30 March: Francisco Goya

This date in 1746 saw the birth of Francisco Goya, Spanish painter. Here are 10 things you might not know about him.

1. His full name was Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes.
2. As a young man, he applied to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1763 and 1766, but without success, so he set off for Rome, then the cultural capital of Europe. All that’s known for sure about his time there is that he produced some paintings, although his early biographers paint some colourful tales, claiming that he travelled with a gang of bullfighters and worked as a street acrobat, and that he fell in love with a beautiful nun and plotted to abduct her from her convent.
3. As well as paintings, his work includes a set of 80 satirical prints called The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. They represent, in his own words, ‘the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance or self-interest have made usual.’ They weren’t on the market for long – Goya withdrew them for fear they would make him a target for the Spanish Inquisition. Should you have a full set in your attic, they’d fetch more than £1 million at auction.
4. He was the first artist to use a process of printing called aquatint. This involved using nitric acid to etch a plate and then add resin and varnish to produce shading. The plates would wear away after a time and so early prints were more valuable than later ones.
5. He was the first major artist to paint a female nude which wasn’t a figure from religion or mythology. It’s not known who the model was – it’s thought to be a composite of Pepita Tudó, the mistress of Manuel de Godoy, who commissioned the painting, and the Duchess of Alba, with whom Goya was said to be having an affair. There’s also a painting of the same woman in the same pose, but with clothes on. Both paintings were confiscated by the Spanish Inquisition in 1813.
6. He married Josefa Bayeu, “Pepa”, in 1771. She was the sister of his friend. They had seven children but only one, Xavier, survived to adulthood.
7. After his wife died, Goya lived with and was cared for by a maid called Leocadia Weiss. She was 35 years younger and may have resembled Josefa, so it was rumoured they were lovers and that the last of her three children was Goya’s.
8. Some of his later paintings were quite dark, possibly because he was ill with an undiagnosed condition which had made him deaf. (His home was known to locals as “The House of the Deaf Man”). The god Saturn biting off his son’s head is one example of his so-called Black Paintings. He painted them on the walls of his house rather than intending them to be seen by the public. 50 years after he died, however, they were transferred to canvas and put on show.
9. One theory about the nature of his illness is that it was Lead poisoning, since he often used lead White as a pigment and ground it himself.
10. He died in 1828, aged 82.

My Books 

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The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny.