Goya

The greatest artist of the 18th century, Francisco de Goya began his career as an apprentice to a local artist where one of his jobs was adding draperies and modesty items to nude figures in religious paintings; for this he was title "Reviser of Indecent Paintings" But by the age of 40, Goya had established himself as a leading Spanish artist. Goya simultaneously pursued a number of disparate projects, commissions he received from prestigious churches and royalty, as well as producing several lengthy series of lithographs to express his dislike of numerous subjects, notably Spanish high society and war. Brushing against controversy on several occasions, Goya threaded the political needle of alternating French and Spanish rule in his home country of Spain as well as successfully navigated the choppy waters of the Spanish Inquisition when it questions the morality of La Maja Desnuda, one of his most famous paintings. Goya ended his years in France, fleeing the repressiveness of the Bourbon monarchy. Buried in Bordeaux, his remains were moved to Madrid in 1901 and reburied under the frescoes he painted over a hundred years before in the royal Chapel of San Antonio de Florida.