Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) Etching from "Los Caprichos" series

Francisco de Goya : Born in 1746 in Fuendetodos (Zaragoza, Spain), Francisco de Goya was a spanish painter and engraver. Goya's art is considered as the precursor of the artistic avant-gardes of the 20th century. In 1780, he was elected at the Royal Academy of fine-arts of San Fernando. On his return to Madrid, he became the aristocracy painter, and, in 1786, painter to the King himself. Burdened by deafness in 1792, Goya expressed his pain in his work (Caprices, 1799 (etchings)). The spread of Napoleonic wars to Spain, in 1808, inspired espacially his etching series "Les Désastres de la guerre" (The Disasters of War), and his paintings "El dos de mayo" and "El tres de mayo" (1814). In 1824, the absolutism of Fernando VII led him to quit Spain to settle in Bordeaux, where he created many portraits and became familiar with lithography. The painter died in Bordeaux in 1828.