Goya. Francisco José De Goya. Yes, I’d hear of him. Yes, I knew he was an old famous artist. But that was about it… until I viewed the Old Masters Exhibit at the beautiful Butler Institute of Art in Youngstown, Ohio.
Goya was one complicated dude. He endured the horrors of war at a very early age. During the French Revolution, he witnessed people being hanged, burned, and guillotined. He saw mental patients tortured. Surely, that played a part in his dark and bizarre style of drawing.
Francisco José De Goya was a renowned printmaker and portrait artist. It is said he remained in good graces with whichever group that came into power because of his terrific portrait skills, accenting the models best features, almost to a fault. Everybody looked better in a Goya portrait than in real life.
These photos I took at the Butler Exhibit unfortunately do not show those favorable, alluring portrait skills. These are dark and bizarre.
Goya suffered from an autoimmune disease that left him deaf at an early age. He also had syphyllis. He had seven or eight children, depending on what I read. All but one died in early childhood.
There is a rumor he left instructions to have his head severed before burial. He wish to have his head buried in Madrid next to the body of the thirteenth Duchess of Alba, whom he fell in love with while painting her portrait. There is no proof of this. Still… his head is missing.
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