Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born in Fuendetodos, Aragon, and trained in Zaragoza and Madrid before a formative stay in Italy. He became painter to the Spanish court under Charles III and Charles IV, producing tapestry cartoons for the Royal Factory, royal portraits, and religious commissions. Serious illness in the 1790s left him deaf; the Peninsular War and later political turmoil sharpened his late work. He spent his final years in Bordeaux and died there in 1828.
Major paintings include The Naked Maja (c. 1795–1800) and The Clothed Maja (c. 1800–05; both Prado, Madrid), Charles IV of Spain and His Family (1800–01; Prado), The Third of May 1808 (1814; Prado), and the “Black Paintings” (c. 1819–23) removed from the Quinta del Sordo walls (Prado). Print cycles such as Los Caprichos (1799) and The Disasters of War (1810–20) are held in major print rooms worldwide.
Goya moved from luminous Rococo colour to stark realism and private allegory. He treated court splendour, popular life, superstition, and wartime violence with equal candour. That span—from official portraiture to raw reportage—makes him a bridge between the Old Masters and modern art.
