Welcome to Great Art.
For the past few years, we've been filming in the biggest exhibitions,
art galleries and museums in the world,
exploring some of the greatest artists and art in history.
Not only do we record landmark shows,
but we also secure privileged access behind the scenes.
We then use this as a springboard to take a broader look
at extraordinary artists.
A short while ago, The National Gallery in London
held a show that was soon twinkling with five-star reviews.
The show - many, many years in preparation -
was called Goya: The Portraits.
Working with the museum and its curators,
we took this opportunity to re-examine the complex nature
of one of art's most revolutionary, passionate and popular artists.
Painting, like poetry,
selects from among the universal that which it judges
most appropriate for its purpose.
It unites in a single imaginary being
circumstances and characters which Nature presents distributed in many,
and it is in this unity, skilfully contrived,
that true imitation is achieved, by which the good artist acquires
the title of inventor and not that of servile copyist.
And this sort of ridge of paint is the original edge of the red.
The jacket... So, this black came in later.
LIFT BEEPS
Goya sits in-between the two great luminaries of Spanish painting -
Velazquez in the 17th century,
and, of course, Picasso in the 20th century.
And Goya's right there in the middle,
kind of straddling the old world,
the Ancien Regime on the one hand and modernity on the other.
So he's a figure that's right at the crossroads
of how we think our history has developed.
Now, he's an artist who looks upon the world with great curiosity,
with a kind of piercing intelligence.
It shows Goya as somebody who kind of stands apart,
who stands outside his time.
Why are we still interested in Goya 200 years later?
Well, it's really because he has this very focussed
and very profound vision.
It's a Goya very much who takes us on a journey.
He takes us on a journey through the history of Spain
at the end of the 18th century, the beginning of the 19th century -
very turbulent times -
but he's also an artist who takes us on a sort of personal journey.
When thinking about this project, I was very keen to tell the story
of Goya's development as a portrait painter.
And what's amazing is that each portrait he does, he rethinks it.
He rethinks his approach, he rethinks how to make his sitter sit,
what kind of lighting, what kind of format,
and it's progressive.
It doesn't stop, he doesn't repeat himself.
He had a very long life.
He lived until he was 82,
and his life spanned part of the 18th century but also went
well into the 19th century and spanned not just a period
of great political change in Spain,
but also a great personal and artistic journey.
I mean, his style really, really changed in that time.
His style also... Purely seen through the portraits,
you can see how stark the contrast is
between his first portrait commission and the very last.
I think most people, when they think of Goya,
they think of the Black Paintings,
or they think of his Caprichos etchings,
or, of course, the Naked Maja.
They don't immediately think of him as a portrait painter,
but, really, that's how he wanted to be remembered.
And, in fact, about a third of his output is portraits,
and that's very much how he wanted to be remembered.
It's what he strove to be.
He wanted to be the Royal portrait painter.
His paintings are about the sitter, about their position.
They tend to be middle-class sitters,
particularly towards the end of his life.
He makes them look very modern, and, indeed, they were at the time,
but they connect very well with 19th-century painters
such as Degas, Manet, and later on,
Picasso and even Freud to a certain extent.
Francisco de Goya was born 30th March, 1746
in the tiny village of Fuendetodos
in the Northern Spanish province of Aragon.
Before long, his family had moved to Zaragoza,
where, as he reached adulthood, he trained to become a painter
and enjoyed country life,
though his ambition grew for greater success.
'In terms of his character, he seems to have been able to be
'what the Spaniards call "campechano",
'which means he was very close to the ordinary folk.
'He loved to go out into the country and have a drink with friends.
'He loved hunting. That was an activity not only the very rich did,
'but, of course, people from all parts of society in the countryside.
'He was also a very sophisticated man of the city.
'We know a lot about him
'because there's a lot of personal correspondence from him.'
Goya was essentially a self-trained artist, unlike his contemporaries,
who had studied and drawn endless life models and plaster casts.
But he was just as ambitious.
In 1763 and 1766,
he submitted entries to Spain's Royal Academy of Fine Art in Madrid
but was rejected on both occasions.
Undeterred, he decided the best next step was to travel to Italy
to study the Old Masters.
He was desperate to learn and record what stood in front of him.
This is clearly demonstrated in an extremely rare sketchbook
which was rediscovered in 1993
and is stored at the Prado Museum in Madrid.
TRANSLATION FROM SPANISH:
When Goya returned from Italy to Zaragoza,
he was amongst several painters employed to paint religious scenes
in monasteries and grand cathedrals like El Pilar.
In 1773, he married Josefa Bayeu,
of a prominent family of painters with good connections
to the Spanish Court.
His big break came in 1775,
when he was invited to the court in Madrid
to paint a series of paintings known as "tapestry cartoons"
because they were used as guides for the weavers
at the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara,
located in the centre of the city.
These tapestry cartoons were colourful works that recorded
contemporary life in Madrid and the surrounding countryside.
They depicted ordinary people having picnics, dancing,
playing games and generally enjoying themselves.
These were scenes that the king, Charles III,
wanted as a way of showing they were in tune
with the contemporary lives of their subjects.
Goya worked hard producing these cartoons for the tapestries
that were to be hung on the cold stone walls of the royal palaces,
such as El Escorial to the north of Madrid
and the royal residences in and around the capital.
His efforts were rewarded.
In 1781, he received his first major public commission.
This is the Basilica of San Francisco el Grande,
which was commissioned by Charles III
and built in Goya's lifetime.
And in 1783, seven painters were called upon
to decorate the main altarpieces.
Goya painted this altarpiece here of San Bernardino of Siena.
And he took this very seriously because he wasn't yet
a court-salaried painter, the others were,
but this was his chance to prove himself.
And he says in his letters that this was a "competencia formal",
a formal competition.
At the same time that he was painting this,
Goya received a portrait commission from the Count of Floridablanca,
which was his first official portrait, and in it,
Goya shows himself showing Floridablanca a small painting.
And I wouldn't be surprised if that small painting
was actually a sketch for this big altarpiece here.
So, everything is related somehow, and this is his moment, really,
to prove himself among other Spanish painters.
But the painting, in terms of the portrait aspect, is key,
because it's a major breakthrough.
What we have here is San Bernardino,
this ascetic saint, preaching to the people.
He was a great speaker.
It's meant to be L'Aquila, 14th century,
but he decides to go for a 17th-century context.
They're all dressed in 17th-century clothes,
and in doing so, Goya is paying respect to Velazquez
and to one picture specifically,
which is The Surrender Of Breda, where, in that picture,
we see men in similar costumes.
But right to the far right, there is a man looking out at you,
and we all think that is Velazquez himself.
Goya does the same thing here.
Among all these gentlemen looking up,
there is one man looking straight at you,
and it's the young Goya himself.
36 years old, with ambition...
And here he's smartened up, his gaze is fixed on the viewer,
on the people praying before his altarpiece,
and I think he would have enjoyed that,
the idea of people kneeling before this large altarpiece,
praising it from an artistic point of view and then suddenly realising,
"Ah, but it's Francisco de Goya," this young aspiring painter.
"Dear Martin,
"so, shooting...
"I cannot get it out of my head that the season for thrushes is near,
"and were it not for the San Francisco painting,
"I wouldn't have to care a fig for what others may think -
"just do what pleases me,
"and let those who involve themselves in intrigues
"at the court and society stay in their own muck,
"for it is clear to me that the covetous neither live
"nor know where they live."
Much of what we know about Goya himself and his life
from the beginning of his career in Madrid
is in the letters that Goya wrote to his friend.
Martin Zapater was from Zaragoza,
and he grew up on the school benches with Goya.
They were childhood friends,
and it was a friendship which lasted until, in fact,
Zapater died in 1803.
And they loved each other,
perhaps very passionately.
Certainly on Goya's side.
Goya knew that if he wanted to be successful at court
and as a painter in his own right, portraiture was the key.
Through his contact with the Count of Floridablanca,
Goya apparently received an introduction
to King Charles III's younger brother,
the Infante Don Luis, who was living in semi-exile
about 120 miles west of Madrid.
Goya took his time building a relationship
from these prospective patrons, and indeed was invited to paint
the portraits of the Infante's young family.
This is the Family of the Infante Don Luis.
Don Luis was living in exile at the time,
he had misbehaved at court.
He had a real liking for young ladies,
and was caught literally in the act,
and it caused terrible scandal at court
and his elder brother Charles III was forced to tell him
that one, he had to marry, and two, live outside Madrid.
Goya spent two summers with the family
and he first did individual portraits of husband and wife
and the children, and it all culminated
in this amazing group portrait of the family and their servants.
And Goya has shown himself in the actual picture,
painting a large canvas, he's just drawn out the outlines.
And that canvas of course is the canvas we see today,
so there he is.
The main character is Don Luis, of course,
sitting, playing a game of solitaire almost absent-mindedly
as the action is going on around him.
And at centre stage is Maria Teresa, his young wife,
having her hair done by the court coiffeur, Santos Garcia.
And she's having her hair prepared
so she can have the headdress placed on her head,
which two of the maids are holding.
But the real mystery are these four men on the far right.
Who are they? We don't know.
Payrolls give us an indication of who was being employed
by Don Luis and Maria Teresa.
One of them might be the secretary to Don Luis.
I've got a new theory about this picture and it's about access,
it's about how a painter, because of his skills, his talent,
is able to enter the inner sanctum of a family.
And the same goes for the barber, the peluquero, for the hairdresser.
And of course, the barber today is still the person who knows
what's going on, and one wonders if he's sort of equating himself
or comparing himself to a court barber as a court painter.
That's just a little theory.
Very sadly, Don Luis dies a year after this picture
and with him dies his first royal patron.
Goya was very ambitious, and in some of the earlier portraits,
he often inserts himself in.
That follows the tradition of earlier painters.
His first major commission for the Infante Don Luis,
he inserts himself at an easel in the corner.
Of course, he is referring back to Velazquez's Las Meninas.
He's making connections.
I think in his later works, when he was more established as an artist,
he was certainly more confident and would do more.
There would be less trying to ingratiate yourself
with your audience, I think.
There's more confidence in being able to do what he wanted to do.
There was always this adherence to nature, to truth,
and that really stayed with him throughout his life.
GOYA: I have now established an enviable way of living.
I do not wait on anyone in antechambers,
and if anyone wants anything from me they must come to me.
I have made myself more in demand
and unless it is some person of rank or a friend,
I do not work for anyone.
And to the extent that I have made myself so in demand,
they don't stop coming to me.
And they still don't.
I don't know how I shall be able to cope,
for it is so unexpected that you can hardly imagine it.
Goya's popularity as a portrait painter grew rapidly
during the mid 1780s.
He was commissioned to paint the founding directors
of the National Bank of San Carlos, now the Bank of Spain.
This was a new institution supported by enlightened thinkers in Spain
including Goya himself.
The Count of Altamira was one of the directors
and the success of this beautifully-rendered portrait
led to further commissions for Goya to paint his wife and children.
Goya's portraits of these influential people
demonstrated his free brushwork and naturalistic observation
and clearly shows the influence of Velazquez.
With revolution sweeping across neighbouring France,
King Charles III focused on home-grown talent
and offered Goya a permanent, salaried position
within the court itself.
In 1785, his fortune further increased and he was appointed
Deputy Director of the Royal Academy of Fine Art of San Fernando.
Goya's list of influential patrons expanded.
His modern approach to portraiture appealed to a Spanish nobility
wishing to associate itself with the developing European enlightenment.
He was asked by these very wonderful patrons -
the Duke of Osuna, who had just received his Dukedom,
his wife,
the extraordinarily enlightened, advanced, intellectual lady
the Condesa Duquesa de Benavente,
and the children that had survived miscarriages and early deaths -
which was of course a given in those days -
and he was asked to produce a family portrait.
This was to be a life-size, enormously complex,
but very in a way simple because this was an enlightened family.
The mother puts her arm around the little ones' shoulders
and they have these lovely fluffy dogs,
which appear in all of Goya's portraits
of the aristocracy at this time. Pet dogs were much in favour.
And if you look at the details of the Countess,
the Duchess's dress, it is absolutely exquisite.
I mean, it looks like a very simple construct of white muslin,
but if you look at the way the edges are cut and bordered,
it's a miracle of dress making and must have cost a fortune.
This portrait somehow floats the notion of aristocracy
as way up there in the clouds.
Wasp waists, exquisite dress, perfect outlines,
not a hair out of place.
And she's wearing this remarkable stomacher with enamelled buttons.
Every detail of the costume is exquisitely painted
and the brushwork on this picture is astonishing
when you hone in on the details.
It's also unlined, it's in almost perfect condition,
so it's one of the very rare opportunities
to see a work by Goya almost as he painted it.
This painting is a portrait of Therese Louise de Sureda
and I'm in the process of in-painting some of the losses.
He painted very quickly and loosely, it's beautiful to see.
He prepared his canvas with an orange ground
and you can actually see the ground poking through in certain areas.
Sometimes with just glazes over it, such as in the chair.
He painted with a very transparent paint
and allowed the ground to show through and create the wood grain.
So you can see that the shape of her hair
makes an upside down heart,
and we're not sure if she wore her hair that way
or if Goya just did that as a little bit of fun.
She was French and you can see she has a little bit of haughtiness,
a little bit of French-ness about her. It's pretty incredible.
The unrest caused by the French Revolution
and the death of Charles III at the end of 1788
brought forth a period of nervousness
in the Spanish halls of power.
But the new king, Charles IV, who ascended to the throne
accompanied by his wife Maria Luisa,
made clear his commitment to the Bourbon dynasty.
As a court employee, Goya remained faithful to the royal cause,
despite connections to those suspected of plotting
against the monarchy.
Goya was asked to swear an oath of allegiance to the king
and, having done so,
was soon appointed to the position of Court Painter.
As such, he was assigned to execute portraits of the Royal family
that were to hang in grand residencies
such as the Royal Palace.
What's important to understand is that portraiture at the time,
particularly because of the French Revolution next door,
portraits had to be approachable,
they had to be in sync with the people.
And I think that's why particularly the Royal portraits
had to be as they are,
they're meant to be king and queen as human beings,
people you could meet and have sessions.
We know the King received people at his lunch.
And I think we over-interpret these portraits,
we might think that he was mocking them, but not in the least,
he was very respectful of the Spanish monarchy.
He was a royalist, he believed in the Royal Spanish monarchy
and he was their servant.
GOYA: I cannot do more than I am doing at present.
My situation is very different to what I may think,
because I spend a lot, because I chose to and because I like to.
Also, I happen to be a man who is known by everyone
from the King down, and I am not able to compromise
my nature or talent, as some others may.
In 1793, Goya, feeling fatigued and unwell,
decided to travel to Seville and Cadiz to rest and recover.
It is not known what caused Goya's illness
but its severity left him close to death
and rendered him totally deaf.
The deafness was an extraordinary event.
People continue to wonder what happened to him,
and whether it really was lead poisoning,
given the amount of lead white that he was using in his pictures,
like all artists.
They were all despairing of his death,
and they were all exchanging letters about his condition,
which was grave, extremely grave.
He remained stone deaf for the rest of his life,
and this is a man who loved music, who loved conversation,
who was incredibly gregarious and outgoing.
It enabled him, I think, to start painting and drawing for himself,
perhaps for the very first time, completely freely,
which was a turning point in his career.
It also enabled him to, in a way, stand up for himself
as an independent artist.
Rebellion in France started to spill into Spain.
Liberal-minded sympathisers were threatened with repressive laws
policed by the Holy Office of the Inquisition,
and many of Goya's associates come under scrutiny.
Although still employed by the court,
Goya enjoyed the freedom offered by private patronage
and was encouraged by enlightened friends,
such as the intellectual Gaspar Melchor Jovellanos
and the poet Juan Melendez Valdas, to explore his newfound expression.
But one patron above all seemed to have an enormous impact on his work
and became one of his closest supporters - the Duchess of Alba.
GOYA: It would have been worth your while
to have come and helped me paint La Alba,
who barged into my studio yesterday to have her face painted,
and it is now done.
I definitely prefer this to painting on canvas,
and now I also have to do her in full-length.
This is the Duchess of Alba, one of Goya's most iconic portraits.
She was THE leading aristocrat of the time.
She inherited, at the age of 12, the Duchy of Alba,
one of the wealthiest Duchies in Spain.
She inherited a great collection of paintings,
including the Venus by Velazquez but she was also very capricious,
quite difficult, quite cheeky, quite eccentric.
She, at the same time, was extremely beautiful,
and a French visitor, when he came to Spain and met her,
said, "every single hair on her head awakens desire."
Goya saw her as a muse
and I think she allowed him to come into the palace,
look at her pictures,
but also possibly even set up a studio.
And he spent quite a lot of time with her down in the south of Spain,
in a place called Sanlucar de Barrameda,
which is very likely where she is standing.
You can see the great river Guadalquivir coming out.
This is the great estuary in Southern Spain,
and one of her great sort of lands and dominions.
But this picture is the result, I think,
of a relationship that, of course, has created a lot of discussion,
mainly because of the inscription below
that she apparently has inscribed herself,
either with her foot or her finger.
She's pointing at it and it says: 'Solo Goya.' Only Goya.
And then she has two rings, one says 'Alba' and the other one 'Goya'.
And, of course, particularly in the 19th century,
the myth began that they were lovers,
that they had this very furious and tempestuous relationship.
What is really intriguing is the fact
that Goya may not have ever delivered this portrait.
It's first recorded in his own house, in his inventory, in 1812,
and one wonders, did he paint it for himself,
for his own satisfaction,
or perhaps to have her living with him in his own home?
So Goya, I think,
found in her a perfect subject
for a lot of his art, which was based on invention and originality.
WOMAN NARRATOR: In 1793, Spain declared war on France,
but was defeated
and was forced to make an alliance with the new Republic.
Spain, ruptured by the hypocrisy and corruption
of both church and state, had to change.
A period of liberalisation ensued,
during which time Goya was appointed
Director of the Royal Academy of Fine Art
and promoted under Charles IV
from Court Painter to First Court Painter -
the highest position an artist could achieve.
The patronage of Charles IV and his wife, Maria Luisa,
led to a series of important commissions for Goya,
that included the painting of frescoes
for the Hermitage of San Antonia de la Florida
on the outskirts of Madrid.
These were energetic and dynamic renderings
of people gathered to listen to Saint Anthony of Padua.
In 1799, he was commissioned to paint a group portrait
of the family of Charles IV.
It became one of Goya's most celebrated and enigmatic works,
and a prized possession of Madrid's Prado Museum.
MAN: The Prado has this responsibility
of looking after Goya's work from beginning to end,
so it is the place to go to if you want to understand Goya.
With the portraits I had to be very careful not to over-ask.
Also aware that some pictures just do not leave the Prado,
such as the large painting of the family of Charles IV,
which is like Las Meninas by Velazquez.
It's one of those sacred paintings
that you have to go to the Prado to see. It just won't move.
WOMAN: It was a royal commission in 1800, that was related to France,
because there was a new ambassador of France,
new relations with Napoleon,
who actually wanted to marry the young one there.
And, in our opinion, this painting was a very political painting
to be established in the Royal Palace
in order to be seen by the ambassadors,
by everybody who came to visit the King.
The establishment of the Bourbons as a legal monarchy of Spain,
which is established not only by Hercules,
but also by the similarity of this painting
with Las Meninas of Velazquez,
which is also a political painting that establishes the crown
and the power of the King through the little infanta.
So here is almost the same idea
with the Velazquez painting
and the Goya painting.
So, visually, in the court, that was the same thing.
I've written once that he's probably
one of the very few portrait painters...
..that when he looks at the person in front of him
and has to make a portrait of him, he doesn't see the clothes.
He sees them naked, completely naked.
You see that there is no frontier between the dress,
whatever the dress is, and the person.
And it's very difficult to get that in any other artist.
Even in Rembrandt, you see the person, their face, their hands,
and then their clothes,
but it's difficult to imagine how that person was. Not with Goya.
In every portrait, in every one, you see the naked figure.
WOMAN 2: I suppose that when Goya is asked to paint a portrait,
whether it's of a minister of state, or the King,
or simply a close friend, one of his great advantages, I think,
was that he could see people in the round, he could see and understand
and sympathise with their character.
But he really had an extraordinary grasp,
a psychological grasp of personality.
And he was also incredibly attentive to body language.
WOMAN NARRATOR: The beginning of the 19th century
brought further disruption to Spain, and the ageing Goya.
Napoleon Bonaparte, ruler of France, declared war on Great Britain.
He decided to invade Spain in 1808
in an effort to control European relationships with the British.
This caused major civil unrest,
and, indeed, the abdication of Charles IV
in favour of his son, Ferdinand VII.
Napoleon's troops entered Madrid
and supressed an uprising with cruel efficiency,
which was later immortalised in two major paintings by Goya,
commissioned at the end of the French occupation in 1814.
With Spain now under French rule,
and with Napoleon's brother, Joseph, declared King,
Spain suffered through a bloody 'guerrilla' war
against its new masters, that lasted for six years.
During this period, Goya recorded scenes of cruelty and oppression
in another major set of etchings and aquatints
called 'The Disasters of War'.
Madrid was finally liberated by British troops,
led by the Duke of Wellington.
Ferdinand VII thus was restored to the Spanish throne
and Goya continued with his duties as First Court Painter.
WOMAN: Goya's position as the Royal portrait painter
and painter of the aristocracy and so on,
gave him access to people who were in power,
the wealthy aristocratic classes,
but in a way, it also made him vulnerable,
particularly in this period of political change,
because one minute he was painter to the king
and then, after the Napoleonic invasion,
he was painter to Joseph Bonaparte.
Then when the Bourbon king returned, Ferdinand VII,
he was still painter to the King.
And in a way, he was in a unique position,
because it gave him access to the powers that be,
whether under French or Spanish rule,
but it also made him very vulnerable,
because he could have been seen to associate
with one camp as opposed to another.
In fact, I find his portraits not particularly political.
I mean, he had to adapt to change,
he also had to survive as a painter. It was his role.
He doesn't seem to take a political stance in his portraits,
and if he does so, he does so very subtly.
I wouldn't describe Goya as a realistic painter.
I would describe him much more as a truthful painter
or a naturalistic painter, because he paints nature,
he paints what is in front of him,
but he captures the essence of what's in front of him.
He doesn't paint a frown line where you see a frown line.
He captures the mood and,
everyone says, a psychological intensity of his sitters,
but they are a sort of window into these sitters.
If we take the portrait of the Duke of Wellington, for example,
we know Wellington sat to Goya in August 1812
when Wellington entered Madrid victorious.
And it's thought that the National Gallery portrait
may have been done as a live sitting in front of the Duke.
And whether it was done then and there,
or it was done later from a drawing,
it does have a sort of immediacy
that certainly would make one think
that it was done in front of the live model.
You know, as a kind of military hero.
But Goya doesn't paint a military hero.
I mean, he's a hero with all his medals,
but it's all about the face, and he looks very gaunt,
he looks like he's just walked off the battlefield, which he had,
and what Goya captures is, really, the human side of Wellington,
and that's something you don't see in any other portraits of him.
And in a way, it's because
there's a greater piece of Goya in this picture
in a way, than Wellington.
I think Goya really puts himself into his portraits.
WOMAN NARRATOR: As Goya grew older and official commissions decreased,
he turned to his family and friends as subjects for his portrait work.
Goya's wife, Josefa Bayeu, had suffered many miscarriages
and given birth to six children
of which only their son, Javier, survived to adulthood.
With the restoration of Ferdinand VII to the throne,
Spain went through another period of reprisals,
in which suspected French sympathisers
were investigated by the Holy office.
Goya, too, was questioned about the decency of his Naked Maja painting,
privately commissioned by the former Prime Minister Manuel Godoy,
now in exile.
Goya was cleared of the charges and continued with his court duties,
but things had changed.
He decided to buy a house outside of Madrid as a retreat.
The house had a name -
Quinta del Sordo 'House of the Deaf Man'.
MAN: And then he fell terribly ill toward the end of 1819,
and that's when he paints afterwards that wonderful portrait of himself
being held up by his doctor, Arrieta,
a sort of ex-voto, an offering to his doctor,
basically thanking him for saving him.
And 1820 to 1823 is that critical moment
when he does what appears to be his 'black' paintings,
his so-called black paintings for that house.
Goya's near-death experience in 1819, I'm sure,
had a tremendous effect on him personally.
And that Quinta del Sordo, that house,
is likely to have been an open canvas for him
to literally put down all the visions,
the sort of reflections of contemporary Spain,
of people, and how they behaved and witches Sabbaths.
Maybe it's his way of exorcising himself,
getting it out, expressing it.
And you could see it as a personal statement.
Unfortunately we have no idea why he painted them, who were they for,
whether he meant that they were to be seen or not.
All we know is he transfers all the legal rights to that house
to his grandson,
and that he leaves for Bordeaux in 1824
with a completely new lease of life.
He describes himself as the old Titian, full of creativity,
and indeed, the last four years,
he produces some of his greatest portraits,
some of his most fantastic lithographs,
a great series of drawings.
He's full of invention right until the end.
WOMAN NARRATOR: Goya resigned his post as first court painter
and decided to spend the last years of his life
in self-imposed exile in France,
supported by his companion, Leocadia Weiss, and her daughter, Rosario.
On the 16th of April, 1828, in Bordeaux,
Goya suffered a paralysing stroke and died.
MAN: Goya is, of course, well known
for those very dramatic scenes of The Disasters of War
or the acerbic wit of the Caprichos and so on,
so an artist who stands apart from his society.
And he certainly is that.
But he's also much more.
I mean, in that sense, Goya really is a very large character,
he's larger than life, he's interested in everything,
so an artist who is extraordinarily complex, he's a big, big figure.
And his painting is very, very varied,
so you have those big religious pictures,
you have big tapestry cartoons
that he's painting for the royal palaces in Madrid,
he's also painted these tiny miniature portraits of people
in his close circle.
He's painting these astonishing dark, moody, frightening visions,
nightmarish visions, for his own house,
so he's really a very big artist, extraordinarily complex.
He's a sort of universe in himself.
MAN'S VOICE: "It is very difficult to imitate nature,
"and a successful imitation is worthy of admiration.
"He who departs entirely from nature will surely merit high esteem,
"since he has to put before the eyes of the public forms and poses
"which have only existed previously in the darkness and confusion
"of an irrational mind,
"or one which is beset
"by uncontrolled passion."
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