full of intelligence and dignity. Maria 



CHARLES IV. AND MARIA LUISA 177 

Luisa is a queen, a woman to command, and to be obeyed. 
Goya refused to flatter her, but his acute intuition caught 
the better side of her tortuous personality. It is easy 
to read into this portrait more than it contains. Muther's 
description is extremely clever, and extremely false. 
He refers to the Queen's " ugliness, false hair, and false 
teeth." The ugliness is unquestionable, the false hair 
and false teeth are open to doubt. In any case they are 
problems for a coiffeur or a dentist to settle, rather than 
an art-historian. But when he tells us that Goya gives 
" the very accent of the courtesan in every line of his 
portrait," he goes too far. " She stands there in a 
deeply decolletee dress, her mantilla drawn coquettishly 
over the one shoulder, a huge hat, such as a Parisian 
cocotte might wear, set upon the thick wig, her gaze 
as direct, as keenly piercing, as that of a bird of prey 
eager for his quarry. No caricaturist of that age or this, 
no Rowlandson, or Daumier, or Leandre, ever set pen 
to a more venomous satire than this. . . . Goya sets 
right before us the Messalina, the creature insatiable 
in her appetite for passion." Maria Luisa probably 
merits the comparison, but Goya, with superb skill, 
eludes all temptation towards exaggeration and carica- 
ture, and to compare this portrait with the work of 
Rowlandson, or Daumier, or Leandre, is an error of 
critical judgment. Muther's pen is so brilliant that his 
description will probably create a precedent for less 
gifted authors, although he ascribes to Goya qualities 
which in this case the artist carefully suppressed. 

With the exception of the portrait in the mantilla, 
these representations of Queen Maria Luisa are not 
amongst Goya's happiest efforts. There is a stiffness 

N 



178 FRANCISCO GOYA 

of pose about most of his official portraits. The artist 
did not possess the ordered talent of Largilliere, Rigaud, 
or even of that younger Van Loo who commemorated the 
features of earlier members of the Spanish royal family. 
It is only necessary to compare the portraits of Queen 
Maria Luisa and Charles IV. in the ministries and private 
collections of Madrid with contemporary portraits of 
Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, or George III. and Queen 
Charlotte, to recognise that Goya's standard was variable, 
and that he was not always at his best. 

Both monarchs endeavoured to cultivate and encourage 
the fine arts. At a meeting of the Academy of St. 
Ferdinand in 1794, Charles IV. attended in person, and 
brought some paintings by himself and the Queen. 
" They are of small value," he explained, with much truth. 
" But they may be of some use as proving our interest 
in the Academy." * 

The artist was kept busy for a considerable time with 
the royal portraits. Numerous replicas were commis- 
sioned, but they were probably executed by assistants, 
for some are so poor in quality that they can hardly be 
ascribed to Goya's own brush. The equestrian portraits 
of the King and Queen, now in the Prado, have received 
enthusiastic praise, but they are weak imitations of 
Velazquez's portraits of Philip IV. and his French wife. 
When Goya painted animals he courted disaster. 

In 1790 he was working on the portraits destined for 
Capo di Monte, and during the sittings Charles IV. talked 
to the artist about the conditions of agricultural life in 
Aragon.f These portraits are the most successful of 

* Gazette dcs Beaux-Arts, Vol. XIX., p. 426, 
f Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 50. 




.MARIA LUISA, QUEEN OF SPAIN 
Prado, Madrid 



CHARLES IV. AND MARIA LUISA 179 

the series, and were the King's favourites. In the same 
year Charles IV. was portrayed in his most comfortable 
hunting suit, with his favourite dog. Again Goya 
followed the inspiration of Velazquez, and, probably 
because he too was an ardent sportsman, the picture 
reveals a more complete sympathy between painter and 
sitter. But Goya's personal friendship with Charles IV. 
dated from 1779, when he submitted tapestry designs 
for the approbation of the Prince of the Asturias. The 
artist was extremely proud of the King's enthusiastic 
praise of his work, which he is said to have written down 
in a notebook a pardonable vanity. " It appears to 
me, from what I have recently seen, that the King takes 
notice of me, and wishes to see me more frequently, 
notwithstanding what other people may say," he told 
Zapater. 

During this active period many letters passed between 
Goya and Martin Zapater, and friends in Zaragoza were 
kept well acquainted with his progress and well-being. 
He kept a small carriage with one horse, and, after he 
injured his leg through a fall, he travelled about in a car 
with two mules. 

At one moment he writes philosophically. "As I 
am working for the public, I must continue to amuse 
them," he told Zapater confidentially.* Besides being 
a man of genius he was also a man of common sense. 
Whether artists should amuse the beast which gives them 
bread, or whether they should adopt the more exalted 
but less remunerative position of educating the world, 
is a question still fiercely debated especially by those 
who lack talent. 

* Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 58. 



180 FRANCISCO GOYA 

" The few days that remain to me in this world must 
be lived according to my own inclination," he wrote in 
another letter, unconscious that he still had nearly forty 
years of unremitting toil before him. In February, 1790, 
a request to borrow money arouses his quick protest. 
" My position is entirely different from what the majority 
of the public imagine," he wrote energetically. " I want 
a great deal, firstly because my position entails expendi- 
ture, and secondly because I like it. Being a very well- 
known man I cannot reduce my expenses as other people 
do. I was about to ask for an increase of salary, but the 
conditions are so unfavourable that I must set the idea 
aside." * When he wrote this he was engaged in a struggle 
with the authorities over his salary as a member of the 
artistic staff attached to the tapestry factory. His re- 
quest for a higher salary at the moment he was contend- 
ing that his salary carried no duties was hardly likely 
to be entertained with any chance of success. Possibly 
this argument was the reason of a pensive thought in a 
letter dated June 3, 1791. " I often pray to God that 
He will take away that feeling of pride which comes over 
me upon such occasions. And, if I check myself, and 
do not fly about, my actions for the remainder of my life 
will not be much worse." f 

His health was bad. " I am old, and have many 
wrinkles, and you alone would be able to recognise me 
by my nose and weak eyes."J He was worried in his 
home. " I am walking about as in a dream. My wife is 
ill, and my child still worse. Even the cook is laid up 

* Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 50. 
f Quoted by Cruzada Villaamil. 
I Zapater, p. 45. 



CHARLES IV. AND MARIA LUISA 181 

with fever." * In August, 1790, Dona Josefa was ordered 
to take sea air, and he accompanied his wife to Valencia. 
His own leisure was occupied in hunting, but he did 
not neglect his easel, presenting two large canvases to 
the Academy of St. Charles of Valencia, which, in return, 
elected him an honorary member. At the end of the 
year he was in Zaragoza painting a highly successful 
portrait of Ramon, a member of the Pignatelli family, 
his old patrons, and another of his friend Martin Zapater. 
Then he went back to Madrid, but in October, 1791, 
was again in Zaragoza taking a two months' holiday. 
These feverish journeys from place to place may be 
accepted as indications of broken health, for the distances 
were long, and travelling hard. 

In 1792 we have no dated pictures and no correspond- 
ence, f We are told that during this year the artist was 
very ill, and that his malady resulted in total deafness. 
In January, 1793, it is briefly chronicled by some bio- 
graphers that Goya went for convalescence to Andalusia. J 
There is another explanation for his silence in 1792, and 
for his travel to San Lucar. The romance of Goya's 
life centres round this year, the period of his infatuation 
for the Duchess of Alba. It is perhaps characteristic 
of the man that, although he told much in his letters 
to Martin Zapater, his artistic successes, his royal patron- 
age, his monetary earnings, his varying health, and the 
illnesses of his family, he gave by no means a complete 
picture of his life in Madrid. In Zaragoza he must have 
appeared as the great artist. In Madrid he did not 
disdain to play the part of a man of fashion. 

* Zapater, p. 51. f Valerian von Loga : Goya, p. 71. 

J Chiefly based upon Zapater. 



CHAPTER XIII 

GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 

Goya's Political Opinions. His Success in Madrid Society. Popular 
Stories. His Acquaintance with the Duchess of Alba. Her Behaviour 
towards his Wife. Her Character. Various Portraits of the Duchess. 
Energetic Action of the Queen. The Journey to San Lucar. Goya's 
Deafness. Return to Madrid. The Maja vesti'da and the Maja desnuda. 
A Question of Identity. Their Artistic Value. Death of the Duchess. 
The Fascination of these Portraits. Baudelaire's Admiration. 

THE peasant boy of Fuendetodos had now become 
one of the famous men of Spain, and a very 
notable figure in the daily life of the capital. 
By the obstinacy of his genius he had gradually 
climbed to the highest rung of the social ladder. His 
temper was awkward and self-willed, he refused to cringe, 
or meet his patrons cap in hand ; yet he was welcomed 
everywhere. He enjoyed a success which does not seem 
to have filled his mind with conceit, and freely mixed 
with every degree of the community. But there is no 
evidence to prove that he actively assisted in any scheme 
of protest against the established order of society. 

Goya's republicanism is not only suspect, but may 
almost be classed as a myth. On the other side of the 
Pyrenees, men and women of fashion were pirouetting on 
the edge of a precipice into which they ultimately fell. 
A few of the more intellectual members of the Spanish 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 183 

aristocracy had trifled with the ideas of the French 
Encyclopaedists and basked in the promise of their 
philosophy. Immediately the Revolution reared its 
head, the Spanish ministers brushed aside all inclinations 
towards a liberal policy, and became intensely reactionary. 
And their action was evidently in accord with the feeling 
of the country. Even Aranda, the former friend of 
Voltaire, lost his earlier sympathies with the godfathers 
of the French upheaval, and exerted his utmost power 
fighting against the extension of the new thought. The 
only newspaper published in Madrid rigidly excluded 
all information from France. The circulation of foreign 
newspapers was forbidden. Minister succeeded minister, 
but the prohibitions were not removed. Florida Blanca 
ordered military officers to abstain from discussing 
French politics. The beginning of the attack upon 
Louis XVI. aroused disgust in Spain, and revived national 
support for the Spanish throne. The Cortes which met in 
1789 was particularly marked for its attitude of servility 
towards the Crown. As a whole there does not appear 
to have been the slightest desire on the part of the 
Madrilenos to imitate the excesses of the Parisian mob. 
In fact, it may almost be said that the success of the 
French republicans killed liberalism in Spain. 

Francisco Goya was intimate with all the authors and 
artists who had settled in Madrid. But, in the midst of 
an excessive professional activity, he must have spent 
much of his leisure with more aristocratic friends. A 
few names have been handed down to us. The Marquesa 
de Santa Cruz was noted for her artistic accomplishments, 
the Duchess de San Carlos had the voice of an angel, 
good humour and gallant adventures were associated with 



184 FRANCISCO GOYA 

the name of the Marquesa de Alcanices,* the Countess 
del Monti jo possessed a reputation for piety, Madame 
Brunetti had attractions which have not been chronicled 
in detail. These ladies, as well as many others, leaders 
of the world of Madrid, opened the doors of their salons. 
Many of them have been immortalised by his brush, but 
not all. Goya was a difficult man to persuade. He re- 
quired delicate blandishments before he would grant an 
appointment. " I had established an enviable scheme of 
life," he wrote to Zapater. " I refused to dance atten- 
dance in the ante-chambers of the great. If anyone 
wanted something from me he had to ask. I was much 
run after, but if the person was not of rank, or a friend, 
I worked for nobody." Scandalous anecdotes were 
whispered concerning the painter and his fair sitters. 

A young lady of rank and fashion had vainly implored 
Goya to exert his skill in transferring her beautiful 
features to canvas. Even her husband was not able to 
extract a favourable reply. One day husband and wife 
entered the artist's studio. Goya was alone. The 
Marquis had a sudden inspiration. Other means having 
proved useless, he determined to use force. Rushing from 
the studio, he double-locked the door. Then, through 
the keyhole, he shouted his commands : 

" Now, Goya, you are my prisoner. I shall not allow 
you to come out until you have painted the portrait of 
the Marquesa. And I give you two hours ! " 

He left them. The lady was as gracious as she was 
beautiful, says the narrator of this story. When the 
Marquis returned the canvas stood on the easel, a 
marvellous chef-d'oeuvre. 

* Vinaza, p. 57. 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 185 

" Ah, Marquis," cried Goya maliciously, " how can 
one refuse to do as you wish ? " 

" Quite right," replied the rash husband. " I am 
delighted with the result of my violence." 

According to Matheron, Goya remained on amiable 
terms with this lady for many years, and other anecdotes 
also link their names together. Her husband was once 
compel] ed to leave Madrid in order to join the Court at 
Aranjuez. The duty of the Marquesa was naturally to 
scorn the delights of the capital, and follow her lord. 
She asked Goya to invent a sufficient excuse. He picked 
up his brush, and painted on her naked foot an appalling 
bruise. The Marquis was in despair when his attention 
was drawn to the wound. He called in a physician. 
Sangrado examined the injured limb, declared the case 
one of gravity, and prescribed dressings, bandages, and, 
above all, the most absolute rest. Very troubled, the 
Marquis proceeded alone to Aranjuez. This nobleman 
is said to be represented in plate 40 of Los Caprichos as 
the solemn ass feeling the pulse of an unfortunate invalid. 
The donkey, however, has also been identified as Doctor 
Galinsoya, a physician attached to the household of the 
Prince of Peace, and also as Godoy himself.* 

These and other anecdotes have been questioned by 
modern biographers. Von Loga states them to be 
absolutely untrue. Spanish authors describe them as 
idle and malicious inventions which have only been kept 
alive by French writers. Yet there is sufficient evidence 
of their authenticity. Matheron preserved several of 
these tales, and he gained his information from a Spanish 

* Matheron, chap. V., and note in Appendix. See also Lefort, 
Essai d'un catalogue, p. 54 (note). 



186 FRANCISCO GOYA 

artist called De Brugada, who, during the 'fifties of the 
last century, was living in Madrid. Brunet adds to our 
knowledge, and also refers to De Brugada as a young 
man who lived in Bordeaux during the residence of Goya, 
and was acquainted with the master. The stories are 
very characteristic of Goya's impulsive and satirical 
character, and, if they do not give added lustre to his 
fame, certainly form part of any study of his career. 
Evidence of his advanced political opinions is difficult to 
find, but there is abundant justification for the legends 
which surround his private life. 

Of his intimate friendship with one great lady there 
can be little doubt. " When Goya's compositions reveal 
a slim figure elegantly dressed, with burning eyes, and 
arched eyebrows, connoisseurs will recognise this patri- 
cian," wrote Brunet, one of the earliest biographers. Her 
face haunts us as we turn over any collection of Goya's 
works. He painted her portrait at least a dozen times, 
and throughout his etchings and drawings we find reminis- 
cences of her striking personality. The Duchess of 
Alba remained Goya's ideal to the end of his life. 

Dona Maria Theresa Cayetana de Silva y Alvarez de 
Toledo was the thirteenth Duchess of Alba in her own 
right, and a leader of fashion at the Court of Charles IV. 
and Maria Luisa. Of her husband, as is usual with the 
husbands of such interesting individualities, it is difficult 
to learn anything except that he loved music. Her 
position at Court was not easy. The Queen was jealous 
of her charms, as well she might be, for Maria Luisa was 
far from being a beauty. Others conducted campaigns 
of active hostility against the Alba salon and the palace 
of the Liria. Her chief rival in beauty, as well as in 




THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 
Liria Palace, Madrid 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 187 

less attractive attributes, was the Duchess of Osuna. In 
1789 gossip reported that the two Duchesses disputed the 
patronage of Costillares and Romero, the most celebrated 
bull-fighters of Spain.* Their despicable dissoluteness, 
writes one historian, was of public notoriety. High and 
low, at Court and in the town, all spoke of the affair. 
It was the theme of daily conversation. The episodes, 
the bursts of passion and generosity of each rival, were 
related with full details. But no one was shocked at 
the immorality, the insolence, and the scandal of this 
struggle. 

Goya probably met the Duchess for the first time 
about this period. As a prominent supporter of the 
bull-ring he knew Costillares and Romero intimately. 
Their portraits are to be found amongst his best works, 
and indeed the portrait of Costillares is one of his master- 
pieces. That he made an immediate impression upon 
the susceptible Duchess is evident. More curious is the 
statement that she extended her goodwill to the whole of 
the artist's family. From the kitchen of the Liria food 
was sent to Goya's house, and a compliment was paid to 
its mistress in a peculiarly Spanish fashion. The dishes 
were of silver, and the pride of a great family forbade 
their return. f It is unfortunate that we know so little 

* See Godoy's Memoirs ; also Lady Holland's Spanish Jovrnal, p. 107. 

f The house of Alba was exceedingly wealthy. Major Dalrymple 
gives some curious details of the life of the Spanish nobility about this 
period. " The predecessor of the present Duke of Medina Cceli had on 
the death of his father an income of 84,000 a year, with six millions 
of hard dollars in ready money. In the course of twenty-five years he 
spent the cash and mortgaged as much as he could of the estate. There 
is a story told of him that a comedy girl he kept complaining to him 
in the winter of the cold, he sent her a silver brasero (a round vessel 
of metal containing fire, usually placed in the middle of rooms during 
the winter) filled with gold crowns. The present Duke pursues a 



188 FRANCISCO GOYA 

of the character of Josefa Bayeu. Her name is inter- 
mittently mentioned in the letters to Zapater, and the 
allusions are invariably made with evident affection. 
Clearly she had no jealousy of Dona Maria Theresa, for 
we are not told that she threw the silver plates at the 
heads of the servants in the Alba livery. On the contrary, 
she appears to have added them to her household store. 
Perhaps the key to this apparent lack of feeling may be 
found in her domestic anxieties. She was ill, and her 
children were ill. As Goya remarked to Zapater, even 

different system, yet the establishment of his family is very considerable. 
All these great families have pages, who are gentlemen, for whom they 
provide sometimes in the army, etc. The custom of keeping buffoons 
prevails still in this part of the world. I often saw the Duke of Alba's 
covered with ribbons of various orders, a satire on such baubles ! He 
attends his master in the morning, and the instant he awakes is obliged 
to relate some facetious story, to put his Grace in good humour. The 
Duke requires so much wit from him that he is eternally upon the 
scamper in search of it. 

"It is hardly possible to divine how these people can spend such 
amazing fortunes as some of them possess. But residing at the Court, 
never visiting their estates, and, in general, thinking it beneath them 
to examine or even enquire into their affairs, their stewards enrich 
themselves to their ruin. Besides, they are confiscated by horses, 
mules, servants, and dependants. I was told that the Duke of In- 
fantado's expense for attendants and pensioners amounts to 12,000 
a year. When once a servant is admitted into a family it is certain 
maintenance for him during life, if he commit not some glaring crime, 
and even his descendants are taken care of. 

" Women are another considerable expense. The conjugal bed is not 
held very sacred by the men of fashion, and since the Bourbon family 
has been seated on the throne jealousy has lost its sting. The ladies 
are not behindhand with their husbands. Every dame has one cortejo 
at least, and often more. The cadets of the guards are employed 
in this agreeable office. They are generally necessitous, and are sup- 
plied by the fair with means for their extravagance. Amongst the 
people of rank gratification is their object, and they stop at nothing 
to accomplish it. Gallantry and intrigue are terms too refined for 
this people." Travels Through Spain and Portugal in 1774, published 
in London 1777. 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 189 

the cook had fever. The Alba dishes conveyed delicacies 
for a home which at times resembled a hospital. Goya 
loved children the fact is evident from his own charming 
paintings and the maladies and deaths of his little ones 
may be suggested as one cause of his own despondent 
spirits. 

" A pretty woman 's worth some pains to see," wrote 
an English poet whose thoughts are not usually so easy 
of comprehension. The truth of the little phrase does 
not require Browning's imprimatur. The Dona Maria 
Theresa was far more than pretty, and Goya was fas- 
cinated by her oval features, as well as by her keen 
tongue and active spirit. She lived in opposition to 
the world around her, a Spanish variant of a type more 
often to be found in France than in the other countries 
of Europe. She reminds us of those brilliant women who 
directed the war of the Fronde. In her story ^ there is 
more than a reminiscence of the Duchess de Chevreuse. 
Her audacious unconventionality, the bold manner in 
which she showed her open contempt for the opinion of 
society, recall such a personality as Lady Holland. She 
had all the coquetterie of Madame Recamier, together with 
a passion the vestal of the Rue du Bac never experienced. 
Wealth, intellect, and beauty form a rare power before 
which all men must bow down and worship. Women 
approach it in a different spirit, for it is essentially Ja 
woman's combination. 

The most celebrated portrait of the Duchess of Alba 
is that which hangs in the Liria palace. A replica, 
formerly in Naples, now forms part of the collection 
brought together by the late Sir Julius Wernher. Against 
a slightly indicated landscape Dona Maria Theresa stands 



190 FRANCISCO GOYA 

in a somewhat stiff attitude, her right arm stretched 
forward with an air of authority rather than of entreaty. 
Her white robe, of the plainest fashion, is encircled by a 
wide red sash, and a similar bow (which may possibly 
be intended to carry some decoration) is crossed upon her 
breast. Her wonderful hair falls like a torrent across 
her shoulders down to her waist. A tiny dog is at her 
feet. This portrait was painted in 1795. 

Let it be frankly admitted that this canvas is not one 
of Goya's supreme triumphs, for it is both stiff and 
affected, and cannot be compared with the easy grace of 
the Marquesa de la Solana, which probably dates from 
1794, the majestic dignity of Dona Antonia Zarate, or the 
bold insouciance of The bookseller of the Calle de las 
Can etas. Goya was too deeply impressed by the absorb- 
ing personality of his model to control his brush, and this 
was the chief reason of his partial failure. He was too 
interested in her as a man to stand absolutely detached 
from her influence as an artist. Another portrait is 
equally interesting, though again not wholly satisfactory. 
The canvas, belonging to Don Rafael Barrio, is of three- 
quarter size. Again we are shown the same pallid, oval 
face, with long, aquiline nose, large black eyes, and a 
mass of raven hair beneath a ribboned hat. The dress is 
of the finest brocade, the tiny waistband fastened by a 
diamond buckle. In the left hand the Duchess clasps 
a key, probably symbolical of her rights as mistress of 
San Lucar. This may possibly be an earlier portrait 
than that of the Liria, for the face is younger and lacks 
significance. A third portrait, belonging to the Orossen 
collection, is a replica with slight variations of the same 
pose. Another canvas reveals the Duchess in the 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 191 

simplest of Directoire costumes. The hair has been 
carefully dressed and curled, and the only ornaments 
are two enormous earrings. The ensemble suggests the 
portraits painted by David and his pupils about this 
period. A whole-length in black silk and a mantilla is 
artistically the most attractive of the series,* and is 
clearly the result of several studies. Of these the most 
important belongs to the Marquis de la Romana. In 
this sketch, for it is little more, Goya represents himself 
in animated conversation with Dona Maria Theresa, who, 
with fan in hand and mantilla over head and shoulders, 
approximates more to the maja type than to the tra- 
ditional dignity of a great noblewoman. The artist 
himself masquerades in the dandified habit of a man of 
fashion. His long hair, unpowdered, in the style of the 
Revolution, the thick white stock, the smartly-cut coat, 
the tight breeches, the high, boots, proclaim him a 
veritable Beau Brummel, if not a youthful hero of 
romance. This is Goya as he wished to be, not as he was, 
for the canvas was painted in 1793, when he had reached 
forty-seven years of age. It convicts him of a vanity 
towards which we should be indulgent, for most of us 
are equally guilty. The scene is animated and artificial, 
for both Goya and the Duchess are artificial creatures 
pretending to breathe an atmosphere of nature and 
turning their backs upon a world from which they had 
no wish to escape. Dona Maria Theresa points to the 
black clouds of a gathering storm. She smiles at the 
infatuated artist. He follows humbly, for he does not 
know that the sunshine of his life is over, and that he 

* These two portraits have been photographed by Moreno of 
Madrid, but I cannot trace the originals. 



192 FRANCISCO GOYA 

is about to enter its gloom. In this sketch Goya 
indicates the charm of his companion, but in the other 
portraits of the Duchess we are shown the countenance 
of a sphinx. We are always fascinated by what we cannot 
understand, and the Duchess of Alba will never lose her 
attractions, because she remains an enigma, une femme 
incomprise, a creature of innocence and duplicity, as 
beautiful as the sea and far more dangerous because 
uncharted. 

Goya must have painted the canvas belonging to the 
Marquis de la Romana in the full stress of his passion. 
Early in 1793 Queen Maria Luisa determined to deal 
with her rival without mercy. That this outburst of 
vengeance was due to Dona Maria Theresa's patronage of 
Goya is hardly credible, although the artist was on the 
friendliest terms with the Queen. The Duchess was 
banished to her estates in Andalusia. There was no 
appeal. Maybe she accepted her fate with resignation, 
for, according to popular legend, when she left Madrid 
Francisco Goya accompanied her. 

Again we enter the arena of biographical recrimination, 
but all the facts support a story which harmonises with 
the romantic life of this strange man. His paintings, 
his drawings, and his etchings prove his infatuation. 
Admittedly he went to Andalusia, and this coincides with 
a gap in his professional activity. Yriarte speaks of a 
sketch-book belonging to Carderera, now in the National 
Library of Madrid, which contains particulars of the 
journey with Dona Maria Theresa.* Lastly, there is a 
curious reference in a letter to Zapater, in which Goya 
petulantly demands : " Why should a great lady not 

* Charles Yriarte : Goya, p. 34 ; also Gazette des Beaux-Arts 
September, 1863. 




GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF Al.BA 
Collection of the Marquis dc la Roinana, Ma<iriii 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 193 

be portrayed by an artist ? " * As Von Loga remarks, 
the phrase may mean anything or nothing, and he 
refuses to believe in any of the stories which link their 
names together, f But does it not point to the existence 
of contemporary gossip ? " Goya was a man of his age. 
He neither aspired to the category of an ascetic nor 
opposed the customs and tendencies of his time, and his 
age being one of transition without fixed principles, he 
accommodated himself to its duties and its weaknesses, 
never for a moment failing in his domestic obligations, 
yet not refusing those outside favours that presented 
themselves to him." J With Mr. Calvert we agree that 
this shrewd and common-sense conclusion approaches 
very closely the truth. 

The escapade of 1793 signalises the close of Goya's 
youth, for youth it had been, although he was now a man 
of middle age. His life had been crowded with incident, 
he had seized every opportunity for pleasure, yet he had 
never neglected his art. Despite increasing cares and 
anxieties he had tasted more happiness and success than 
his contemporaries. He had done great things, although 
the period of his finest productions was yet to come. 
Now fate commenced to neglect him. The first cruel 
blow was physical. He who had delighted in music, in 
the brisk conversation of the studios, the merry wit of 
the popular clubs, the repartee of the salons, was now 
struck with total deafness. 

Like most of the facts of Goya's life, the reason is 
debatable. Von Loga asserts that the artist had already 

* Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 55. 

f Von Loga : Goya, pp. 82-83. 

J A. F. Calvert : Goya, p. 56, the quotation being from the Boletin 
dela Sociedad Espanola de Excursiones. 

O 



I 9 4 FRANCISCO GOYA 

suffered from semi-deafness for over thirteen years, and 
that the ultimate result must be attributed to long 
illness. There is another explanation. Whilst accom- 
panying the Duchess of Alba to San Lucar the coach 
collapsed in a lonely spot, Despena-Perros, where aid 
was difficult to obtain. Goya, impulsive with strength 
and energy, acted the part of a blacksmith. A fire was 
improvised, and the bent ironwork beaten straight. 
Overheating himself, a chill followed which ended in the 
great calamity overshadowing the remainder of his 
life. This story is quoted in the letters of Goya's son. 

Of his existence at San Lucar we know nothing. He 
was absent from Madrid, it is stated, for two years, a 
period difficult to reconcile with some dated corre- 
spondence in 1794. He certainly relinquished his appoint- 
ment at the royal tapestry factory, and apparently 
deserted his family. If the portrait of the Marquesa de la 
Solana is correctly dated in 1794 he must have been 
working in Madrid during the course of that year. The 
plates of Los Caprichos were ready in 1796, and occupied 
at least the whole of 1795. That Goya's outlook on life 
had changed within a remarkably short space of time 
can be proved by comparing the smiling dandy in the 
Marquis de la Romana's conversation-piece with the 
grim, satirical face which forms the frontispiece to Los 
Caprichos. One man enjoys life and love ; the other has 
tasted Dead Sea ashes. Goya had suddenly awakened 
from his dream to find himself not only more famous than 
before, but old, exhausted, and bitter. 

The Duchess of Alba was pardoned, because, so it is 
said, no other way remained to attract Goya back to 
Madrid. Their friendship probably continued for at 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 195 

least a further year. Dona Maria Theresa appears in 
more than one of the first volume of etchings, and the 
three extraordinary compositions, which the artist had 
the good taste not to publish abroad, undoubtedly refer 
to her. Plate 61 represents a beautiful dame flying with 
outstretched arms in butterfly fashion, but supported at 
the feet by three grotesque creatures crouched in the 
attitude of the carved misereres under monkish stalls. 
Upon a copy of this plate Goya scrawled : " The group 
of sorcerers who form the support for our elegant lady 
are more for ornament than real use. Some heads are 
so charged with inflammable gas that they have no need 
for balloons or sorcerers in order to fly away." This 
marks the waning of his passion. Perhaps the Duchess 
had remembered her exalted social position, and the 
admirer had received his dismissal. The three unpub- 
lished plates were etched much later than the series 
usually known as Los Caprichos. On the first Goya 
wrote under the figure of the Duchess : " Sueno de la 
mentira y inconstancia " (A dream of lies and incon- 
stancy). The second plate depicts a nude woman with 
a double face. The portrait is unquestionable. This 
was the end. 

Before leaving the story of the Duchess of Alba, 
reference must be made to two important canvases 
which have become the most popular of Goya's paintings, 
the Maja clothed and the Maja nude. These pictures of 
the same beautiful model have always been associated 
with the name of Dona Maria Theresa, who is said to 
have posed for them. The popular story is best told in 
Madame Dieulafoy's book on Aragon. ' The Duke (of 
Alba), learning that his wife often went to Goya's studio, 



196 FRANCISCO GOYA 

became suspicious. He bribed the artist's servants, and 
soon discovered that she posed before him in a paradisiacal 
costume which marvellously became her. Friends warned 
both artist and sitter that the Duke was openly swearing 
to interrupt the next sitting in a startling manner. The 
next day the Duke presented himself at the doors of the 
studio, accompanied by alguazils and police. The door 
was broken open, and the Duchess discovered correctly 
clothed, whilst the painter was busily engaged on the 
Maja vestida. During the night Goya had made an 
exact copy of the Maja desnuda, so as to ensure that if the 
Duke had been given correct information concerning the 
pose he had been deceived with respect to the costume." 
The tale belongs to the group of legends concerning Goya 
over which his biographers have fiercely battled. The 
most important evidence in support of the assertion that 
the Duchess was the model for the two Majas is that of 
the face. Comparing the features of this entrancing 
damsel with the accepted portraits, of Dona Maria 
Theresa it must be admitted that there are too many 
points of similarity to refute the current belief. The 
mass of dark hair, the eyes and eyebrows, the nose, 
the mouth, and, to some extent, the chin, are almost 
identical. The chief difference is in the expression. 
The portraits are inclined to melancholy. The Duchess 
gazes from her canvas with eyes of sombre dignity. 
The Majas, on the contrary, are frankly self-conscious, 
and look at the spectator with the slightest suspicion of 
a graceless twinkle. On the other hand, the Marquis de 
la Romana's sketch reveals another " soul-side " of 
skittish frivolity. If it be suggested that great ladies 
do not usually sit to artists in what poor Trilby called 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 197 

" the altogether " there is little need to search far to find 
examples which prove the contrary. Pauline Borghese, 
Napoleon's most beautiful sister, did not disdain to pose 
to Canova, and Napoleon's second wife, the Empress 
Marie-Louise, is traditionally said to have been the model 
for a Venus by Prud'hon.* 

The question of dates is the most awkward bar to the 
story, although not conclusive. The Majas are generally 
credited to 1799, and Goya's friendship may have ceased 
before that year, if we are to believe plate 61 of Los 
Caprichos. The unpublished etchings were later, and 
quite possibly contemporary with the pictures. The 
comments belong to the earlier years of the nineteenth 
century. 

The identity of the Majas must therefore remain a 
secret which future biographers are not likely to unravel. 
She may have been a model known in the Madrid studios 
at the period. Those historians who refuse to admit 
that the Duchess of Alba sat to Goya state that the 
pictures were commissioned by Godoy, Prince of Peace, 
in commemoration of his friendship with a frail beauty 
whose name is to be found in the chroniques scandaleuses 
of the Court of Charles IV.f The question is of little real 
importance in comparison with the artistic value of the 
canvases. " Goya's two pictures are still vivacious and 
fresh," wrote Mr. Charles Ricketts in a happy flight of 
appreciation.! " In La maja, a nude, he has painted the 

* The Venus and Adonis, No. 347 in the Wallace collection. The 
thirteenth edition of the catalogue tells us that it was a commission 
from the Empress ini8 10, adding, " there is a tradition that she sat to 
Prud'hon for the Venus." 

f See Von Loga : Goya, p. 84. Possibly Josefa Tudo. 

J Charles Ricketts : The Prado and its Masterpieces. 



ig8 FRANCISCO GOYA 

sensuous waist, the frail arms, the dainty head of the 
Duchess thrown upon pillows, contrasting in their gray 
whiteness with the gleam upon her flesh. In the other 
we note the same grace of pose, a more summary work- 
manship, touches of colour too many, perhaps. The 
Duchess of Alba reclines on her divan in her rich bolero 
and white duck trousers of a toreador or Spanish dandy. 
We pause, we are astonished and charmed ; we wonder 
how such a thing was possible." The " thing " was 
possible because Goya, ever a student of the older masters, 
had suddenly become an absorbed disciple of Titian. In 
the Royal Palace was that glorious Bacchanal which had 
come from the Parnfili gallery at Rome. In the same 
collection was the Venus listening to music bought by 
Philip IV. at the sale of the art treasures belonging to 
Charles I. of England. To-day they hang in the Prado 
but a few steps from the Maja desnuda. That they 
directly inspired Goya cannot be doubted. He was too 
great an artist to copy them slavishly. He could not 
suppress his own powerful individuality. But he 
borrowed Titian's idea, as, in a far different case the 
decoration of his country home he seized upon one of 
the most fantastic imaginations of Rubens and converted 
it to his own use. The Maja desnuda is a solitary 
experiment, " the dear fleshly perfection of the human 
shape, rosed from top to toe in flush of youth," one of 
the few nude paintings in a school which did not en- 
courage the study of the undraped figure. Yet Goya 
was strong enough to challenge any of the gifted men 
who had been working a few years earlier in Paris. He 
had that subtle feeling for the flowing curves of flesh 
which distinguishes Boucher. His brush carries a vivid 
carnation reminding the English visitor of Etty. 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 199 

Sainte-Beuve said that biography was an ugly word, 
smelling of the study, fit only for men, and not to be used 
for women. " Can the life of any woman bear relation ? 
It is felt, it passes, we have caught a glimpse of it." The 
Duchess of Alba was such a momentary vision. " Dates 
in connection with such a being are anything but elegant." 
She passed out of Goya's life, out of life itself, before the 
paint on those wonderful canvases had grown hard. 

Ou sont nos amoureuses ? 
Elles sont au tombeau ! 
Elles sont plus heureuses 
Dans un sejour plus beau. 

Goya's thoughts must have been the same as those of the 
unhappy Gerard de Nerval. When Dona Maria Theresa 
died in the early years of the nineteenth century Goya 
was already an old man entering a generation whose joys 
he was not asked to share. One consolation remained. 
His genius had given his mistress immortality. 

These portraits have fascinated poets as well as con- 
noisseurs. Baudelaire was curiously attracted by a face 
which might have formed the frontispiece to his own 
Fleurs du Mai. Writing to his friend Felix Nadar, May 
14, 1859, he said : " . . .if you are an angel go and 
flatter a person named Moreau, picture dealer, Rue 
Lafitte, Hotel Lafitte (I intend to court him on account 
of a study I am preparing upon Spanish painting), and 
try to obtain from this man permission to take a photo- 
graph of the Duchess of Alba (absolutely Goya and 
absolutely authentic). The replicas (life-size) are in 
Spain, where Gautier has seen them. In one frame the 
Duchess is represented in national costume, in the 
other she is nude, in the same position, on her back. 



200 FRANCISCO GOYA 

The triviality of the pose adds to the charm of the 
pictures. If I ever used your slang I might say that the 
Duchess is a bizarre woman,-with a wicked look. . . . 
If you were a very wealthy angel I would advise you to 
buy these pictures, for the occasion will not repeat itself. 
Imagine a Bonington, or a gallant^and ferocious Deveria. 
The man who owns them is asking 2,400 francs. It is 
little enough in the opinion of an amateur mad over 
Spanish painting, but it is enormous to what the dealer 
has paid for them. He admitted to me that he bought 
them from Goya's son, who had become extraordinarily 
embarrassed." * 

Despite the enthusiasm of Gautier and Baudelaire, 
these canvases must have been copies, and probably 
formed part of the collection of forgeries which Matheron 
tells us were offered for sale at this time in Paris and then 
withdrawn. The originals have recently been transferred 
to the Prado from the Academy of St. Ferdinand, where 
for years they remained imprisoned in a cabinet noir, 
only to be seen by the privileged few with the special 
permission of the custodian. One Spanish monarch had 
insisted upon their seclusion, and would not even allow the 
adult members of his family to admire the beauties of the 
Maja vestida and the Maja desnuda. 

Baudelaire did not buy the pictures in the Rue Lafitte, 
but to his last days remained a fervent worshipper. Dur- 
ing the sad hours of July, 1866, when his reason was 
quivering in its balance, the French poet lived under the 
care of Doctor Emile Duval, in the Rue du Dome, Paris. 
The chief adornment on the walls of his room was a 

* Charles Baudelaire : (Euvres Posthumes et correspondences inedites 
(1887), p. 204. 



GOYA AND THE DUCHESS OF ALBA 201 

couple of canvases by his friend Manet. One was a 
copy of a portrait of the Duchess of Alba, and her pale 
face gazed upon his fevered bed as the dying poet 
gasped his last sigh.* 

* The Duchess was married in 1773, at a very early age, to Don Jose 
Alvarez de Toledo, eleventh Marquis de Villafranca. She died in the 
summer of 1802, " supposed to have been poisoned ; her physician 
and some confidential attendants are imprisoned, and her estates 
sequestered during their trial, but by whom, and for what reason the 
dose was administered, remains as yet unknown. She was very 
beautiful, popular, and by attracting the best society was an object 
of jealousy to one who is all-powerful." The Spanish Journal of Lady 
Holland, p. 45. Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell in Annals of the Artists of 
Spain, Vol. IV., p. 1472, refers to the same rumour. Lady Holland also 
states that during the building of the original Alba palace in the Calle 
de Alcala, Madrid (now the War Office), two destructive fires broke 
out, " and enough was discovered to convince that a further attempt 
to finish the noble edifice would end in a similar disappointment, the 
train being laid by a high and jealous person. . . . The Duchess was 
always an object of jealousy and envy to the great lady ; her beauty, 
popularity, wealth, and rank were, corroding to her heart." This 
" great lady " was the Queen. " A short time before her death she was 
banished for three years, and the only favour shown was allowing her 
the choice of her estates. She chose to reside at her palace at St. 
Lucar Barrameda in Andalusia." At her death her pictures were 
seized and sold by the Crown. Amongst them were the Madonna della 
Casa Alba by Raphael, now in the Hermitage ; the Education of Love, 
by Correggio ; and the famous Venus and Cupid, by Velazquez. The 
latter passed into the possession of Godoy, at his sale was bought 
by Wallis, acting for Buchanan, then, on the recommendation of Sir 
Thomas Lawrence, was purchased by Morritt of Rokeby, and is now 
No. 2057 of the National Gallery. In L'Art et les Artistes, 1906, Vol. 
II., p. 205, a portrait of the Duchess, hitherto unknown, attributed to 
Goya, is reproduced. No particulars are given as to ownership. The 
last edition (1913) of the Prado catalogue states that Goya painted 
the Maja vestida in the open air. 



CHAPTER XIV 

LOS CAPRICHOS 

The Foundation of Goya's Cosmopolitan Fame. In Progress from 
1793 to 1798. Goya's bad Health. Origin of Los Caprichos. The Un- 
published Preface. Popular Explanations of the Plates. Manuscript 
" keys." Satire of Social Life in Madrid. Doubts as to Personal 
Caricature. A new Harlot's Progress. Goya's Realism. Coarseness 
in Art. English Caricature of the Eighteenth Century. The Scenes of 
Witchcraft. Demonology in Art and Literature. Ruskin and Los 
Caprichos. Goya as Etcher and Aquatintist. Gautier's Appreciation 
of the Plates. Los Capriclws taken over by the State. Editions 
and Impressions. 

HAD Goya not etched the series of plates to which 
he gave the title of Los Caprichos his fame 
might have remained for many years strictly 
confined to his own country, for, as Theophile Gautier 
remarks in Tra los Monies, " never was there a less 
harmonious genius, never a Spanish artist more local." 
As a painter his reputation was slow in crossing the 
Pyrenees, and then was chiefly based upon the testimony 
of the few strangers who had visited Madrid. But when 
the volumes of Los Caprichos reached Paris, the un- 
challenged centre of European art, these extraordinary 
works attracted unstinted appreciation, and awoke general 
curiosity with respect to the personality of the almost 
unknown Spaniard. Officers attached to the English 
army quartered in the Peninsula sent copies of Los 



LOS CAPRICHOS 203 

Caprichos home to London. Later still the book pene- 
trated into Germany. These etchings thus formed the 
foundation of Goya's cosmopolitan celebrity. 

Los Caprichos consists of seventy-two plates which are 
usually dated 1796-1797. Eight additional plates were 
added before 1803, but cannot be treated as part of the 
original set.* Without wishing to disagree with such com- 
petent critics as Paul Lefort and Julius Hofmann, who 
have so carefully annotated the etched work of Goya, it 
seems more probable that the production of these plates 
should be spread over a longer period. Goya must have 
commenced Los Caprichos as early as 1793 or 1794. In 
1797 the artist was more than usually busy, and even 
his superabundant activity was unequal to the addi- 
tional task of designing, etching, and printing seventy- 
two plates. 

Goya's indifferent health has already been mentioned. 
If he travelled to Andalusia with the Duchess of Alba 
in January, 1793, simply for rest and convalescence, his 
recovery was painfully slow. On April 18, 1794, Livinio 
Stuik of the tapestry factory wrote that his friend was 
quite unable to work. The same month another com- 
panion remarked that the artist was in his studio again, 
but lacking in application or energy a serious statement 
to make of a man who, when in health, bubbled over with 
life and virility, f Goya himself, in a letter to Zapater, 
dated April 23, 1794, refers to his condition. " My 
health has not improved. Often I get so excited that I 
cannot bear with myself. Then again I become calm, 

* Lafond says these plates were added " before 1812," but Carderera, 
who gives the earlier date, is a safer authority, 
f These letters are quoted by Cruzada Villaamil. 



204 FRANCISCO GOYA 

as I am at this present moment of writing, although I 
am already fatigued. Next Monday, if God permit, I 
will go to a bull-fight, and I wish you were able to 
accompany me." * 

He was stone deaf, and his eyes were giving him trouble. 
Unable to attack with serious purpose any large canvas, 
he did what many an ailing painter has done before and 
since. He trifled, pencil in hand, over his sketch-book. 
Every vague fancy idly flitting through his tormented 
brain was set down on paper. They were the caprices, 
the whims, of a moment. Then he picked up the 
etching needle, which he had neglected for more than 
twelve years, since the Velazquez plates of 1778. Thus 
we have the genesis of Los Caprichos. 

Dozens of the original drawings are still in existence. 
Many remain in Madrid, hanging in the basement of the 
Prado amidst the tapestry cartoons. Others have been 
distributed throughout the private collections and public 
museums of Europe. A large number have been repro- 
duced in facsimile in the sumptuous portfolios edited 
by Pierre d'Achiardi.f In some cases the etchings have 
simplified the detail of the sketches ; in others, the 
artist follows his original idea with scrupulous fidelity, j 
Not all the drawings were used. 

* Zapater : Noticias biogrdficas, p. 53. 

f P. d'Achiardi : Les Dessins de Francisco Goyay Lucientes au Musee 
du Prado a Madrid. Rome, 1908. 3 vols. 

% Although Goya often painted in haste, his etchings show signs of 
the most careful preparation. In the Velazquez series he made many 
studies and working drawings before he touched the copper. The plates 
of Los Caprichos were brilliant impromptus not left to the inspiration 
of the moment. 

There are sketches for the etchings, which were never used, in the 
art museum at Hamburg. They came from the Fortuny collection. 



LOS CAPRICHOS 205 

The first edition is usually said to have been issued in 
1797, but this is an error based upon the discovery of a 
sketch for the title-page dated in that year. Isolated 
proofs were to be seen in 1796, but the whole work was 
not ready until 1798 or 1799. Goya was slowly printing 
the two hundred copies in an attic workroom he had 
specially engaged for the purpose at the corner of the 
Calle de San Bernardino, but for some while the job was 
completely set aside. He drew up a draft prospectus 
which was never published. He explains that he has 
" chosen subjects which afford opportunities to turn into 
ridicule and stigmatise those prejudices, impostures, and 
hypocrisies which have been consecrated by time." He 
protests against any plate being treated as a personal 
satire, for this would be to mistake the object of art and 
the means art has placed in the hands of artists. He 
asks for the indulgence of the public, for " the author has 
not attempted to imitate the work of other people, or 
even to copy Nature. The imitation of Nature is as diffi- 
cult as it is admirable when successfully accomplished ; 
let us therefore admire a method which leaves Nature 
out of the question, and reveals to our eyes forms and 
movements existing only in the imagination . . . 
Painting, like poetry, selects from the universe what it 
considers best for its own end. In a single fantastic 
figure it is able to concentrate circumstances and charac- 
teristics which Nature scatters amongst a crowd of 
individuals. Thanks to this wise and ingenious com- 
bination the artist must be allowed the title of inventor, 
and ceases to be a mere servile copyist." * 

* This draft belonged to Valentin Carderera, who quoted it in the 
Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. XV., September, 1863, p. 240. 



206 FRANCISCO GOYA 

The early copies were sold at the price of 288 reals, 
about 3, and Goya's wealthy patrons subscribed eagerly 
for the limited issue. The Duchess of Osuna paid 1,500 
reals for her copy, and Goya's receipt is dated January, 
1799. There was more than the artistic interest in the 
compilation. Despite Goya's protest against any plate 
being identified as a vehicle of personal satire Madrid 
society whispered that many of the etchings audaciously 
satirised not only medicine, the army, the law, the Church, 
and even themselves, but actually the throne itself. 
The very fact, if true, reveals an amount of personal 
liberty in Spain which could only be equalled in London 
or Paris, and was certainly not to be found in any other 
European capital. Apparently the artist suffered no 
harm, experienced no retaliation, and met his victims 
without ill-will. The character of Goya must fall in our 
estimation if we accept the various " keys " to the 
drawings. They reveal him caricaturing personal friends 
and liberal patrons, and exposing to public laughter the 
weaknesses of women with whom he had been on the 
most intimate terms. The popular interpretation of 
Los Caprichos, however, is very misleading. Goya was 
partly to blame for a mystification without apparent 
motive. It is true, as Richard Muther says, that Goya 
penned a pasquinade upon the social, political, and 
ecclesiastical conditions of his age, that he fought against 
dandyism and wantonness, against servile courtiers 
and venal functionaries, against the hypocrisy of the 
priesthood and the stupidity of the people. But that 
he held up to shame the men and women from whom he 
was receiving generous encouragement, who opened 
their houses to him and shared their salt, is not so 



LOS CAPRICHOS 207 

obvious. Commentators have read more into Los Cap- 
richos than the artist ever intended, more than the 
drawings actually contain. Goya's character requires 
clearing of an accusation which is a serious injustice to 
his memory. 

The seventy-two plates of Los Caprichos may be 
roughly divided in three parts which have practically 
nothing in common. Excluding the frontispiece-por- 
trait,* plates 2 to 36 deal with the social life of Madrid, 
caricaturing the Madrilenas with a good deal of fun and 
satire, but lacking fantasy or imagination. A few later 
' plates (such as Nos. 55, 78, 79, and 80) should have been 
included in the same section, of which they naturally form 
a continuation. Plate 37 opens an entirely fresh vein, 
and we see animals acting as humans. This series ends 
abruptly with plate 42, and upon these etchings is based 
the accusation that Goya bit the hands which fed him. 
The charge must be examined in detail. 

When Los Caprichos appeared Madrid society promptly 
read into the drawings names and personalities which 
the artist disclaimed even before publication. That he 
intended satire is obvious, but his ideas were general, 
rather than personal. However, manuscripts were written 
and passed from hand to hand which professed to give 
the key to each plate. They were copied, and they were 
added to. Charles Yriarte says that in his investigations 
he came across at least five or six. One manuscript is 
so frankly coarse that Paul Lefort was unable to incor- 
porate it in his valuable work on the etchings. Another, 
written by Goya himself, at Bordeaux, thirty years after 
the publication of the plates, must be accepted with extreme 
* This portrait was originally intended to form plate 43. 



2 o8 FRANCISCO GOYA 

caution. An old and embittered man, with a certain 
amount of animosity against Ferdinand VII. and Madrid, 
he was not unwilling to throw a little mud at the society 
he had renounced. His descriptive remarks are not only 
banal but exceedingly vague. Comparing these manu- 
scripts with the plates themselves, we find the slightest 
evidence to justify the most decided explanations. More 
important still is the discovery that the manuscripts and 
their scandalous traditions are invariably contradictory. 
Many of these plates can possess no direct personal 
meaning. Goya followed his imagination through the 
mazes of his fancy. He pursued rather nebulous thoughts 
on morality and politics which in his old age he attempted 
to clothe in personal applications. He would have been 
more honest, had he like Browning confessed his 
inability to explain his earlier work. 

The chief actress in the scandals of the close of the 
eighteenth century was the Queen, and gossip identified 
her as the heroine of several of these plates. No. 2 
represents a girl, her face covered with a domino, and her 
hair put up in a grimacing mask. She is being led to the 
altar by a bridegroom who is far from handsome. Two 
fantastically ugly old women accompany her, and a crowd 
grins in the background. " She says yes, and takes the 
hand of the first person who passes," is the original 
description beneath the etching. Goya's manuscript 
throws little light upon the subject : " easiness with 
which women contract marriage, hoping therefore to 
gain greater liberty," is his comment. In another 
manuscript personalities are hinted at. " She is a 
disguised princess, who later will behave worse than a 
dog, as indicated by the mask on her hair. . . . She has 




1796 



"A ROUGH NIGHT" 

M.ila. Noche. After the etching in " Los Cafriclios." Plate 36 



LOS CAPRICHOS 209 

two faces like Janus ... A stupid crowd applauds 
this marriage, and behind walks a charlatan who prays 
for the happiness of the nation." * The phrases are as 
vague and unsatisfactory as the prophesies of a fashion- 
able palmist. If the words mean anything they refer 
to Charles IV:, Maria Luisa, and Godoy, but it is impos- 
sible to fit any of these personalities to the figures in the 
drawing. One can as easily explain Leonardo's gro- 
tesques as political allusions reflecting upon the policy 
of the Medici. 

Underneath A rough night (plate 36) Goya wrote : "To 
such inconveniences do light-hearted young ladies expose 
themselves when they do not wish to remain at home." 
This is the aimless and garrulous conversation of senility. 
A contemporary annotation explains that Goya wished 
to recall certain nocturnal excursions made by the Queen 
which excited comment. The plate does not corroborate 
the suggestion.f Poor little things (plate 22) is said by 
the same authority to allude to the vengeance exercised 
by the Queen against women of whom she was jealous. 
It is probably nothing but a street scene in Madrid. The 
same remarks apply to many of the etchings in the first 
section of Los Caprichos. 

Charles Yriarte exhaustively examines this problem 
as to the identity of the characters in the etchings^ and 
arrives at the conclusion that in many cases there can 
be as Goya himself asserted no personal application. 
For instance, plate 19 represents two well-featured young 

* Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1867), Vol. XXII., p. 200 (note). 

f Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1867), Vol. XXII., p. 197 (note). See also 
p. 20 1 (note). 

| L Art, Vol. II. (1877). These four articles are brilliantly written, 
but appear to have escaped the notice of most biographers. 

P 



210 FRANCISCO GOYA 

women plucking an unhappy bird with the head of a man. 
On the branches of a tree are several other birds with 
male and female heads, whilst one pert fowl boasts a 
cocked hat and a high stock. In the next plate, No. 20, 
the same wretched animals, remorselessly stripped of 
their feathers, are being chased away by two damsels 
with brooms. These etchings have a graceful and 
fantastic wit which is very alluring. They are said to 
refer to the many scandals in which the Queen became 
involved, and the birds are named, one representing 
Godoy,* another Juan Pignatelli.f But, as Yriarte 
remarks, the situation is so ordinary that it requires no 
personal application. How many men, who innocently 
believed that they were loved for themselves alone, have 
been stripped of their goods, and ignominiously driven 
forth when they had nothing but their hearts to offer ! 
It is the eternal thesis of moralists, satirists, and carica- 
turists of all countries. Goya follows his idea through six 
plates, Nos. 19 to 24. Woman the despoiler does not have 
it all her own way. Three vampires, in the costume of the 
law, seize the poor little bird with the head of a woman, 
and pluck her without mercy. Plate 22 gives the next 
act of the drama. These young ladies, the Manon 
Lescauts of Madrid, are being conducted to a house of 
correction by the alguazils. " Poor little things ! " 
cries Goya. After the arrest comes the judgment in 
plate 23. In her robe of penitence the wretched girl 
sits on a platform, surrounded by a dense crowd, listening 
to the reading of her sentence. Plate 24 shows the punish- 
ment. Semi-nude, she rides an ass to the place of 

* Godoy protested in his Memoirs against these insinuations. 
f Gazette des Bcanx-Arts (1867), Vol. XXII., p. 197 (note). 




"POOR LITTLE THINGS!" 

Pobrecit&sl After the etching in " Los Caprichos." Plate 22 



LOS CAPRICHOS 211 

execution, surrounded by a grinning mob, and guarded 
by the stern officers of the Holy Office. Goya, wrote 
beneath this plate, " No hubo remedio " (There is no 
remedy). And there is no remedy for the evil which 
Hogarth treated in the Harlot's progress, and the Spaniard, 
on similar lines, in these six plates. 

Yriarte refers to the realistic fidelity of Goya's 
drawings. 

Goya is more a satirist than a caricaturist, although 
satire does not adequately describe such a plate as Love 
and. Death, where a girl vainly attempts to revive her 
murdered lover, or the pathetic thought in the thirty- 
fourth etching (a prison-scene) that sleep is the only 
happiness for the unhappy.* The drawing of a priest 
attempting to hide his money-bags is satire. But the 
old man, in plate 29, who reads a newspaper whilst a 
barber dresses his hair, is broad fun, akin in subject to v 
the social jests of Rowlandson, Bunbury, Wigstead, or 
Richard Newton. Goya was " coarse-minded and essen- 
tially vulgar," wrote P. G. Hamerton. Such an accusa- 
tion is easy to make, and difficult to refute, especially 
when directed by one of the anaemic English critics of the 
nineteenth century against an artist of Latin race. In 
the constitution of every artist or author of virile strength 
lies hidden a vein of coarseness which forms an essential 
part of his intellectual equipment. It may be a survival 
of what the revivalists call " the old Adam," the sinful 

* With all his realism Goya had the mind of a poet. The same idea 
is repeatedly expressed by our Elizabethans. Sir Philip Sidney calls 
sleep " the certain knot of peace . . . the balm of woe . . . the 
prisoner's release." Shakespeare writes of the " sleep that sometimes 
shuts up sorrow's eye . . . that knits up the ravelled slave of care 
. . . sore labour's bath, balm of hurt minds." 



212 FRANCISCO GOYA 

nature of man which may be repressed but can never 
be wholly eradicated. According to the intellectual 
breadth and sanity of that artist so will the coarseness 
increase or diminish, overwhelm and distort his work, 
and become a weakness, or simply flash from time, to 
time, giving an added power to his creations. 

But, according to the same critic, because Goya was 
" coarse-minded and essentially vulgar," there was 
" something wanting in his temperament, and that 
something the delicate aesthetic sense . . . there is no 
evidence of that sweet enjoyment of natural beauty which 
is given only to the pure in heart." The assertion is 
preposterous, and Goya's finest portraits prove its false- 
hood. In general application it is equally untrue. 
Shakespeare was coarse if judged by prudish canons. 
Yet no poet had a purer appreciation of beauty. Rem- 
brandt was undoubtedly coarse, but who would dare 
suggest that he lacked a delicate aesthetic sense and 
failed to rise to supreme heights of mysticism. No 
great artist escapes this blemish, if you will, this flaw 
in a piece of exquisitely coloured marble. Moral England 
loves to fling the taunt at the Latin races, and it is one 
of the easiest and most smashing blows of an unsym- 
pathetic criticism because it is irrefutable. Great men 
are always coarse. 

The coarseness of Goya is hardly noticeable, unless we 
set out to look for it.* There is nothing which can be 
classed with the few notorious plates of Rembrandt 
which all collectors know, those hidden creations of 
the Renaissance, or even the full-blooded caricatures 

* " Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt 
without being charming." Oscar Wilde. 



LOS CAPRICHOS 213 

which disfigured the Georgian age in England. Goya's 
social etchings have often much grace. The majas who 
masquerade through the early pages of Los Caprichos 
are as attractive as a sketch by a modern Parisian 
illustrator. A rough night reminds us of a drawing in 
wash by Fragonard. If Goya never captured Rowland- 
son's soft pencil he far surpassed other artists who were 
busy in London. In several of his subjects there is an 
atmosphere of happiness, an absence of that fierce hatred 
of his fellows which so many of his biographers consider 
the outstanding feature of his character. His wit is 
biting, his satire sometimes envenomed, but it seldom 
approaches the bludgeoning and the brutal obscenities 
which distort the drawings of Gillray and his school. 
If Charles IV. and Maria Luisa were caricatured, which 
is most improbable, they were lightly dealt with in com- 
parison to their cousins of Great Britain, George III. and 
Queen Charlotte. 

After the first section of Los Caprichos follows a short 
series of plates (Nos. 37 to 42) dealing with the adventures 
of animals acting as men, another version, in fact, of 
Gulliver's adventures amongst the Houyhnhnms, but 
with asses instead of horses. Goya's temperament and 
imagination have many curious points of similarity in the 
personality of Swift. These plates are chiefly identified 
with the name of Godoy, but the weaknesses they satirise 
are common to human nature. Plate 43 opens a fresh 
departure. It is neither caricature nor satire. A man 
has fallen asleep in his chair over paper and pencils. 
His head rests on the edge of his drawing-table. Owls 
and bats circle round him in the gloom. A wakeful cat 
glares at his feet. One bird offers him a crayon to resume 



214 FRANCISCO GOYA 

his labours. On a paper by the table are the words, 
" El sueno de la razon monstruos " (Reason's dream 
gives birth to monsters). The man is Goya dreaming 
in a world of hallucinations. The face is hidden, but the 
identity is unquestionable, for Goya at first intended the 
frontispiece portrait to take the place of this composition. 
The plate forms a fitting introduction to a collection of 
the most remarkable inventions of diablerie that mind of 
artist ever conceived. 

Although Goya piously asked the permission of 
the Almighty to attend a bull-fight, and often drew a 
cross at the head of his letters, there cannot be much 
question as to his lack of religious conviction. According 
to the fashion of his time he was more atheistic than 
agnostic. In an etching representing a corpse rising 
from the tomb with the grim message " Nada " (Nothing) 
he symbolised the negation of his creed. But, in the 
words of Parson Adams, if he was not afraid of ghosts 
he did not absolutely disbelieve in them. These etchings 
of brujas (wi tches) place him at the head of a tiny group 
of artists who have devoted their genius to a revelation 
of the supernatural. Had they doubted the existence 
of the fantastic world they dreamt of could they have 
depicted it on paper ? They present the problem of 
demoniac possession in a new light. The gift of the 
macabre and the horrible is rare, and at its best a sur- 
vival of mediae valism. We find it in the diabolical can- 
vases of Hieronymus van Bosch, in the temptations and 
hells of the younger Teniers, in some of the imaginings 
of Martin de Vos and Callot, and, coming to a later day, 
in the theatrical morbidness of Wiertz. There is a trace 
of the fascination for the ghastly in Albert Diirer, as well 




1796 



" NAIL TRIMMING" 

Se repulen. After the etching in "Los Capriclios. " Plate 



LOS CAPRICHOS 215 

as in Gustave Dore, and fainter because artificial, 
affected, and borrowed in that draughtsman of yester- 
day, Aubrey Beardsley. Classical mythology and art 
have no room for its deities, but it will be found in 
Japanese and Chinese art as well as in the grotesques 
carved by the masons who built the great cathedrals 
of the Middle Ages. In literature there are numerous 
examples. Hoffman and Edgar Allan Poe come readily 
to mind, but the Arabian Nights, with its genii, sorcerers, 
and other unnatural creations, is the true source of all 
the later variations. It is, in fact, a survival of man's 
earliest terrors, when, trembling in his cave, he listened 
to the tyrodactyl ominously flapping its huge wings 
through the black forest, or the roar of some giant 
megatherium as it wallowed in primeval swamps. 

Goya had imagined every kind of Walpurgis revel, 
attaining a wealth of illuminative detail which renders 
the last half of Los Caprichos a popular handbook of de- 
monology and witchcraft. In Homage to the master the 
chief figure is almost Egyptian ; in Nail-trimming he 
gives an insight into the domestic life of these unclean 
beings. 

"It is so dangerous to have long nails that even the 
sorcerers are forbidden to sport them," he wrote in an 
explanatory footnote. The Fates spin, witches ride on 
broomsticks, young children are offered in sacrifice, 
hags crowd together over steaming cauldrons, muttering 
frightful charms and incantations. 

Round, around, around, about, about ! 

All ill come running in, all good keep out ! 

Here's the blood of a bat. 

Put in that, O put in that ! 

Here's libbard's bane. 



216 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Put in again ! 

The juice of toad, the oil of adder : 

Those will make the younker madder. 

Put in there's all and rid the stench. 

Nay, here's three ounces of the red-haired wench. 

Round, around, around, about, about ! 

Even Thomas Middleton's verse does not do full 
justice to some of these scenes of the black world. And 
with them Goya mingles a rough commentary upon the 
bad laws which make hard cases. He satirises marriage 
a man and a woman chained to a tree from which it is 
impossible to escape, whilst a grotesque bird watches 
over them. Surely Goya had no reason to complain of 
the bonds of wedlock. He gibes at dull sermons a 
parrot preaching to appreciative monks. How many 
sermons had he sat out ? He pleads for a higher morality. 
" Do as I say ! " he urges, and might well add, " but not 
as I do." The reformed sinner makes a brave show on 
the platform, although we cannot always be sure that 
the conversion is genuine. 

Ruskin destroyed a copy of Los Caprichos, and his 
attitude is typical of much English criticism.* Philip 
Gilbert Hamerton speaks of the series as " eighty of 
Goya's ugliest etchings " by an artist who " illustrated 

* The story is to be found in Vol. XXXVII. of the Complete Works 
of Ruskin (1909), amongst the " Letters, 1870-1889." In a letter from 
Brantwood, dated September 19, 1872, he asks F. S. Ellis : " Any effect 
produced on customers' minds yet by our burnt sacrifice ? " The 
editors add the following note : " The enquiry is a jest the story is 
this. Ruskin saw in Mr. Ellis's possession a fine copy of the Cap- 
riccios de Goya, and commented on its hideousness, adding that ' it 
was only fit to be burnt.' Mr. Ellis agreed with him, and, putting 
the volume into the empty grate (for it was in August), he and Ruskin 
set light to it, and the book was burned to ashes." Ruskin's arrogance 
is only equalled by the bookseller's self-sacrifice. In the twentieth 
century it would be as hard to find an Ellis as a Ruskin. 



LOS CAPRICHOS 217 

every turpitude and vice in a spirit of ferocious satis- 
faction," using the etching-needle "merely for his political 
purpose, as so many people use the pen in writing, with- 
out any idea of the artistic capabilities of the instrument 
and the art." This is a singularly unfortunate judgment, 
for Goya, particularly in the scenes of witchcraft, dis- 
plays a complete command of his tools. There is none 
of the bungling so noticeable in the plates after Velaz- 
quez. Occasional crudities mar the progress of the work, 
but as a rule the technique is on the same plan as the 
invention. Goya, ever ready for an artistic experiment, 
tried his hand at the comparatively new invention of 
aquatint. Several of the plates are in pure aquatint 
(No. 32 is a fine example), and how cleverly he succeeded 
is proved in A rough night. A recent historian of this 
method writes : " Goya raised the combination of etching 
with aquatint to a position of surpassing merit. . . . He 
will always remain the master of mixed aquatint engraving, 
and his work should be carefully studied by all interested 
in the legitimate scope of aquatint engraving." * This 
verdict is substantially just, coming with force from a 
writer who had made himself acquainted with the whole 
art of aquatint. Hamerton, led away by his hatred of 
Goya's political opinions which Goya probably never 
professed demolishes Goya as a man, as an artist, and 
as an etcher. " Goya was to a really cultivated etcher 
what a peasant fiddling in an alehouse is to Joachim 
interpreting Beethoven. Of the resources of etching 
its pianos and its fortes, its harmonies and oppositions, 
its tender cadences and its notes of triumphant energy 
Goya lived in Philistine ignorance. If his etchings had 
* S. T. Prideaux : History of Aquatint (1909). 



218 FRANCISCO GOYA 

been good he would never have endured to spoil them by 
heavy aquatint. He was as unskilful in aquatint as in 
etching proper, but he could lay a coarse, flat shade, 
which served in some measure to hide the poverty of his 
performance with the needle." * 

Oscar Wilde said that diversity of opinion about a 
work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and 
vital. The days of Ruskin and Hamerton are over. 
One modern painter not inaptly compares Goya to 
Hokusai. But there never was any great diversity of 
opinion as to his genius amongst artists and critics who did 
not need teaching that " the moral life of man forms part 
of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art 
consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium." f 
Eugene Delacroix copied over fifty of the plates in Los 
Caprichos,^ with a care and patience, says Charles 
Yriarte, of which few would consider him capable. The 
etchings appealed to many of the artists of the French 
Romantic movement, and some, like Louis Boulanger, 
borrowed freely from them. Daumier was strongly 
influenced by their power. Our own banker-poet, Samuel 
Rogers, added the set to his library. Theophile Gautier 
was no mediocre critic, and several of the most brilliant 
pages in his Tro los Monies endeavour to describe 
the fantastic invention lavished on the plates of Los 
Caprichos. 

* P. G. Hamerton : Portfolio Papers, " Goya," p. 153. 

{ Theophile Gautier : Voyage en Espagne, edition 1845, pp. 131-134. 
Gautier particularly admired plate 59, haggard creatures attempting 
to raise a huge stone which threatens to crush them. " Dante him- 
self never arrived at such an effect of suffocating terror." He also 
speaks of the vivacity and energy of Bon Voyage. 

\ One of these drawings is in the Print Room of the British Museum. 

Theophile Gautier : Voyage en Espagne (1845), pp. 129-134. 




1796 



" BON VOYAGE" 

Buen Vinje. After the etching in " Los Caprichos." Plate 64 



LOS CAPRICHOS 219 

Whether Goya was seriously threatened by the Inquisi- 
tion, for the Church had not been spared by his lash, 
or whether he found an opportunity to make a profitable 
bargain, cannot be stated definitely. The negotiations 
for purchase are said to have been suggested by Manuel 
Godoy. If the Prince of Peace had been really caricatured 
he would never have helped Goya to preserve the etchings. 
In 1803 the eighty plates were offered to the King, who 
accepted them in very flattering terms. Muther's sug- 
gestion that Charles IV. " was not even in a position to 
grasp the meaning of these plates" may be brushed aside. 
The Queen would never have permitted the Government 
to publish etchings which attacked her own moral 
character, and at the moment when the etchings were 
in circulation Goya was painting the portrait of the 
royal family. That the State accepted them is additional 
proof that the insinuations of the manuscript " keys " 
have little foundation in fact. 

' Your Excellency," wrote Goya to the Minister, Don 
Miguel Cayetano Soler. " I am in receipt of His Majesty's 
royal order, which your excellency communicated to me 
on the 6th inst., accepting the offer of my work, the 
Caprichos on eighty copper plate engraved with aquafortis 
by my hand, which I will hand to the Royal Calcografia 
with the lot of prints which I had printed by way of pre- 
caution, amounting to two hundred and forty copies 
of eighty prints, in order not to defraud His Majesty in 
the least, and for my own satisfaction as to my mode of 
procedure. I am very grateful for the pension of twelve 
thousand reals which His Majesty has been pleased to 
grant to my son, for which I offer my best thanks to His 
Majesty, and to your excellency." After referring to 



220 FRANCISCO GOYA 

some portraits and their frames, in which he offers every 
assistance, the letter ends : "I only desire your excel- 
lency's orders, and that you may keep well. May God 
preserve your excellency's valuable life for many years. 
" Your excellency's obedient and grateful servant, 

" FRANCO. DE GOYA. 

"Madrid, October 9, 1803." 



This is hardly the letter of a man who, we are asked to 
believe, had been running amuck through the Court and 
the ministries.* 

Goya's son, Xavier, was working as an art-student 
(he never seems to have done much as an artist) and the 
pension was valuable, as it enabled him to study abroad. 
A few years later the pension was withdrawn, for the 
reason that money was no longer required for the youth's 
education. Goya, however, had not lost all influence, 
and the annuity was restored in June, i8i6.f As for 
the plates, Rafael Esteve superintended the printing of a 
second edition at the cost of the State, which was issued 
in 1806-1807. This is an extremely rich impression. A 
third edition was published by the Chalcographical 
Department in 1856, but the plates were rapidly wearing. 
It can be distinguished by the portrait of Goya on the 
cover. A fourth edition was printed in 1892. Facsimile 
editions were issued from Barcelona in 1885, and from 
Paris in 1888. The rare proofs of the original edition 
can be identified by the ink. The earliest have a reddish 

* The letter is quoted in the Gazette des Beaux- Arts, 1860, p. 241, and 
is reproduced in facsimile in Mr. Calvert's monograph, p. 88, and also 
by Von Loga, p. 77. 

f Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1863, Vol. XV., p. 241. 



LOS CAPRICHOS 221 

hue, and later impressions are of a brown that is almost 
black. The paper of the proofs pulled by Goya himself 
is moderately thick, and bears no watermark other than 
that of the wires.* 

* In the Gazette des Beaux- Arts, September, 1863, Philippe Burty 
draws attention to a portfolio of ten lithographs entitled Caricatures 
espagnoles par Goya, published at Paris in 1824. They are poor and 
sometimes modified copies of plates 10, 14, 15, 18, 24, 32, 40, 43, 52, 
and 55. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE FRESCOES OF SAN ANTONIO DE LA FLORIDA, 1798 

Five genre Pieces. The Carnival Scene. Portraits in 1794-1796. A 
Royal Command. The Church of San Antonio de la Florida. Goya's 
Decorations . Various Criticisms upon these Frescoes. Royal Approval . 
Goya appointed First Painter of the Court. His Friendship with 
Charles IV. and Maria Luisa. 

FRANCISCO GOYA may be well described as 
" one who never turned his back, but marched 
breast forward." A man of indomitable per- 
severance, like all true artists he had but one aim in life 
his art. We have seen him the hero of a romantic 
entanglement which certainly did not add to his lasting 
happiness ; we have traced the course of innumerable 
illnesses and obscure nervous collapses, ending in the 
deafness which cut him off from the joys of social inter- 
course. His friends tell each other that he is so unwell 
that he is unable to work. When at last he enters his 
studio he devotes himself to the mordant satire of 
Los Caprichos. Yet if we were to describe him as an 
embittered man we should be at fault. In the midst 
of this fight against physical disease and acute mental 
weariness Goya made a great effort to regain the mastery 
of his distracted genius, and, gathering together his 
whole artistic strength, achieved his greatest work. The 



THE FRESCOES OF SAN ANTONIO 223 

years between 1795 and 1810 include the period of his 
finest paintings. 

Letters from Stuik and Bayeu dated early in 1793 have 
already been quoted. Goya himself wrote in April, 1794, 
complaining that he was no better. Yet in January of 
the same year he told Bernardo de Yriarte that he wanted 
to exhibit some of his recent pictures at the Academy of 
San Fernando, " in order to end the continual gossip 
regarding my illness." He informed his friend that he 
had painted some canvases, which " not being com- 
missioned had therefore more artistic feeling," a naive 
confession, although perfectly natural and easy to under- 
stand. In a second letter he explains that he has based 
these paintings upon studies made in Zaragoza. They 
may probably be identified as A bull-fight, A procession 
of flagellants, A meeting of the Inquisition, A madhouse, 
and possibly the Carnival scene, also known as El 
entierro de la sardina.* These charming little genre 
compositions betray a change of method, a light, feathery 
touch being substituted for the harder technique of the 
earlier paintings. The Madhouse may be particularly 

* This Carnival Scene is interesting because it represents a phase of 
social enjoyment now almost extinct. The art of being foolish in 
public, wildheadedly and wholeheartedly, is gradually being lost on 
the continent, and has quite disappeared in England. It is impossible 
to recapture the atmosphere of the mediaeval feasts and fairs, because 
the race has become self-conscious probably owing to false educational 
ideals, cheap photography, accentuated during the present century by 
cinemas and illustrated newspapers. Even football crowds cannot 
stand naturally in front of a camera. Only the very wise and the very 
simple can enjoy playing the fool, and, in these days of successful 
mediocrity, the wise are too worried and the simple herded together as 
" mental deficients." Wagner used to greet his friends by standing on 
his head and waving his legs in the air. This is the true spirit of 
carnival, and even Dr. Johnson experienced the thrill when he made 
that famous trip to Gravesend with his young companions. 



224 FRANCISCO GOYA 

noted for its amazing control of lights and shadows as 
well as a wonderful delicacy of handling. Technically 
it is foreign to the century in which it was painted, possess- 
ing all the sparkle and atmospheric vibration which the 
French artists of the Romantic School endeavoured to 
capture thirty years later. Mr. Rothenstein refers to the 
Bull- fight as showing the " trick of putting as it were a 
girdle of figures along the frame, round the central point 
of interest, the use of which fascinated Goya throughout 
his life. These small pieces are perhaps more comparable 
with the early paintings of Hogarth at the period when he 
too was influenced, through Ricci, then in England, by 
the late Venetians : such paintings as we see in the sketch 
of the Street Musicians at the Oxford Gallery, or in the 
small panels he executed before the engravings for Butler's 
Hudibras." * There is considerable difference of critical 
opinion as to the dates of these delightful works. Mr. 
Rothenstein ascribes them to the period following Goya's 
return from Italy ; Senor Tormo y Monzo dates the 
Entierro de la sardina as late as 1818-1828. f But 
the brushwork is not so crudely hard in manner as that 
immediate!}' following Goya's days of apprenticeship, 
or so loose and fluid as the late Madrid period. Both in 
tone and accomplishment they easily drop into sequence 
with the year indicated by the letter to Bernardo de 
Yriarte. 

In 1794 a few dated portraits can be identified, such 
as Don Felix Colon de Larriategui, General Ricardo, and 
a portrait of an unknown officer belonging to Don Luis 

* Rothenstein : Goya, p. 10. 

f Elias Tormo y Monzo : Verios estudios de Artes y Letras Las 
pinturas de Goya, p. 223. Madrid, 1902. 



THE FRESCOES OF SAN ANTONIO 225 

da Navas. The portrait of Mercedes Fernandez probably 
belongs to the same time. But Goya had other pre- 
occupations, and the years were lean in output. In 1795 
came the Duchess of Alba of the Liria palace, and in 1796 
many hours must have been spent over Los Caprichos. 
Not until almost the end of the century did Goya recover 
his former health and energy. Then he appears to have 
been overwhelmed with commissions. 

The first was of some magnitude. Goya's experiences 
of church decoration were sufficiently bitter, and his 
remembrances of the treatment he received from the 
ecclesiastical dignities of Zaragoza is probably one explan- 
tion of the deep animosity against the Church revealed 
in the etchings of Los Caprichos. The new invitation, 
however, was also a command he was unable to refuse. 
The King owned a hunting-box on the outskirts of Madrid 
known as the Casa del Campo, not a very regal dwelling- 
place, if we are to believe Major Dalrymple. " The Casa 
del Campo, across the Manzanares, about a mile out of 
town, is but a hovel for a prince," that traveller wrote 
in 1774. " There is nothing striking in the park or 
enclosure, which is kept for the King's sport." The 
park had originally belonged to the Vargas family, and 
was acquired by Philip II., who, with his successor, added 
fresh lands to the domain. On this property was the 
Hermitage of San Antonio de la Florida, which stood 
in a most picturesque situation 

La primera verbena 

Que Dios envia 
Es la de San Antonio 

De la Florida. 

To-day its site is to be discovered in a gloomy quarter 

Q 



226 FRANCISCO GOYA 

of the town at the back of the northern railway station. 
Rebuilt once, if not twice, the little church was again 
reconstructed in 1792 in a more pretentious style by 
Ventura Rodriquez, who delighted in the florid lines of a 
debased renaissance. In 1798 Goya was asked by Charles 
IV. to decorate the interior. With the assistance of 
Julia Asensi he completed the task in three months. 
There is not a more joyous piece of church decoration in 
existence.* 

The subject which covers the little cupola is that of St. 
Anthony of Padua raising a dead man to life in order 
that he might reveal the name of his murderer, a gloomy 
and rather forbidding theme. Goya had proved himself 
in Los Caprichos a supreme master of the macabre. He 
had already etched one figure returning from the tomb, 
who, instead of revealing any of the secrets of the world 
beyond the grave, had simply muttered the significant 
word " Nothing ! " Clearly Goya had his private opinions 
upon the problems of life and death, and also with regard 
to St. Anthony's capability as a miracle-maker. How- 
ever, he did not trouble himself with deep speculations 
on the theory of the universe, or grandiose schemes of 
decoration. He was not harassed by a committee of 
priests, or even a brother-in-law, and he climbed up 
his scaffolding with the lightest of hearts. The rapidity 
of the execution proves that the work was congenial. 
Round the cupola, massed within a railing, are all the 
fashionable men and women of the moment, one hundred 
figures more than life-size. The pendentives are occu- 

* The best reproductions are to be found in Frescos de Goya en la 
iglesia de San Antonio de la Florida, engraved by Jose M. Galvan y 
Candela, with text by Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado. Madrid, 1888. 



THE FRESCOES OF SAN ANTONIO 227 

pied by angels, the smaller niches by tiny naked children. 
A few of these onlookers gaze at the saint and the 
murdered being who strives to rise from his bier. But the 
miracle does not excite much interest. Several of the 
boys are trying to climb over the railing. The men are 
ogling the women, and the women are pretending to be 
unconscious of their admirers. They sit and loll in 
positions of considerable freedom, and their bodies are 
garbed in tightly fitting garments best calculated to 
draw attention to charms they have no wish to conceal. 
There is none of that ecstatic mysticism which can be 
traced through Spanish art of an earlier period. The 
atmosphere is that of the Bal Bullier, the crowd fashion- 
able rather than well-mannered, and the exceedingly 
human angels clearly out for a romp. If Goya imagined 
a Heaven it was a Paradise of cakes and ale where ginger 
was hot in the mouth. 

Technically these frescoes are a brilliant artistic success, 
painted with a breadth, a verve, an abandonment, more 
to be looked for in a youth of twenty-five than a man 
of fifty-two. Undoubtably Goya recollected Correggio's 
decorations at Parma, and Tiepolo's work was close at 
hand for study and suggestion. But Correggio's figures 
never lacked dignity, and Tiepolo's sprawling gods and 
goddesses breathe the serene paganism of the Renaissance. 
Goya's men and women have no dignity rather a naughty 
insolence. His angels are the figurantes of a ballet. 
They are beautiful both in colour and form, but it is the 
beauty of the flesh and not of the soul. The frescoes of 
San Antonio de la Florida are in art what Offenbach is 
in music. 

Nothing Goya ever painted has aroused more discordant 



228 FRANCISCO GOYA 

and contradictory criticism, and the old battle of the 
artist's faith, or want of faith, is transferred to a fresh 
field. Richard Muther calls the frescoes " Casanova 
transferred to colour . . . figures as full of piquant 
intention as can be found in the most erotic paintings 
of Fragonard." A Spanish writer valiantly endeavours 
to combine the two points of view. " Apart from the 
fact that Goya was a believer and respectful to all that 
pertained to religion, he is as manifestly mystic and deli- 
cate as any painter of the spiritual school. In the central 
group the risen man partakes of both realism and religious 
unction. The expression could not be better, nor could 
the attitude of the saint be more dignified. Apart from 
this, in the other groups he copied what he was wont to 
observe in popular gatherings, as he saw it, as it was, 
as it will always be." * Excellent criticism for the 
blind. More to the truth is the Count de Vinaza, when, 
after drawing attention to the admirable energy, the 
splendid scale of tones, the magic of colour, he denounces 
the wanton beauty of the angels, and complains that the 
saint's miracle is treated " as familiarly as the spectacle 
of a wandering rope-dancer." f 

Whether Charles IV. was annoyed when he saw the 
members of his Court gazing in effigy from the ceiling of 
San Antonio is doubtful. Paul Lefort speaks of " the 
absurd tradition " that Goya found his models in the 

* Sefior Rada, quoted in Calvert's Goya, p. 80. 

f " Imagine a coquettish little church with a white and gold interior, 
more like a boudoir than a shrine, but furnished with altar, and seats, 
and confessionals ; one's nostrils expect an odour of frangipani rather 
than incense, and it must be admitted that Goya's frescoes do not 
strike a discordant note in this indecorously holy place." W. Rothen- 
stein, Goya, p. 18. 



THE FRESCOES OF SAN ANTONIO 229 

most fashionable circles of Madrid society. The tradition 
is too strong to be disregarded, and the crowd around the 
saint is decidedly late Spanish eighteenth century in 
dress and expression. The pious faithful were probably 
astonished when the church was reopened, July i, 1799, 
but no protests were raised against the presence of the 
philandering angels and the tiny amorini. The decora- 
tions brought a quick reward. Goya ardently coveted the 
appointment of first Court painter to the King, which 
had been vacant since the death of his brother-in-law, 
Francisco Bayeu, in 1795. Godoy had placed Goya's 
claims before the King, who replied that he wished to 
save the salary. At last, on October 31, 1799, the royal 
command was issued. " His Majesty wishing to reward 
your distinguished merit and to give in person a testi- 
mony that may serve as a stimulus to all professors, of 
how much he appreciates your talent and knowledge of 
the noble art of painting, has been pleased to appoint 
you his chief painter of the Chamber, at a yearly salary 
of fifty thousand reals, which you will receive from this 
date free of rights, and also five ducats a year for a 
carriage. And it is also his pleasure that you occupy the 
house now inhabited by Don Mariano Maella, should he 
die first."* 

Goya's sincere joy at this distinction is again hard to 
reconcile with the theory of his ardent republicanism. 
He was never a revolutionary, and, although he desired 
to see his country more prosperous and better governed, 
he did not refuse to acknowledge the authority of the 
down. Besides, he was on the happiest personal terms 
with the sovereigns. Charles IV. gave him a seat in his 
* Calvert : Goya, p. 79. 



230 FRANCISCO GOYA 

own coach the highest honour a Bourbon could confer 
on a subject and talked to him in the language of signs. 
Maria Luisa's attention to the deaf artist was equally 
gracious, and far more delicate in its flattery. She gave 
Goya a little painting by Velazquez, the only picture by 
another artist that we definitely know he possessed.* 

* Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 2 me periode, Vol. XIX., p. 426. A man eat- 
ing soup, formerly in the Peleguer collection. I have been unable to 
trace it. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD, 1798-1818 

A Portrait-painter's Prime. Goya's Slow Evolution and Lack of 
Uniformity. The Family of Charles IV. The Portrait of Godoy. 
General Urrutia. The French Ambassador Guillemardet. Leandro 
Moratin and his Portrait. Some other Portraits of Men. La Tirana. 
Dona Antonia Zarate. A Portrait in the National Gallery. Portraits 
of Women. The so-called Charlotte Cor day. The Bookseller's Daughter. 
Majos and Majas. The Majas on the Balcony. Goya as a Painter of 
Fops. His Portraits of Elderly Men. Portraits of Children. An 
Allegory. The Santa Justa and Santa Rufina of Seville. 

AT the age of fifty, or thereabouts, a portrait- 
painter should be at his best. Rubens is an 
exception, and Van Dyck died at forty-two. 
But the rule holds wonderfully good in a number of 
cases. Rembrandt was fifty-five when he finished the 
Syndics, in the Rijks museum, Velazquez no older at 
the moment of Pope Innocent and the later portraits of 
Philip IV. The equestrian Charles V ., in the Prado, is 
the work of a veteran, but Titian was engaged on some 
magnificent portraits shortly after 1530, when he had 
recently turned the half-century. Reynolds, born in 
1723, was in the full flood of his genius about 1773, the 
year of the Graces decorating a terminal figure of Hymen, 
and the famous Strawberry girl. Gainsborough, four years 
younger than Reynolds, was busy over the Honourable 
Mrs. Graham (National Gallery of Scotland) in 1775, and 



232 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Perdita, of the Wallace collection, must be allotted to 
1779 or 1780. Romney met his beautiful model Emma 
Hart at the age of forty-eight, and Millais was also forty- 
eight in 1877, when the Yeoman of the Guard left his 
studio. 

Goya's talent was of slow evolution, and most of his 
best portraits were painted after 1798, when he was 
fifty-two, and before 1818, when he had passed the three- 
score years and ten of the Psalmist. This period of 
twenty years excludes much good early work, such as 
the portraits of Charles IV. and Maria Luisa, Jovellanos, 
Florida Blanca, his brother-in-law Bayeu, the Osuna 
family, and the Duchess of Alba. It embraces, however, 
all those portraits upon which his fame must ultimately 
rest. Goya changed his technical methods with such 
erratic frequency that it is difficult to date many of his 
canvases. The Marquesa de la Solana (belonging to the 
Marquis del Socorro) a self-possessed Spanish dame of 
characteristic type, possessing all the inborn dignity 
of her rank as well as the alluring fascination of her sex 
and race, a portrait remarkable in psychology as well as 
in paint, is dated 1794. The same year the artist pro- 
duced the weak Dona Tadea Urias de Enriquez, in the 
Prado, which, apart from some clever passages in the 
dress, is by no means a wonderful achievement. Uni- 
formity of style, or of talent, will not be found in Goya's 
collected work. He trusted to the inspiration of the 
minute, as well as the attraction of the sitter, and in 
many cases the results were frankly disastrous. If we 
were not sure that he is responsible for some of these 
canvases we could easily ascribe them to an unknown 
pupil of indifferent skill. The Mengs tradition was one 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 233 

of laborious finish, whilst Velazquez gave an example 
of bold brushwork and a search for atmosphere. Goya 
vacillated between the two extremes, and his pictures 
suffered from the excess of a temperament which was 
nervous, irritable, excited, and subject to passion. 

With the completion of the frescoes at San Antonio 
de la Florida, and his appointment as first painter to 
the King, Goya resumed a relationship with the royal 
family which had apparently been broken during the 
episode of the Duchess of Alba. If the Queen Maria 
Luisa had ever been jealous at his open acknowledg- 
ment of the superior charms of the Duchess and the 
suggestion is made in contemporary gossip he was now 
forgiven. Although the tale of his adventures was by 
no means ended, his deafness made him a staider man. 
No longer did he play those impudent jokes which de- 
lighted the simple-hearted King.* If he continued to 
flout the rules and precedents of the most ceremonious 
Court in Europe, we do not read that he indulged in the 
light-hearted tricks of his youth. The fact that upon his 
appointment he had his genealogy emblazoned, and 
assumed the aristocratic " de " in his name, shows that 
his point of view had altered. And it also helps to 
destroy the legend of his hot republicanism. 

The first royal commission under these changed 

* Once, when the Court was in deep mourning, Goya presented 
himself at the palace wearing white stockings. The chamberlains, 
shocked at such a lack of decorum, stopped him at the foot of the 
grand staircase. The artist went into the guardroom, asked for pen 
and ink, and covered his white stockings with portraits of the Court 
officials. Having completed these drawings, he forced his way into 
the throne room, where general curiosity was excited by the extra- 
ordinary stockings. The King and Queen recognised the portraits 
and laughed more than anybody else. 



234 FRANCISCO GOYA 

circumstances was the great family portrait, commenced 
in 1799, and completed either within the same year, 
or during the earlier months of 1800. The Family of 
Charles IV. was the largest portrait group Goya had ever 
attempted, and it stands alone in the sequence of his 
work. As a whole his groups had been rarely successful ; 
the Osuna family, and the Marquesa de Montijo and Her 
daughters, leave much to be desired.* They have an 
awkwardness of line ; in a word they are maladroit. The 
reason is hard to discover. When Goya drew a band of 
smugglers, or a dozen of his Aragonese peasantry, his 
figures live and move with perfect grace and ease. A 
noble mother and her children curiously disconcerted 
the pencil which revelled in the composition of a witches' 
sabbath, or a street carnival. 

In the Family of Charles IV. Goya surmounted all 
obstacles. Probably the triumph was only purchased 
by infinite pains, and Goya did not again embark upon a 
task of equal magnitude. Always a rapid rather than a 
plodding painter, he never cared to spend too much time 
over a single canvas. Of his success in this instance there 
can be no question. Whereas the tapestry cartoons are 
better translated into monochrome than in the original, 
no photograph or engraving can do the slightest justice 
to the scintillating vibration of this portrait group. His 
difficulty in all his canvases was to escape a flatness of 
tone together with a loss of colour, and the trouble in- 
creased as he grew older. He was evidently aware of the 

* Lucien Solvay, referring to this portrait in V Art et les Artistes, 
1906, Vol. II., p. 193, describes the child on the right as the future Em- 
press of the French, an extraordinary error, for the Empress Eugenie (de 
Montijo) was born at Granada in 1826 when Goya was living at 
Bordeaux. 








DONA MARIA FRANCISCA DE SALES PORTOCARRERO Y ZUNIGA, CONTESA DEL MONTIJO, 

AND HER FOUR DAUGHTERS 
Palacio de Liria, Madrid. Reproduced from a photograph by permission of Mr. A. Calvert 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 235 

danger, and, when at his best, easily evaded it. At 
other times one cannot help feeling that he unduly forced 
his colour note in order to avoid a monotonous weakness. 
When he succeeded, as in La Tirana, the Toreador 
Costillares, and other portraits readily to mind, he ranks 
with the greatest masters of his craft. 

The Family of Charles IV. has been compared to Velaz- 
quez's Las Meninas. There is little in common between 
the two groups. One is a state ceremonial, the other a 
domestic incident. Velazquez painted singularly few 
official portraits, and, in an age when kings moved freely 
amongst their subjects, there was no need for an elaborate 
and somewhat theatrical display of the trappings and 
paraphernalia of royalty. Not until the reign of Louis 
XIV., and the rise of the modern state, did the " official " 
portrait develop in all its artificiality. Goya followed the 
methods of the French Court painters, and had a remark- 
able example close at hand, which to-day hangs within 
a few steps of his canvas in the gallery of the Prado. 
The Family of Philip V. by Michel Van Loo is a supreme 
effort in a genre controlled by the strictest conventions. 
The younger Van Loo knew his metier. He had been 
trained, almost by instinct, to paint those vast canvases 
which hang on the walls of most continental palaces, 
and convert the gilded salons into mausoleums of departed 
and forgotten greatness. Goya copied Van Loo, and, 
challenging him on his own ground, produced a master- 
piece. 

His first problem was to invest an undistinguished 
family with an air of distinction. Gautier is said to have 
remarked that this group of Charles IV. surrounded by 
his family reminded him of a small shopkeeper who had 



236 FRANCISCO GOYA 

won a prize in a lottery. It is hard to believe that so 
gifted a critic uttered such an absurd judgment. The 
group has no suggestion of parvenu self-complacency. 

O wretched state of kings ! that standing high, 
Their faults are marks shot at by every eye. 

The later Bourbons had many faults, but it is not neces- 
sary to rob them of one quality they usually possessed. 
They were not intellectual. They were mostly idlers 
who did not even pretend to carry out their duties. 
Indeed, like the Stuarts, they seem to have been sent by 
Heaven to contradict all the theories and ideals of mon- 
archical government. But they were able outwardly 
to play their parts, to dress the character, and to act 
the prince. What the family of Charles IV. lacked in 
essentials Goya made up. 

How methodically he set to work can be seen in the 
careful studies he executed of each subject. These 
rapid sketches, in oil on a red primed canvas, are pre- 
served in the Prado, the royal palaces, and the collection 
of the Comtesse de Paris. In freedom of handling and 
directness of attack they may be compared to the sketches 
of Lawrence, or the unfinished canvases which Romney 
left in his studio. The best are those of the boyish Don 
Carlos Maria Isidro, and his uncle Don Antonio, both in 
the Prado. In the large canvas Goya is even happier 
with the younger members of the circle than with their 
elders. The colour scheme is not too simple. Charles 
IV. wears a chestnut hued uniform ; Ferdinand, Prince 
of the Asturias, is in blue ; his brother is in red. The 
Queen and the Princesses are in white silk, veiled with 
shimmering gold and silver tissues. The men are 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 237 

covered with decorations, the women with jewels. In 
the background stands Goya himself. No critic has yet 
explained why the artist was allowed to paint his own 
figure in a state group of this description. The reason 
is so simple that it has been overlooked. The family 
consists of thirteen persons ! There was only one way 
of solving the ominous difficulty, and that was by allowing 
Goya to take his place in front of the easel. In the fore- 
ground stand Charles IV. and Maria Luisa. Holding the 
Queen's hand is the little Francisco de Paulo, youngest 
son of the King. (Scandal said he was the son of Godoy.) 
On the right of the Queen is her daughter Maria Isabella 
who became Queen of Naples. On the left, in the fore- 
ground, is Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias, afterwards 
Ferdinand VII. Goya painted him when he was King, 
but never so well as in this group. On the left of the 
Prince is his first wife, and a few paces behind, on his 
right, is Don Carlos Maria Isidro, his younger brother, 
who claimed the Spanish throne in 1833 as Charles V. 
Between Ferdinand and his wife, like a ghost of the past, 
peers the shrivelled face of Maria Josefa, eldest daughter 
of Charles III. And although she belonged to a different 
age, she is not out of place behind her nephew, who was 
destined to become a reactionary of the most benighted 
description. On the right of the canvas stand Prince 
Louis of Parma and his wife, Dona Maria Luisa, daughter 
of Charles IV., holding in her arms their infant child. 
Napoleon created Prince Louis King of Etruria. ' This 
is a poor King," he wrote from Paris. " It is impossible 
to form an idea of his idleness. He has not taken a pen 
in his hand since he has been here, and I cannot get 
him to attend to business. All these Princes are alike." 



238 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Goya has painted in a masterly fashion the features of 
this good-looking, worthless faineant. In the rear are 
two more heads, Don Antonio, brother of Charles IV., 
and Dona Carlotta Joaquina, daughter of Charles IV., 
who became Queen of Portugal as wife of King John VI. 

With the exception of Dona Maria Josefa, each one of 
these Princes and Princesses played an active part in the 
tale of deceit and intrigue which made up the history 
of Spain and Portugal during the earlier part of the nine- 
teenth century. Goya's canvas is a footnote to history 
of the deepest importance, and we can appreciate his 
value as a portrait-painter when we learn something of 
the characters of the men and women he immortalised. 
There is one curious discrepancy about the group which 
does not seem to have occurred to any previous biographer. 
The canvas is usually dated 1799, and there is not much 
doubt that it was completed, or almost completed, at 
the end of that year. The Princess standing on the 
left of Ferdinand is described as Maria Antonia, daughter 
of Queen Caroline of Naples, the friend of Nelson and Lady 
Hamilton. But Ferdinand did not marry his first wife 
until October, 1802, and the wedding formed part of a 
hastily conceived diplomatic scheme which also included 
the union of his sister Maria Isabella to the heir of the 
Neapolitan throne. Was the figure of Ferdinand's wife 
painted before the Princess had been selected by the King 
and his ministers ? The face of Dona Maria Antonia 
has been purposely turned towards the shadow, as if 
the painter had not desired to give too much prominence 
to features he could not yet plainly delineate. 

Goya was now working in three distinct manners. 
He had not thrown aside the careful finish and elabora- 




THE TOREADOR COSTILI.ARES 
Collection of Sr. tie Laza.ro Galdeano 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 239 

tion which distinguished the Mengs period. This can 
be noted in the portrait of Manuel Godoy, which dates 
from the early years of the new century. Commissioned 
by the Duke of Osuna, the work has received much praise, 
but the attitude of the Prince of Peace is affected, ungainly, 
and far from attractive. This portrait was painted at 
the moment of the favourite's supreme power. Another 
equestrian portrait, dating from the same time, has been 
lost. Goya was also painting for Godoy at the end of 
the century the lost Venus of the Alcudia, as well as the 
decorative subjects which are now in the Ministry of the 
Navy at Madrid. Godoy's political influence was bad, 
but he fully earned his title of Protector of the Noble 
Arts of San Fernando, and Goya found in him a lavish 
patron.* In the full-length General Urrutia, painted in 
1798, now in the Prado, the atmosphere is more natural, 
and the strained composition of the Godoy has not been 
repeated. This is one of the most dignified portraits 
Goya painted, and in many respects it recalls the English 
school of the late eighteenth century. By the side of 
the best work of Reynolds and Gainsborough it would 
lose little of its effect. 

In the same year Goya painted another great portrait, 
which he believed to be his best work. The ambassador 

* The attitude of Goya towards Godoy is hard to understand. 
" During morning visits to his friends, he (Goya) would take the sand- 
box from the inkstand, and strewing the contents on the table, amuse 
them with caricatures traced in an instant by his ready finger. The 
great subject, repeated with ever new variations in these sand studies, 
was Godoy, to whom he cherished an especial antipathy, and whose 
face he was never weary of depicting with every ludicrous exaggeration 
of its peculiarities that quick wit and ill-will could supply." Stirling- 
Maxwell : Annals of the Artists of Spain, p. 1478. This was told to 
that author by Don Bartolome J. Gallardo, who had himself seen 
Goya paint and caricature in the manner described. 



240 FRANCISCO GOYA 

of the French Republic to Spain in 1798 was Francois 
Guillemardet, a former Conventional, and in earlier life 
a doctor of Autun. When he returned to Paris he carried 
this wonderful work with him, and in 1865 it was acquired 
from his heirs by the authorities of the Louvre. Goya 
could not be better represented in that great collection, 
and the Ambassador Guillemardet did much to promote 
his fame in France during the late Second Empire. Upon 
its exhibition it was received with enthusiasm by the 
French critics. " It is the work of a colourist of tempera- 
ment who sees the tones of nature in all their richness, 
and who knows how to paint them in their true affinity. 
Never has a French artist placed in such harmonious 
relation the three national colours. Goya has thrown 
the hat with the tri-coloured plumes on to a yellow table, 
against the tri-coloured scarf of a person seated on a 
yellow chair, and clothed entirely in blue. These dis- 
sonances mingle in a brilliant concerto which sounds softly 
to the ear. We forget to notice that the head takes the 
aspect of a piece of red stained glass by reason of over- 
reflection. The colours live as if shown through trans- 
parent water, or touched by the capricious play of light." * 
Goya was aiming at the same effect of vibrating atmo- 
sphere and glittering colour which he perfected in the 
Family of Charles IV. The combination of red, white, 
and blue was one of those artistic experiments which 
delighted his soul. But his genius rose and fell in a most 
extraordinary manner, for in 1799 he painted the feeble 
Marquis de Bondad Real, a reversion to an earlier manner 
which might well have been forgotten by such a con- 
summate artist. Then within the same few months he 
* L6on Lagrange in the Gazette des Beaux- Arts, 1865. 




1'hoto. Anderson 



THE POET DON LEANDRO FERNANDEZ DE MORATIN 
Royal Academy of St. Ferdinand, ^Madrid 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 241 

produced the portrait of the poet Moratin, as great in 
its way as the larger Guillemardet, but reached in quite 
another manner.* 

At the end of the century Moratin was not only the 
best but also the most popular man of letters in Spain, f 
Fortune had been kind to him. Wealthy patrons had 
come forward, he had travelled throughout Europe, 
making the acquaintance of kindred poets such as Goldoni. 
In Goya's portrait the happiness of success is written 
across his bright and ardent face. The portrait will 
live when the poet's verses have been forgotten, said 
Moratin to the artist, and the compliment was not wholly 
an exaggeration. The painting is a poem on canvas 
not an epic, but a perfectly phrased vers de societe. Goya 
laid his pigments on in broad, thin washes, and the colour 
is deep, though beautifully restrained. This is another 
experiment, no fantasia, like the portrait of the French 
ambassador, but a symphony of the most exquisite 
harmony. Leandro Moratin reveals Goya's affinity to 
Gainsborough, but it suggests many other masters 
the delicacy of Whistler, the boldness of Manet, the 
freedom of Sargent. In Goya's own work it must be 

* Don Elias Tormo y Monzo (in Varios estudios de Aries y Letras, 
1902) ascribes these three portraits to 1799, which is also the year of 
the Family of Charles IV. Matheron, however, dates Guillemardet 
in 1798, and this is more probably correct, although the difference is 
only that of a few months. Oertel's date, 1795, is surely wrong. 
Fran$ois Guillemardet rallied to the Empire, and was one of the 
sponsors of the infant Eugene Delacroix an odd coincidence, con- 
sidering the influence of Goya upon Delacroix's art. 

I Leandro Fernandez de Moratin (1760-1828) was painted a second 
time by Goya (see chapter XIX.). His fate was sad. In 1808 he sided 
with the French, and went into exile at the restoration. Ferdinand 
VII. offered him a pardon, which he refused to accept, and his last 
days were passed in poverty. 

R 



242 FRANCISCO GOYA 

classed as one of a long series belonging to the same 
technical idea, and including the portrait of Don Evaristo 
Perez de Castro, in the Louvre, " the finest portrait Goya 
ever painted," according to one enthusiastic critic, the 
exquisitely modulated Toreador Costillares, the actor 
Isidoro Maiquez, in the Prado, the two portraits in the 
Bowes museum, the portrait of Melendez V aides, and the 
National Gallery Doctor Peyral, although the last-named 
is more akin to the second portrait of Francisco Bayeu 
in the Prado. The sitters were all acquaintances and 
friends, actors, bull-fighters, authors, and, as in the case 
of Doctor Peyral, connoisseurs and lovers of art. Goya 
painted the portraits for his own gratification and 
pleasure. They vary in several technical aspects, and 
they are not of equal excellence. But they represent an 
aspect of Goya's art little known outside Madrid, and they 
are witnesses to the truth that Goya in Madrid was 
attacking problems in 1800 which did not arouse the other 
centres of European art until more than fifty years later. 
Goya was the pioneer of nineteenth-century art. 

This period includes two of the finest female portraits 
that we have from the master, La Tirana and Dona Maria 
Zarate. The ladies were well-known actresses on the 
Madrid stage, and Goya painted them both more than 
once. The principal portrait of Rosario Fernandez, 
" La Tirana," in the gallery of the Academy of San 
Fernando, is variously dated in 1798 and 1802.* No 
portrait better displays the excellences and defects of the 
artist. The painting of the dress is magnificently spon- 
taneous. It is difficult to name any contemporary 
master who surpassed or equalled the Spaniard in this 
* La Tirana died in 1803. 




1302 



Photo. I.acostc 



LA TIRANA 

Royal Academy of St. Ferdinand, Madria 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 243 

respect. The flaws, however, are slight, but apparent. 
The right arm is bent in a clumsy manner, and the left 
hand is only roughly attempted. Whilst Goya was work- 
ing on the portrait of La Tirana in Madrid, Sir Thomas 
Lawrence was finishing the Mrs. Siddons now in the 
London National Gallery. A comparison of the two 
portraits provokes some interesting reflections, not only 
upon the two artists, but also upon the two actresses. 
In each case the composition is almost similar. Neither 
La Tirana nor Mrs. Siddons could claim much personal 
beauty in 1802, but they were women of considerable per- 
sonal dignity which Goya reproduced and Lawrence failed 
to catch. Probably it is not just to compare Lawrence's 
failure with Goya's success. The Englishman had a 
difficult subject. As Mrs. Siddons grew older she became 
more and more stolidly bourgeoise, convinced that dull- 
ness alone was the hall-mark of virtue, and that attacks 
against her respectability could only be repelled by a 
foglike atmosphere of boredom. It is hard to discover 
in Lawrence's portrait a vestige of the fascinating girl 
Gainsborough saw. Lawrence painted a potential mother- 
in-law, for he was courting both her daughters. Goya 
painted his mistress, according to gossip. Does this ex- 
plain the respective failure and success^? 

The three-quarter length figure of La Tirana, belonging 
to the Count de Villagonzalo, is a more intimate portrait 
which does not attempt to rival the canvas of San Fer- 
nando. The two portraits of Dona Antonia Zarate both 
originally belonged to the Senora Viuda de Albacete 
of Madrid. The first, in which the sitter wears a white 
mantilla, is almost a sketch. The young face bears an 
appealing look not to be found in the second canvas, 



244 FRANCISCO GOYA 

now in the collection of Mr. Otto Beit.* The actress is 
clad in a decollete black robe, with a black lace mantilla, 
and gloves to the elbow. The background is brown and 
yellow. This great portrait stands by itself. Distin- 
guished by an extraordinary atmosphere of repose and 
restraint, it lacks all sensation or theatricality, and 
presents an enigmatic personality to which we return 
again and again. Between Dona Antonia Zarate, as 
Goya painted her, and the Lady of Elche, carved by the 
unknown Greco-Phcenician sculptor centuries earlier, 
there is an essential likeness, not only a link of race and 
blood, but a far deeper personal resemblance in tempera- 
ment, individuality, and even in actual features. Who 
was Dona Antonia ? We know as little of her as of the 
woman of Elche. She was an actress who died young. 
Yet, when we study this calm, passive face, of serenely 
classical outline, we recognise that it hides more than it 
tells. The great canvas enshrines a forgotten story. 
When Dona Antonia Zarate passed away in the flower of 
her youth and beauty the world lost one of those souls 
Blake speaks of as cutting " a path into the heaven 
of glory, leaving a track of light for men to wonder at." 

* A writer in the Boletin de la Sociedad Espanola de Excursiones, 
quoted by Mr. A. F. Calvert in his Goya, p. 72, offers an explanation. 
" But where Goya shows the most exquisite sensibility and profound 
psychology is in these two portraits of one person, in which he incor- 
porates the whole story of a dreamer swayed in life and death by the 
highest ideals, a woman of a race of poets and artists, Antonia de 
Zarate. Though in the first portrait he represented her smiling and 
in perfect health, in the second he knew her existence was undermined 
by a treacherous disease which was to cause her death. Never have 
we felt more deeply the impression of pathos than before this pre- 
sentment of a soul rather than a person, before this face enveloped in 
transparent veils, with life showing in the eyes, and in that life a 
melancholy realisation of approaching death." 




DONA ISABEL CORBO DE J'ORCEL 
National Gallery, London 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 245 

Goya was a man of rapid contrasts. There is a family 
likeness in all Reynolds' portraits, but no common bond 
unites the women who sat to the artist in Madrid. From 
the solemn gravity of Dona Antonia Zarate we turn to a 
portrait which was finished about the same time, the 
Dona Isabel Corbo de Parcel of the London National 
Gallery. Painted in 1806, it is now unhappily separated 
from the companion portrait of the husband, Don Antonio 
Corbos de Porcel, a knight of the order of Charles III., 
a mighty hunter, and a country gentleman who lived with 
his wife in Grenada. Dona Isabel is an Andalusian of 
the most characteristic racial type. With arms akimbo, 
dressed in a rose-coloured satin which shines through the 
folds of the mantilla, she surveys the world without fear. 
There is a touch of rouge on her cheeks, for the rouge- 
pot found its place on the toilette of every Spanish lady. 
Her eyes are brilliant in defiant challenge. " Is this 
portrait a masterpiece ? " asked Paul Lefok, when it was 
added to the gallery in 1896. " We would not care to 
assert it." But he added with much truth, " all the 
same, it is a very pretty piece of painting." * 

The list of Goya's female portraits dating about the 
early years of the nineteenth century is a long one. It 
includes the excellent Marquesa de Caballero (1807), who 
was lady-in-waiting to Queen Maria Luisa, Dona Josef a 

* Lucien Solvay quotes a tiny Spanish verse which might have been 
inspired by this charming portrait : 

El confessor me dice 
Que no te quiera, 
Y yo le digo : Padre 
Si usted la viera ! 

(" My confessor ordered me To love her no longer, And I answered 
him : ' Father, if you saw her ! ' ") 



246 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Camilla-Portugal (1804), the Duchess de Abrantes (1816),* 
the Marquesa de Santiago, the Marquesa de Espeja, 
the Marquesa de Lazdn, the Countess de Fernan-Nunez, 
the Duchess de Penaranda, and many which cannot be 
identified by name, such as the small Spanish lady of the 
Louvre, which was painted in I799,f a more recent acqui- 
sition of a girl's portrait, in the same collection, and the 
delightful Lady with the rose, also known as Charlotte 
Cor day, painted about 1800 an Andalusian brunette, 
in a light dress of the revolutionary period, seated 
against aUlark background, with her hands clasped upon 
her knees, and holding a couple of roses. The portrait 
was exhibited at the Retrospective Exhibition held in 
Brussels in 1873, and in several public exhibitions in 
Paris, where it has always created an impression. Whether 
or no Goya intended to paint Charlotte Corday is not 
known, although his heroine's striped dress is almost the 
same as that Paul Baudry depicted in his picture of Cor- 
day stabbing Marat. Perhaps Lafille a la rose is a better 
title, although Goya had the revolutionary subject in his 
mind, for he sketched several studies of Marat in his 
fatal bath. 

Lastly comes that sullen-faced beauty, generally called 
The bookseller of the Calle de Carretas, now hidden in 
some private collection, and only to be studied by means 
of a photograph.! Usually dated in 1790, it can be more 

* Dona Mamiela Giron y Pimental, not to be confused with that other 
Duchesse d'Abrantes, Laure Permon, the wife of Junot, author of the 
voluminous memoirs, and friend of Balzac. 

I Bequeathed to the Louvre in 1865 by the Guillemardet family, 
it was probably brought from Spain by the republican ambassador. 

J Some years ago it belonged to Don Benito Garriga, and may 
probably still be in the same collection. 




About 1790 



Photo. Lacoste 



THE BOOKSELLER OF THE CALLE DE LAS CARRETAS 
In a private collection, Madrid 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 247 

safely transferred to the period of Dona Antonio Zarate* 
Madrid legend relates that Goya fell deeply in love with 
this bookseller's daughter, and that the portrait was a 
token of his affection. As far as can be judged from a 
reproduction it seems to be one of the most perfect of 
Goya's female portraits, although probably La Tirana is 
the first if criticised upon purely artistic considerations, 
whilst Dona Antonia Zarate is the greatest as a revela- 
tion of hidden personality and this gift of divination it 
must be remembered is the real test of a portrait-painter's 
genius. 

In the Spanish dictionary the word majo is described 
as a boaster, braggart, fop, and dandy, a sufficiently 
appalling combination. " An idiot is the work of Nature/' 
says the national proverb, " and the fop is the work of 
women and vanity." Whilst the majo is an object of 
contempt, the maja is always very alluring. What is 
vice in man forms one of the most adorable attractions 
in woman, for with her " not a vanity is given in vain." 
Goya was interested in the majos and majas of Madrid. 
They masquerade through all the earlier pages of Los 
Caprichos, and they crowd round the dome of San Antonio 
de la Florida. The Majas on the balcony was painted 
in 1800, and belongs to the collection of the Comtesse de 
Paris. Evidently suggested by the frescoes, it is in 
reality an amplication of several of the ideas in Los 

* There are surprising differences in some of the dates allotted to 
Goya's portraits. Tormo y Monzo, who elaborately divides Goya's 
art into five periods (1776-1788, 1788-1800, 1800-1810, 1810-1817, and 
1818-1828), most difficult to reconcile with the work as we see it, dates 
Goya's portrait of his wife in the period 1810-1817. But Josefa Bayeu 
died about 1804, and the portrait in the Prado shows a comparatively 
young woman. In 1804 Goya himself was fifty-eight, and Josefa 
is said to have been older than her husband. 



248 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Caprichos. The two majas sit behind a light iron railing, 
clad in soft dresses, and covered with black and white 
mantillas. Behind are two sombre majos in a fashionable 
variation of those heavy cloaks which Charles III. 
unsuccessfully endeavoured to drive out of the country. 
" My citizens," he complained, " skulk about the streets 
with covered faces more like conspirators than the sub- 
jects of a civilised monarch." * In the museum at Lille 
is a picture of a most entrancing maja, in a skin-tight 
white bodice, attended by a servant and a tiny dog, the 
background being a group of laundresses on the banks 
of the Manzanares.f 

Goya's skill as a painter of dandies has never yet been 
adequately recognised. For a few years during the 
early century he produced a series of little masterpieces 
in a manner which evidently gave him particular satis- 
faction. Then came civil commotion and war, and the 
dandies like butterflies vanished. The Marquis de 
Bondad Real has already been mentioned. His military 
costume belonged to pre-revolutionary Spain. The full- 
length of the Duke de San Carlos (belonging to the Marquis 
de la Torrecilla) represents a nobleman in Court uniform, 
and so hardly falls within the scope of the majo series. 
The Marquis de San Adrian, Don Juan Jose Mateo Arias 

* How these eighteenth century monarchs worried themselves and 
their subjects about clothes ! Charles III., with liberal tendencies, 
wanted his Spaniards to discard their old-fashioned habits. A few 
years later Paul I. of Russia denounced frockcoats, waistcoats, and 
high collars as symbols of a liberalism he abhorred. The unhappy 
wearer of a round hat was chased through the streets of St. Peters- 
burg and castigated by the police. Even the British ambassador 
had to change his headgear. 

f Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. XXXIV., 3 me periode (1905), p. 39, 
engraved by A. Mayeur, with a note by J. Mommeja. 




DONA JOSEFA CASTILI.A PORTUGAL DE GARCINI 
/// the collection of Don Vicente Garcini 



249 

Dairla, the Duke de Fernan-Nunez, Don Manuel Garcia de 
la Prada, and the Young man in a gray coat are extremely 
interesting examples of the picturesque dress which 
spread from Paris in the days of the Direct oire to the other 
great cities of Europe. In many of the men's portraits 
painted in Paris during this period we find an identical 
fashion of clothes. But the Frenchmen who produced 
portraits in the atmosphere of the classical school lacked 
vitality and a very real vitality is the essence of Goya's 
art as a portrait-painter. His men, in their buckskin 
breeches, their " highlows," their thick white stocks, and 
" fly-away " coat-tails, are elaborately posed in a rather 
conventional manner. But there is no doubt, despite 
their foppishness, that they are men and not mannikins. 
Two of the best belong to French collections, the Young 
man in a gray coat, which came from the Salamanca sale, 
and Don Manuel Garcia de la Prada, in the Pacully col- 
lection. The first has also been called Goya's son, but 
the identification is doubtful.* The small coat is gray, 
with a violet silk lining on the broad lappels. The stock 
is frilled with fine lace ; the waistcoat is white, with two 
large bunches of gold seals ; the breeches are a slightly 
darker gray, with bold, vertical lines ; boots, which come 
almost to the knees, with tassels, an enormous cocked 
hat held in the same hand as a fine walking-stick, com- 
plete an ensemble only to be described as staggering. A 
little white dog with a red rosette crouches at his master's 

* M. Paul Lafond calls him Mariano, but Mariano, Goya's grandson, 
was not in the world when the canvas was painted. The portrait 
may not improbably represent Xavier Goya at about the age of twenty. 
The features are very strongly marked, and have a suggestion of the 
painter's heavy face. 



250 FRANCISCO GOYA 

feet.* The canvas bears every sign of rapid workman- 
ship, and, according to one French critic, possesses " a 
Greuze-like harmony," whilst another is reminded of the 
grace of Debucourt. In French family collections one 
can find innumerable examples of the ancestors of 
Directoire, Consulate, or Early Empire days, painted by 
almost forgotten artists such as Jacques Antoine Vallin. 
But they never equal Goya's striking portraits. The 
Don Garcia de la Prada, a full-length figure, is apparently 
a few years later than the Young man in gray, and the 
costume is more restrained in colour, but not in " cut," 
which is evidently of the most fashionable design. The 
left hand rests on a chair which supports a beaver hat of 
exaggerated size ; the right hand strokes a tiny pug. 
The high boots have now given place to knee-breeches 
and white stockings. The legs are crossed in a manner 
which looks awkward and must have been exceedingly 
uncomfortable, and Don Manuel smiles from above a 
white stock which threatens to engulf his entire face. 
The Duke de Fernan-Nunez is a melodramatic gentleman 
dressed entirely in black, which has given Goya an 
opportunity for a superb piece of bravura painting in his 
favourite pigment. f When Byron visited Spain in 1809 

* One writer on Goya states that the little white dog was only 
painted in the portraits of the Duchess of Alba, and was inserted as a 
kind of artistic signature and identification of the subject with the Duch- 
ess. The dog (a variety of griffon) certainly does appear in one of the 
Alba portraits, but it will also be found in the Lille Maja, who is not 
the Duchess. In the portrait of Garcia de la Prada there is a tiny pug. 

t The only reproduction of this portrait will be found in La Pintura 
en Madrid, by N. Sentenlch y Cabanas. It seemed impossible when 
in Madrid either to find the picture or obtain another photograph. 
Don Manuel Garcia de la Prada will be found in M. Laf end's Goya, and 
there is a rough woodcut of the Young man in gtay in the Gazette des 
Beaux-Arts, Vol. X. (1874), p. 299. 



THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 251 

it was a sad pity he never got so far as Goya's studio, 
for Goya, and only Goya, was the artist of temperament 
allied to the poet's genius who could have given us that 
inspired portrait of the apostle of Romanticism which 
history lacks. 

Goya's portraits of Ferdinand VII., of Generals Palafox 
and Wellington, of guerilla captains such as Don Juan 
Martin, of soldiers like Don Pantaleon Perez de Nenin 
and the Count de Teba, and of that brave sailor Admiral 
Mazarredo, although falling properly within the scope of 
this chapter, belong to the time of the Spanish War of 
Independence. But during this long and active period he 
painted numerous portraits of elderly men, and a few of 
children. Both are so characteristic of his many-sided 
talent that they cannot be omitted from our survey. The 
Don Tomas Perez Estala (belonging to the Countess de 
Cedillo) is instantly reminiscent of those Scottish worthies 
Raeburn was immortalising in a northern capital. Don 
Jose Luis de Munarriz (in the Academy of San Fernando), 
painted in 1818, is one of the last portraits of this period 
before Goya's hand commenced to show signs of decay. 
From many points of view it is a better piece of work than 
the Don Jose Vargas y Ponce, in the Historical Academy 
of Madrid, which was done in 1805. But it remains almost 
impossible to divide Goya's portraits into any ordered 
sequence. In 1810 he was painting the Don Juan Martin 
de Goicoechea (belonging to the Marquis de Casa Torres) 
which should be classed with the Munarriz of 1818, and 
even the Don Joaquin Maria Ferrer painted in Paris in 
1824. The characteristic Don Juan Antonio Cuervo, an 
architect in his official dress as director of the Royal 
Academy of San Fernando, seated before a table upon 



252 FRANCISCO GOYA 

which is spread a large plan, might easily be placed before 
the end of the eighteenth century. Goya's own signa- 
ture is dated 1819. A very similar portrait, the Marquis 
de Caballero, in an elaborate uniform with many decora- 
tions, must have been finished about 1807. The full- 
length of Don Juan Antonio Llorente was done between 
1808 and 1813, and is one of the few portraits Goya 
painted of ecclesiastics but then Llorente was the 
victim as well as the historian of the Inquisition. In 
its superb treatment of black it forms a vivid contrast 
to the full-length in scarlet of the Cardinal Infant Don 
Luis Maria, now hanging on the walls of the Prado. 

The portraits of children carry us into quite another 
world. The little angels of San Antonio de la Florida 
have already been spoken of. In the Family of Charles 
IV., Dona Maria Luisa nurses the tiny infant who 
succeeded his father on the transitory throne of Etruria. 
The collection of the Baron de Rothschild includes the 
portrait of a boy in a long cloak with large buttons, and a 
tiny little girl, Dona Clara de Soria, holding a book. This 
is one of the most exquisite portraits of childhood that 
Goya ever painted, and can only be compared in its 
atmosphere of innocence with some of the Dutch portraits 
of similar style. The collection of Madame Bernstein 
contains Don Manuel Osorio de Zuniga, a small boy with 
a birdcase and three unnatural-looking cats. A portrait 
of Dona Feliciana Bayeu has recently been added to the 
Prado. The collection of the Marquis de Alcanices 
contains the portrait of Goya's grandson, Mariano de 
Goya y Goicoechea, afterwards known as the Marquis 
de Espinar. The child wears an elaborate lace collar, 
and a round hat with curved brim, and the canvas is 



Collection of the Marquis de la Torrecilla. Reproduced from a photograph I'V permission 




THE GREAT PORTRAIT PERIOD 253 

most sympathetically painted with rich depth of colour. 
In the summer of 1913, Messrs. Knoedler exhibited in 
their London gallery a portrait of Victor Guye, nephew 
of General Nicolas Guye, a child of about seven years, 
dressed as a court page to Joseph Bonaparte when King 
of Spain. His serious face peeps from a stiff blue military 
uniform covered with gold lace. A sketch of a peasant 
child (belonging to the Marquis de Casa Torres), in scanty 
dress and bare legs, is of much freer execution, and sug- 
gests in subject the English school of Thomas Webster 
and William Collins. 

These portraits hint at a Goya of whom we know but 
little, a Goya who loved children, who knew their ways 
and could join in their games. But Goya's personality 
was a combination of Jekyll as well as Hyde. The artist 
who had imagined the terrible scenes of devil-worship 
in Los Caprichos easily passed from worlds of light to 
baser planes. In 1801 he painted An allegory, an ampli- 
fication of an idea in Los Caprichos (No. 55) which perhaps 
is intended to represent the Countess of Benavente, 
although the meaning is exceedingly vague. A few years 
before he had invented those extraordinary pieces of 
genre, sometimes called the Duchess of Alb a and her duenna. 
In one the duenna, own cousin to Juliet's nurse, holds 
a crucifix in front of her imploring mistress ; in the 
second her skirt is being pulled by two little pages, one 
a tiny negro. These belong to the same style as the 
Allegory, but lack its venom. 

From time to time religious compositions came from 
the same studio. In 1817 Goya went to Seville to paint 
a Saint Justa and Saint Rufina for an altar in the cathedral. 
For his models he selected two famous demi-mondaines. 



254 FRANCISCO GOYA 

" I will cause the faithful to worship vice," was his 
blasphemous explanation. The picture has been much 
praised, but owes its fame more to this scandalous 
anecdote than its own merit. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE PENINSULA WAR 

Death of Goya's Wife. Spanish Politics. Napoleon and the Bourbons. 
Invasion of the Peninsula. Ferdinand VII. His Portrait by Goya. 
The " Dos de Mayo." Goya's two Great Pictures of the Revolt. 
His Attitude towards King Joseph Bonaparte. A Portrait of Pala- 
fox. The two Sieges of Zaragoza. Goya visits Aragon. Los Desastres 
de la Guerra. Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. An Exciting 
Incident. The Restoration of Ferdinand VII. Goya goes into Hiding, 
but is pardoned by the King. Portrait of Juan Martin, " El Empe- 
cinado." Juan Martin's Reward. Goya contemplates a Voluntary 
Exile. 

GOYA'S wife died about 1804, some ten years after 
the death of her brother Francisco Bayeu. 
The artist lost friends on every side during the 
early years of the nineteenth century. The Duchess 
of Alba died in 1802 ; Maria del Rosario Fernandez, 
" La Tirana," about the same time. Martin Zapater, 
his life-long correspondent in Zaragoza, had already 
disappeared from the scene, and was followed to the grave 
in 1806 by Juan Martin de Goicoechea, whose grand- 
daughter had married Goya's son. The deaf master's 
reflections could not have been very cheerful, for, in 
addition to his personal sorrows, the state of affairs in 
the country was rapidly going from bad to worse. 

The military campaign against the French Republic 
had ended in unconditional surrender, and, by the treaty 



256 FRANCISCO GOYA 

of San Ildefonso, Godoy had joined hands with the 
government of revolution against Great Britain. The 
royal favourite succeeded Aranda as prime minister in 
1792. Although hated by the people, the Choricero * 
retained his position at the head of the government, for 
the infatuation of Charles IV. and Maria Luisa passed 
even the limits of decency. His marriage to the eldest 
daughter of Don Luis, the King's uncle, was bitterly 
resented, for it was well known that his household was 
ruled by Dona Josef a Tudo. In 1798, in deference to 
popular feeling, the King was compelled to relieve him 
of his functions as a minister. The Queen, it is said, 
had also fallen in love with another guardsman named 
Mallo.f But Godoy was soon back in office, and his 
burlesque performances as generalissimo of the campaign 
against Portugal consolidated his power. Ambition led 
him, and his sovereign, into a trap which proved the 
ruin of both. 

Napoleon's policy towards Spain was summed up in 
the remark, " Un Bourbon sur le trone d'Espagne, c'est 
un voisin trop dangereux." In the days of the Directory, 
the alliance of Charles IV. was bought by the tempting 
suggestion that the crown of Louis XVI. might be offered 
to the Spanish Bourbon. With Bonaparte as First 

* " The sausage man," a nickname given to Godoy because he came 
from Estremadura, a centre for pig-breeding, and the reputed home of 
all Spanish sausage makers. 

f " During the brief reign of Mallo in the heart of Maria Luisa, 
Charles IV., from the balcony of the Pardo, saw at a distance that 
fortunate guardsman driving four horses in a brilliant equipage. ' I 
wonder,' said the King, ' how the fellow can afford to keep better 
horses than I can ? ' ' The scandal goes, your Majesty,' said the Prince 
of Peace, ' that he is himself kept by a rich, ugly old woman, whose 
name I have forgotten.' " Letters from Spain (1822), p. 352, written 
by Blanco White. 



THE PENINSULA WAR 257 

Consul that dream was at an end, but Spain had become 
too entangled in the French toils for retreat. Godoy 
was held by the promise of an independent principality 
to be carved out of southern Portugal. Napoleon had 
thus the whole of Spanish policy within his grip. His 
own schemes were confessed at St. Helena. Speaking 
of the Spanish royal family, he said : " When I saw them 
at my feet, and could judge by myself of their incapacity, 
I pitied the lot of a great people, and seized the unique 
occasion which fortune presented me to regenerate Spain, 
to rescue her from England, and to unite her entirely 
to France." According to a conversation reported by 
Las Casas, he threw the blame of his downfall upon the 
Spanish Bourbons. " When I saw those idiots quarrelling, 
and trying to oust each other, I thought I might take 
advantage of it to dispossess a family antagonistic to me. 
I did not invent their quarrels, and if I had known the 
matter would have brought so much trouble to me, I 
should never have undertaken it." 

The anti-French party continued its storm of protest 
against Godoy. Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias, with 
the help of his wife (daughter of the Anglophil Queen of 
Naples) and his former tutor, Canon Escoiquiz, was in 
direct antagonism personal as well as political to his 
parents and their minister. The sudden death of the 
Princess of the Asturias in May, 1806, changed his atti- 
tude. To ensure the downfall of Godoy he negotiated 
secretly with France, and suggested that he might be 
allowed to marry one of the Emperor's sisters. 

Ferdinand believed that his mother the Queen was 
plotting to disinherit him, and to place Godoy, or at 
least her youngest child, the reputed son of Godoy, upon 

s 



258 FRANCISCO GOYA 

the throne. An anonymous letter warned Charles IV. 
that the heir apparent was intriguing to depose him 
and poison the Queen. The Prince was arrested, and 
documents were found in his desk which proved his 
endeavour to overturn the royal authority. They also 
revealed his secret negotiations with Napoleon. Charles 
IV. pardoned his son, but published the whole wretched 
business in the Madrid Gazette. In publicly discrediting 
his son he discredited himself. 

Napoleon held the key of the situation. Under the 
pretext that Spanish independence must be guaranteed 
against British attack he obtained permission for his 
army to enter Spain. Early in 1807 over 100,000 French 
soldiers were south of the Pyrenees. The national hatred 
of the foreigner now complicated the already overcharged 
atmosphere. A rumour that the royal family was taking 
to flight provoked a popular rising against Godoy. 
Charles IV., to prevent the murder of his favourite, signed 
a decree handing the throne to Ferdinand VII. Within 
a few days Murat entered Madrid at the head of an army 
corps. Charles withdrew his abdication, and Ferdinand 
asserted his right to the crown. Father and son then 
commenced to outbid each other for the support of a 
master who intended to crush them both. 

Napoleon's plans had been momentarily upset, for 
his original intention had been to frighten Charles IV. 
and his family from Spain, and he had already offered 
the crown to his brother Louis. By adroit cajolery 
Ferdinand was inveigled to Bayonne for a conference 
with the Emperor. On another road Charles IV. and 
Maria Luisa were being conveyed, surrounded by a French 
escort, to the same town under the pretext that Napoleon 



THE PENINSULA WAR 259 

was about to confirm their sovereignty. Ferdinand, 
upon his arrival, was placed under arrest and deposed. 
His parents quickly realised that they could never return 
to Madrid, and, to spite their son, formally resigned all 
their rights in the Spanish throne to the Emperor. Under 
pressure Ferdinand withdrew his claims to find that he 
had been duped, and that his father had given the crown 
to France. It was an adroit piece of unscrupulous 
manoeuvring. Charles IV., Maria Luisa, and Godoy 
retired to Rome, and disappear from history. Ferdinand 
was sent a prisoner to Valenay, where he remained for 
the next six years. But Madrid was in revolution, and 
although Joseph Bonaparte was accepted by a servile 
Junta as King of Spain, the whole unhappy country had 
risen in arms against foreign domination. 

Goya knew intimately all the actors in this tragedy, 
and it is impossible to judge his actions during the War 
of Independence unless we have some knowledge of the 
tangle of Spanish politics during the early nineteenth 
century. Ferdinand was immensely popular amongst 
the lower orders, probably because of his animosity against 
Godoy. Goya clearly did not share the general enthu- 
siasm, for his portraits of the Prince lack sympathy and 
accentuate the repellent side of his character. Only 
in the Family of Charles IV. does the artist allow him the 
slightest grace. Seven years later, at the moment of 
his arrest in the Escorial, the Prince is described as : "A 
stout, well-built, fresh-coloured young man of twenty- 
three, of singularly sinister aspect. His forehead was 
white and well-shaped, and over his dark eyes lowered 
conspicuously heavy, smooth, jet-black eyebrows, glossy 
like leeches ; but it was the lower part of the face which 



260 FRANCISCO GOYA 

mainly attracted attention. The point of the drooping 
Bourbon nose descended over a very short upper lip to 
the level of the straight -slit mouth ; whilst the nether 
jaw, underhung like those of the Princes of the House of 
Austria, stood clear out, so that the underlip was on a 
level with the point of the nose. This was Fernando, 
Prince of the Asturias, who in his own person centred 
all the evil qualities of both his Bourbon and Hapsburg 
ancestors without any of their virtues ; a man of un- 
doubted ability, beloved to frenzy by a generous, loyal 
people, who made greater sacrifices for him than a nation 
ever made for a ruler ; but a Prince who yet, through the 
whole of a long life, belied every promise, betrayed every 
friend, repaid every sacrifice by persecution, rewarded love 
and attachment by cruelty and injustice ; and who thus 
early began by treason to an over-indulgent father an 
evil career which was to bring untold misery to his country 
and a heritage of war of which the end has not yet been 
reached." * The canvas in the Prado, showing Ferdinand 
in the midst of a military camp, is said to have been 
painted in the early years of the century, before he 
ascended the throne, f The statement appears doubtful 
when the picture is compared with the portrait in the 
family group of 1799, for the features are much older. The 
figure is stiff, the colour like steel, and the ensemble far 
from pleasing. Another representation of Ferdinand, in 
almost exactly the same pose, but clad in his coronation 
robes, must have been painted upon his restoration in 
1814. The equestrian portrait, frankly based upon 
Velazquez, is usually reported to have been painted after 

* Martin A. S. Hume : Modern Spain (1899), p. 89. 
t Valerian von Loga : Goya, p. 112. 



THE PENINSULA WAR 261 

the abdication of Charles IV. and before Ferdinand's 
journey to Bayonne a period of a few weeks. 

Goya's attitude towards the new King in 1808 could 
only have been one of supreme disgust. The entry of 
Murat and 25,000 French soldiers into Madrid excited 
his patriotic indignation. Within a few days came the 
terrible " Dos de Mayo," of which Goya was an active 
witness. Charles IV. had ordered his daughter, Dona 
Maria Luisa, Queen of Etruria, and his son Francisco de 
Paula, the only members of the royal family left in the 
capital, to join him at Bayonne, and their departure was 
arranged for May 2. Early in the morning a large 
crowd surrounded the gates of the palace, protesting 
against the removal of the child Francisco, who was a 
popular favourite. A footman reported that the boy 
was in tears at the prospect of leaving his home. A 
French officer passing at the instant, a woman screamed, 
" He is taking them away from us ! " The mob attacked 
the officer and his escort in wild fury, and broke to pieces 
the travelling carriages waiting for the Prince and Princess. 

The crowd was practically unarmed, and could have 
been dispersed without trouble. Murat, however, con- 
sidered that the time had arrived to prove who was the 
master. French troops were hurried into the square, 
and a couple of volleys poured into the quivering mass. 
The news ran through Madrid, and the population rose 
in revolt. The great square of the Puerta del Sol became 
a scene of the most savage butchery. Fresh brigades 
were marched in from the French camp, and by midday 
the Mamelukes held undisputed mastery. Then Murat 
drove his victory home. Every man caught with arms, 
or even suspected of anti-French sympathies, was sent 



2 62 FRANCISCO GOYA 

to the drumhead. Throughout the afternoon, into the 
early hours of the next morning, Grouchy sentenced 
hundreds of Madrilenos to death. They were immedi- 
ately shot in the fields of the Prado, or outside the walls 
of the city. 

As Goya sat in his studio, the windows shook again 
and again whilst the French artillery were clearing the 
streets of the capital.* In the revolt of 1766 he had been 
amongst the combatants, but forty years had made all 
the difference in the man, and now he could be nothing 
more than an onlooker. A few days later he was stand- 
ing in the Prado, the centre of a group of idlers. Sud- 
denly he dipped his handkerchief in the mud of a gutter 
and then rushed to the nearest wall. To and fro he 
went from gutter to wall, using one as his palette, the 
other as canvas. Gradually, in bold strokes and washes, 
the wall was covered with a gigantic sketch representing 
an incident of May 2. It was Goya's reproof to a popu- 
lation which had allowed itself to be conquered by the 
foreigner. This sketch was the foundation for the 
famous picture in the Prado Gallery, f 

The Dos de Mayo is one of the great historical pictures 
of the world. Its appalling realism strikes the visitor 
with horror ; it is unpleasant to look at. There is no 
reticence, no slurring over facts and details we would 
prefer not to notice. The figures are life-size, and the 
canvas must have been painted with extreme rapidity. 

* The story of art in Madrid has many recollections of war. There 
is a letter in the correspondence of Henri Regnault which describes 
how, as he sat quietly copying a Velazquez in the Prado, the discharge 
of cannon stopped all work and everyone rushed out to join Prim's 
triumphal march through Madrid. 

f Matheron : Goya, chap. VI. 



THE PENINSULA WAR 263 

Matheron says that the artist used a spoon instead of a 
brush for his pigments, but, under repeated coats of 
varnish, there is no sign of overloaded colour, although the 
tones have a beautiful depth. There can be little doubt 
that Goya actually witnessed from some window the 
terrible scene he reproduced, a bull-fight on a large 
scale but, instead of bulls, men were being slaughtered. 
The French cavalry are giving way to the Spanish attack. 
A Mameluke, with a look of inexpressible terror upon his 
face, falls backward from his horse as a manola raises a 
stiletto to plunge into his breast. Another insurgent 
bodily throws himself upon a turbaned horseman. Goya 
has caught an extraordinary sense of almost electric 
action in this composition, not to be found in the well- 
ordered pictorial exercises of Horace Vernet or the French 
military artists of the Second Empire. His soul rose with 
indignation as he worked, and, being a genius of masterly 
power, his paint still conveys his own passionate horror to 
the spectator. 

A companion picture of equal size commemorates 
the execution of the prisoners. The day is about to 
break over the towers and steeples of the capital. The 
wretched captives gaze with hopeless despair at the guns 
of the grenadiers. One man throws up his arms and 
curses the executioners. The guards stand shoulder to 
shoulder, firm as rocks, immovable as fate itself, as they 
prepare to fire. In a second the word of command will 
be given, a crash of musketry will rattle against the walls 
of the city, re-echoing through the silent streets ; another 
trembling gang will be pushed into position upon the 
blood-stained earth, and yet another. . . . Grouchy is 
merciless. 



264 FRANCISCO GOYA 

Yet, when Joseph Bonaparte entered Madrid as its 
King, Goya welcomed him, accepted the office of Court 
painter under the new dispensation, and wore the ribbon 
of the Legion of Honour ! 

The action was illogical, but there was good excuse. 
Many other intelligent Spaniards took the same step. 
The policy of Charles IV. or rather of Godoy and Maria 
Luisa had wrecked the country. Nothing could be 
expected from the miserable Ferdinand. The public 
debt was 72,000,000, three-quarters of which had been 
accumulated since the death of Charles III. The annual 
deficit was three and a half millions. Only a strong 
administration could save Spain, and Napoleon's financial 
assistants had grappled successfully with even greater dis- 
orders. When Goya is harshly criticised these facts should 
be remembered. In Madrid he was an afrancesado ; in 
the country he was a patriot. At one moment he is 
painting the portrait of El Rey intruso ; at another he is 
depicting the atrocities of the French soldiers. Torn by 
conflicting emotions, a sincere nationalist, he was forced 
to recognise that Spain could only be saved by the hated 
foreigner. 

From 1808 to 1813 the Peninsula was a shambles. 
Amidst such overwhelming disasters it is wonderful 
that Goya was able to work at all, but he managed to 
continue his portraits, and from time to time he travelled 
into Aragon. On August 3, 1808, the first British 
expeditionary force landed in Mondego Bay, and during 
the summer of 1808 four independent campaigns were 
in operation in Portugal, in Catalonia, in Galicia and 
Old Castile, and in Aragon. The first defence of Zara- 
goza under Palafox lasted from June 15 to August 13. 




< -2 

si 

8^ 
-s 

X 



THE PENINSULA WAR 265 

When King Joseph retreated from Madrid on August i, 
the French generals retired from Aragon and the city was 
free. Goya, who appears to have been in Madrid, soon 
left for his native province, and arrived in Zaragoza 
early in October. He was received by Palafox, whose 
portrait he painted. This canvas is now in the Prado. 
Palafox sits a prancing horse, and flourishes his sabre. 
The attitude is stilted and conventional, although there 
is a certain verve in the paint. Goya visited Fuende- 
todos, but travelling was difficult owing to the disturbed 
condition of the country, and he returned to Madrid. 
In November Palafox was defeated by Lannes, and 
withdrew to Zaragoza, but Goya must already have 
arrived in the capital which surrendered to the Emperor 
in person on December 3. 

The second siege of Zaragoza commenced December 20, 
1808. The French broke through the outer walls of 
the city on January 27, 1809, but three weeks of street 
fighting remained before the Aragonese surrendered. 
Over 20,000 fighting men and 30,000 of the populace 
perished, and the siege remains one of the most sanguinary 
in the history of Europe. " I have never seen stubbornness 
equal to the defence of this place," wrote Lannes to the 
Emperor. ' Women allow themselves to be killed in front 
of every breach. Every house needs a separate assault. 
... In a word, Sire, this is a war which horrifies." Lady 
Holland, in her diary, under the date April 29, 1809, 
tells a curious little story. " Palafox was insulted by the 
French and cruelly treated ; they removed the surgeon 
who attended him, and placed a Frenchman in his place. 
In his room there were several drawings done by the 
celebrated Goya, who had gone from Madrid on purpose 



266 FRANCISCO GOYA 

to see the ruins of Zaragoza ; these. drawings and one of 
the famous heroine, also by Goya, the French officers 
cut and destroyed with their sabres at the moment too 
when Palafox was dying in his bed." * 

Again Goya paid a flying visit to the heap of ruins 
which he had known as Zaragoza, taking as a companion 
Luis Gil Ranz, his pupil. On the journey he was arrested 
as a spy, his deafness complicated the situation, and he 
narrowly escaped being shot. For some years he appears 
to have remained in Madrid, but his movements are 
difficult to trace. Early in 1809 he painted an allegorical 
picture showing Madrid as a beautiful girl holding a shield 
which encircled a portrait of King Joseph. The model 
bears some likeness to the style he used in the frescoes 
of San Antonio de la Florida. The portrait of the King 
was afterwards erased, and replaced by the words, 
" Dos de Mayo." Another portrait of Joseph Bonaparte 
has been lost. On October 25, 1810, he was appointed 
in conjunction with Maella and Napoli to select fifty 
pictures from the royal collection to be sent to France for 
the museum Napoleon was forming. He must have 
accepted the commission with mixed feelings, but he 
selected the canvases with considerable skill, for there 
was not one amongst them which was likely to be missed. 
The three by Velazquez included a St. Joseph, Don 
Balthazar Carlos, and a Martyrdom of St. Jacob. To 
these he added three Murillos, five Zurbarans, four 
Riberas, one Alonso Cano, and many less important 

* The Spanish Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland (1910), p. 324. 
Lady Holland was at the time in Seville. She does not mention ever 
meeting Goya, although she was a frequent visitor to Madrid during 
the years 1802-1809. 



THE PENINSULA WAR 267 

masters. These works never left Madrid for Paris, 
although several have since been lost or stolen.* 

Goya's health now took a sudden turn for the worse. 
He left his easel, and, as he had done before, turned to 
his etching tools. The result can be seen in the collection 
of plates known as LosDesastres de la Guerra,'a. production 
which covers the years 1810 to 1813. In all there are 
eighty-two plates. Goya printed a few proofs during 
his lifetime, but the whole series was first published in 
1863 by the Academy of San Fernando. This edition 
consists of eighty etchings, two of the plates having passed 
into other hands. Goya's own proofs were pulled in a 
blackish ink. The rare first edition of 1863 can be dis- 
tinguished by its reddish hue. 

Los Caprichos is a mixture of satire, fantasy, and the 
grotesque. Los Desastres is an appalling commentary 
upon war. In the history of art there is nothing like it. 
Goya's etchings have been compared to Callot's Miseries 
of War, but if there is similarity of idea there is no simi- 
larity in treatment. Callot was an artist first ; his quaint 
miniatures produce the same effect as a set scene on the 
stage of a marionette theatre. He draws horrible things 
in a pleasant manner. We agree with him that war is a 
miserable affair, that convents could be sacked in a most 
picturesque fashion, and that a public execution offered 
much scope for an artist. The Miseries of War appeals to 
us aesthetically but not emotionally. 

The case is different with Los Desastres de la Guerra. 
Not for one instant does Goya attempt artistic effect ; in 
fact, he remains a great artist in spite of himself. Boiling 

* A list will be found in the Count de Vinaza's Goya, and other 
details in Pedro de Madrazo's Viaje artistico. 



268 FRANCISCO GOYA 

over with a rage which at times is lost in pity he tries 
to preach a sermon with an obvious moral. A French 
author has said that Goya could never claim excellence 
in a certain class of the emotions such as pity, piety, and 
the grief of humble folk.* If piety means a regular 
attendance at church, Goya was certainly not pious, and 
he could hardly be reverent towards a Deity whose 
existence he doubted. But there is a piety of patriotism 
which breathes throughout these living drawings, and 
there is pity, and a sympathy with the grief of humble 
folk, to be found upon almost every page. The very first 
plate represents a starved, half-naked peasant on his 
knees imploring mercy. 

Goya was a realist, and he set down unflinchingly 
and without reticence the facts of war. The glories 
of war did not interest him. He turned to its shame and 
horror, and it is well that one man has done the repellent 
task, for it is unlikely ever to be repeated. Murder and 
rapine are the keynotes of the collection. The French 
grenadiers and dragoons stalk through these pages 
like fiends. Goya holds the balance fairly, and shows 
the fearful acts of retaliation from the peasantry. Sex 
and age are allowed no privilege, but, with a cruelty 
rivalling that of the lowest circles of Hell, men, women, 
and children are tortured and slain with a barbarity which 
surpasses the imagination. Every aspect of war is 
brought before our eyes except the heroic. Rubens, as 
Richard Muther reminds us, had painted an allegorical 
picture of the horrors of war. But Goya saw life from a 
different aspect, and forestalling such artists as Wiertz 

* L6once Amaudry in an article in the Burlington Magazine 
(December, 1904), Vol. VI., p. 191. 



THE PENINSULA WAR 269 

and Verestchagin, repeated again and again the same 
haunting question : 

" To what end ? " 

Los Desastres de la Guerra can only be properly studied 
with the aid of the actual etchings, or their reproductions. 
The plates have not an .equal value, and towards the close 
of the series Goya abruptly changed his original idea and 
revived the old Caprices, whilst others are purely political 
and satirise the government and King Joseph. These 
are often weak in design. But at his best Goya exhibits 
a superb mastery of his medium. Los desastres de la 
Guerra is revolting, cries one indignant critic. But war 
itself is revolting, and a man who can convince his 
fellows that such butchery is unnatural has performed a 
service to humanity. 

On August 10, 1812, King Joseph left Madrid, the 
battle of Salamanca having rendered his position unsafe. 
On August 12 Wellington entered the capital at the head 
of a combined Spanish and English army. With his 
peculiar adaptability Goya made friends with the new- 
comers. He was commissioned to paint a portrait of 
Wellington, and the red chalk sketch, now carefully pre- 
served in the British Museum, is certainly the most faithful 
portrait in existence of the great general. The finished 
canvas is at Strathfieldsaye. Whilst the work was in pro- 
gress, the Duke, who did not wholly appreciate the likeness, 
made some remarks which were misunderstood by the 
deaf artist. Goya in sudden passion rushed to his pistols 
to avenge the fancied insult. Xavier Goya was in the 
studio, and snatched the arms from his father. Welling- 
ton, also a man of hot temper, was not appeased for 
several days, but eventually peace was made and the 



270 FRANCISCO GOYA 

portrait finished. However, Goya nearly changed the 
course of the world's history. 

The English troops did not remain long in Madrid, 
for Joseph Bonaparte returned in December, and the 
French did not finally evacuate the city until May, 1813. 
A year later Ferdinand VII. re-entered his capital amidst 
the delirious joy of the mob. The prisons were crowded 
with Liberals and afrancesados , and Goya was given a 
shelter by Don Jose Duaso y Latre, remaining in hiding 
for three months. More fortunate than many of his 
friends, he was restored to his old position as first painter 
to the King. Ferdinand was a vain creature with sufficient 
artistic discernment to know that Goya was the only 
living Spanish portrait-painter who could adequately 
depict him in all the splendour of his robes of state. 

" You have deserved exile, you have merited the 
garotte, but you are a great artist, and we will forget 
everything," was the King's form of pardon when Goya 
was presented at the new Court. 

Ferdinand had his portraits, but Goya's interest in the 
Bourbons gradually died away. Perhaps it would have 
been more honourable if he had not accepted the re- 
appointment, although financial reasons probably moved 
him to beg for a renewal of the royal favour. His old 
friends were being remorselessly punished and exiled. 
The Inquisition was re-established, and the clock set 
back more than a century. Life under Charles III., an 
enlightened monarch of liberal ideas, was freedom itself 
compared with the reactionary rule of his grandson. 
Even the men who had fought for Spain whilst Ferdinand 
was living in peaceful comfort at Valen^ay were punished. 

When Wellington entered Madrid in 1812, at the head 




ARTHUR WELLESLEY, DUKE OF WELLINGTON 

Drawing in red chalk. Britisli Museum 



THE PENINSULA WAR 271 

of the Spanish troops rode Juan Martin, a peasant who 
had commanded the guerrilla bands with striking 
ability, a born military genius of the type of the Breton 
Cathelineau or the Savoyard Catinat. Goya painted the 
portrait of El Empecinado, a canvas of most remarkable 
power. Clearly the son of one peasant was in thorough 
accord with the son of another. 

Upon Ferdinand's return from Valenay Juan Martin 
was rewarded for his great service by strict imprisonment. 
He escaped to Portugal, but was recaptured in November, 
1823. " He was kept by the local authorities at Roa 
for the next ten months," writes Martin Hume, " suffer- 
ing the most revolting tortures in prison, being brought 
out every market day in an iron cage to be exposed to 
the insults of the crowd. For four days at a time he 
was kept without food or drink, confined in one position ; 
and his prayers that he should promptly be put out of 
his misery only brought upon him fresh persecution. 
In vain the English ambassador protested to the King 
against such inhumanity ; the Empecinado refused to 
acknowledge any crime or beg for mercy, as he had 
formerly refused the bribe of a peerage to desert the 
Constitution, and he was at length condemned to the 
gallows. He was calm and dignified almost to the last ; 
but on his way to the scaffold he was driven to sudden 
fury by seeing one of his persecutors, a royalist volunteer 
officer, flourishing the famous sword which he, the 
Empecinado, had borne throughout the war. With a 
prodigious effort he burst his fetters and scattered those 
who held him captive ; but he tripped over the shroud 
in which he was clothed, and, fighting furiously to 
the last, this, one of the greatest heroes of Spanish 



272 FRANCISCO GOYA 

independence, was dragged by the neck until he was 
dead, and the last insults might be offered to his corpse 
with impunity." * 

This was but one of many similar incidents. Men like 
Leandro Moratin, who had been forced into exile, refused 
the pardon of Ferdinand VII. as an insult. Goya him- 
self was now considering the idea of a voluntary 
expatriation. 

* Martin A. S. Hume : Modern Spain (1899), p. 257. 




About 1812 



GENERAL JUAN MARTIN, EL EMPECINADO 
Collection of the Marquis de Casa Torres, Madrid 



CHAPTER XVIII 

GOYA IN RETIREMENT, 1818-1823 

Goya's Country House outside Madrid. Leocardia and Rosario Weiss. 
Two Portraits of the Artist. The Meeting of the Cortes. Portraits and 
Religious Subjects. The Portrait of Don Ramon Satue. The Tauro- 
maquia. Los Proverbios. The Prisoners. The Frescoes in his 
Country House. Indignant Criticism. Satan devouring his Children. 

SOON after the restoration of Ferdinand VII. Goya 
gave up his residence in Madrid, and retired to 
a little property he had bought some years 
before, outside the city, on the other side of the river 
Manzanares, and close to the Puenta de Segovia. Not far 
away stood the Casa del Campo, and within a stone's 
throw was the scene of his picture La romeria di San 
Isidro. The house was a small, unpretentious building of 
two stories, and the windows commanded a fine view of 
Madrid. In the rear could be seen the Guadarrama 
mountains with their snow-capped ridges. This land- 
scape gave much delight to the old artist, who compared 
it to the Roman Campagna with the Alban hills in the 
distance. His rural home, in which he loved to entertain 
his friends from the city, became known as the " Huerta 
del Sordo," the House of the Deaf Man.* Domestic 

* Charles Yriarte, in L'Art, Vol. II., p. 9, says that Goya bought 
the Quinta when he was busy upon the decorations of San Antonio 
de la Florida. A drawing of the house, in the midst of a somewhat 
ragged garden, is given on the same page. Another drawing will be 
found in the same author's Goya (1867), p. 91. 

T 



274 FRANCISCO GOYA 

arrangements were controlled by his second cousin, 
Leocardia Servilla, who had married the son of a travelling 
salesman from Bavaria, Isidro Weiss. Her husband having 
parted from her, for reasons unknown, she took charge 
of Goya's house, and lived under his roof with a little girl 
called Rosario Weiss, who had been born in 1814. When 
Goya went to Madrid he is said to have stayed with the 
bookseller of the Calle de Carretas, whose wife or 
daughter he painted. But there is no clue to the year 
in which this well-known portrait was finished, and it is 
probably earlier than the date of his complete removal 
from Madrid. 

Goya's portrait in the Academy of San Fernando was 
painted in 1815, and does not greatly differ from the 
frontispiece of Los Caprichos of 1796. The face is strong, 
heavy, and powerful, with every outward sign of 
unquenched vitality.* A full-length portrait, belonging 
to the Count de Villagonzalo, was probably painted at 
the Quinta on the banks of the Manzanares, although its 
exact date is difficult to fix. Goya stands before his 
easel, his figure silhouetted against the blinding light of 
the large studio window. He is clad in a tightly-fitting 
toreador dress, and wears one of those fantastic round hats 
which are so frequently to be seen in Jan Steen's canvases. 
For an instant we catch a glimpse of Goya as he appeared 
when at work. As usual the portrait is an experiment, 
for Goya was now trying an exercise in the last manner of 
Velazquez. " In nature colour does not exist any more 
than line/' he told a friend. " There is but the sun and 

* This portrait has since been transferred to the Prado. Another 
interesting portrait of Goya in a three-cornered hat is given in the 
Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1868), Vol. XXIV., p. 173. 




PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST 
Collection of tke Count tie Villagonzalo, Madrid 



Photo. Lacoste 



GOYA IN RETIREMENT 275 

the shadows. Give me a piece of charcoal, and I will 
make you a picture." * This portrait is an attempt to 
paint ambient atmosphere, and he grappled with the 
same problem in the large composition belonging to the 
Museum of Castres, " one of the most troubling and 
singular of Goya's works." 

The meeting of the Cortes (sometimes known as The 
commission of the Philippines) was painted between the 
years 1814 and 1820. Oertel gives 1819 as the date of 
the preliminary sketch in the Berlin gallery, but this is 
somewhat late. Its history is vague. In 1892, together 
with two portraits by the same master, it was bequeathed 
to the Museum of Castres (in the French department of 
the Tarn) by a townsman named Briguiboul. As Marshal 
Soult came from the same locality, it has been suggested 
that these pictures formed part of his Spanish loot during 
the French occupation of the Peninsula. A more 
probable explanation is that the elder Briguiboul bought 
them from Goya in Bordeaux. But they were painted 
before he went to Bordeaux, and how he smuggled them 
away from Madrid is hard to guess. The Portrait of a 
man is supple, free, and fluid, the second Portrait more 
opaque. Both are later than 1800. The large com- 
position, sketched with feverish fury, strongly 
reminded Louis Gonse, the French critic, of the later 
work of Manet. With a cruel sincerity of observation, 
evidently satiric in intention, Goya shows Ferdinand VII. 
surrounded by his ministers. In a huge hall, broken by 
transparent flying shafts of sunlight from the tall windows, 
sit the members of the council presided over by their 
sovereign. ' The work of the artist is not less extra- 

* Matheron. 



276 FRANCISCO GOYA 

ordinary than the work of the satirist," writes Louis 
Gonse. " Never did Goya show himself more a virtuoso, 
more audacious, more revolutionary. . . . He seems to 
have wanted to revenge himself upon the regime which 
condemned him to exile. . . . The constrasted play of 
lights in this salle with bare walls is a miracle. . . . By 
strength of design, by magic of colour and philosophic 
depth, this powerful sketch is almost a masterpiece. In 
any case, with the Dos de Mayo it forms one of Goya's 
most characteristic creations." * 

For a septuagenarian Goya's activity was marvellous. 
He refused commissions for portraits unless from personal 
acquaintances, and painted chiefly for his own pleasure. 
In 1815 came the portrait of Don Manuel Garcia, the 
father of Malibran,f in 1816 the Duke de Osuna, son of 
his old friend and patron who had died in 1807. The 
portraits of Ferdinand VII. have already been mentioned. 
There was a steady output of religious compositions. 
The Seville altar-piece of Santa Rufina and Santa Jmta, 
praised by the contemporary critic, Cean Bermudez, as 
the artist's best work a judgment difficult to agree with 
was followed by Christ in the Garden (1819) and a San 
Josef of Calasanz, in the church of San Anton Abas, 
Madrid j (1820). The first is crudely powerful in a 

* Louis Gonse : Les chefs-d'oeuvre des Musees de France. La Peinture 
(1900), p. 99. The Castres pictures are also referred to by P. Lafond, 
" Trois tableaux de Goya au Musee de Castres," in the Chronique des 
Arts, March, 1896, and the Berlin sketch by F. Laban in the Jahrbuch 
derKcniglichPreuszischen Kunstsammlungen (1900) ,Vol. XXI., p. 177. 

f In 1815 Goya was painting the father ; over ninety years later 
Mr. Sargent was painting the son a curious link between Goya and 
one of his artistic descendants. 

J This painting reminded Mr. Rothenstein of the work of Alphonse 
Legros. " There was some unpleasantness on the part of the canons, 



GOYA IN RETIREMENT 277 

Rembrandtesque manner, and looks as if painted by 
lamplight. Some of the sketches in the Bonnat collection 
at Bayonne belong to this period. Still later came the 
portrait of Don Ramon Satu'e, Alcalde de Corte, dated by 
the artist on the canvas in 1823, an d now in the collection 
of Dr. Carvallo of Paris. M. Leonce Amaudry describes 
the painting as " in three tones, black, white, and red, and 
Goya has carefully abstained from impasto. One might 
fancy that the painter was working for a wager as to how 
much space he could cover with how little paint. Still 
more surprising, therefore, at a little distance, is the depth 
he has obtained. But it is impossible that this method 
should have been adopted on the spur of the moment. It 
has nothing in common with the partiality or the fantasy 
of an artist taking pleasure in the exercise of his 
virtuosity. On the contrary, it is the result of a long 
series of previous essays, and the final formula of Goya, 
now arrived, at the age of seventy and over, at the 
complete mastery of his art. . . . The smooth, cynical 
air of the man, his evil, scornful lips, his low forehead 
under thickset hair, his untidy dress, his costly shirt 
half-open, and leaving the upper part of his chest exposed, 
the green and red lights of a much used garment on his 
riding coat, his general mixture of dandyism and disorder, 
all combine to make this portrait a disturbing character." 
M. Leonce Amaudry is, however, in error when he states 
that this portrait was painted at Bordeaux. It is dated 
1823, and Goya did not leave Madrid until June, 1824. 

who objected to pay the price Goya asked for this picture. Enraged 
at their haggling he refused to continue it, and the Superior, so the 
story goes, went down on his knees before the old painter, whom he 
eventually appeased." Goya, p. 25. 



278 FRANCISCO GOYA 

The evidence of comparison will also help to fix the date, 
for in style and composition the portrait is own brother 
to the portrait of Goya's intimate friend, Don Tiburcio 
Perez, the architect, signed and dated in 1820. Don Ramon 
Satue may have been a Liberal, but that he joined the 
little Spanish colony " who fled to the capital of Guyenne 
after the restoration of Ferdinand VII." is very doubtful. 

Despite his severe illness towards the close of 1819, 
these labours do not exhaust the whole of Goya's pro- 
duction during the last years of his life in Spain. He 
etched thirty-three plates for the series known as Tauro- 
maquia, eighteen of which come under the heading of 
Proverbios, some scattered plates, including the Colossus, 
and was also busily covering the walls of his Quinta 
with the most fantastic inventions that ever came from 
the mind of an artist. 

The Tauromaquia was commenced during the early 
years of the century. Goya issued a limited number of 
impressions in 1815, but the plates were hoarded by Xavier 
Goya until his death, and were not actually published 
until the Calcografia Nacional issued a second edition 
in 1855, together with the etcher's portrait from Los 
Caprichos. In 1876 a French edition appeared with 
seven additional plates.* In addition to the original 
thirty-three plates which form the series, Goya etched 
six plates on a larger scale. These he afterwards 
destroyed, using the coppers for other subjects. That 
he did not attempt to spread abroad further proofs of 
such popular subjects is remarkable, for he must have 
recognised that the Tauromaquia included his supreme 

* La Tauromachie, par Don Francisco Goya y Lucientes. Forty 
plates, with a portrait drawn and etched by E. Loizelet. Paris, 1876. 



GOYA IN RETIREMENT 279 

achievement as an etcher. In Los Desastros de la Guerra 
his indignation at times overcame his art, and in the 
technic of the aquatint washes his hand lost its cunning, 
for the contrasts are often harsh, and the subtle gradations 
of tone to be found in Los Caprichos were not always 
successfully repeated. Indeed, in aquatint, Los Caprichos 
is Goya's best work, for in several of the plates there is no 
line at all, the whole effect being produced by the wash. 
In Los Desastros de la Guerra Goya relied more com- 
pletely upon line. In the Tauromaquia the combina- 
tion is effected with masterly skill. 

In these intensely dramatic compositions the artist's 
first aim seems to have been an historical review of the 
ring. The bull is hunted across open country by Moors 
and Spanish peasantry, and Charles V.