Goya

HARIN COUNTY G $5.95 GOYA 70101 o CM By Enriqueta The greatness of Harris Goya is sf: . Saragossa, would be means th so mistrustful of "I my is m sil th<> a to ing In merit'. which occupied him more than still in situ, in Madrid*. The invitation, he wrot who have been several sketches for his painting, result, to prov Goya year. he I a conventional pyramidal composition, today chiefly interesting for the self-portrait which he introduced among the heads of the spectators. For Goya, it represented a personal triumph as well as astepping same correspondent, Martin Zapater, 'I have been fortunate in the opinion of intelligent people and of the public at large since they are all for me, without any dissentient voice. I do not yet know what result will come from above: we shall see when the King returns to Madrid.' The King's opinion must have been favourable, for, a year after the paintings were first shown to the public - that is in 1 785 - Goya was appointed Deputy Director of Painting in the Academy. In 1786 his desire to be made Painter to the King was at last realized. Goya was now launched as a fashionable court painter and entered upon the most productive and successful period of his life. 'I had established for myself an enviable way of life,' he wrote to Zapater in 1786, 'no longer dancing attendance on anyone. Those who wanted something of me sought me out. I made myself wanted more, and if it was not someone very grand or recommended by some friend I did not work for anyone, and just because I made myself so indispensable they did not (and still do not) This was leave me alone so that I do not know how I am to carry out everything wanted appears to have to sit was anyone to Anyone who Goya: empty boast. no the royal family, the aristocracy and court officials. In 1783, he painted the portrait of the chief minister of state, the Conde de Floridablanca, in which he himself appears. In the stone in his career. 'Certainly', he wrote to the . . same year he painted the family portrait of the Infante Don . . . .' Luis, the King's brother, with himself again in the picture, and in the following year the court architect, Ventura Rodriguez. In 1785, he was commissioned for a series of portraits of officers of the Banco Nacional de San Carlos. In these early official portraits, Goya adopted conventional 18th-century poses, and only slightly modified the polished finish of Mengs. His portraits of society ladies in outdoor settings recall contemporary English portraits as well as his own tapestry cartoons. In such portraits as that of the Pontejos (National Gallery, Washington), the stiff elegance of the figure Marquesa de and the fluent painting of the elaborate costume reflect his study of Velazquez's Infantas. His portrait of Charles III in hunting costume is based directly on Velazquez's royal huntsmen. Among Goya's early admirers and most important patrons during a period of twenty years were the Duke and Duchess of Osuna, who not only commissioned portraits of themselves and a family group, but also a number of paintings to decorate their country residence near Madrid, the Alameda Palace, known paintings are similar in character to the tapestry cartoons and as ElCapricho. These close in style to the