Written by One Kriviciute
Prado Museum is one of Spain most important art museums. When the doors of the Prado Museum were opened in the 20th century, a variety of masterpieces from royal collections were on display, from Diego Velázquez to El Greco. At the moment Prado Museum holds a collection of around 2800 Spanish paintings on display. One of the most famous surnames on display at the Prado Museum was Francisco de Goya. This twentieth- century Spanish painter, Francisco de Goya, has been on display at the Prado Museum, from the museum’s opening to the present day.
Since the museum is filled with the Spanish royal collection, it is not surprising that Prado Museum glows with the works of the Goya. Since his early works Goya has been constantly working with royal portraits, until he finally became the court painter for King Charles IV. One of his most famous works is Charles IV of Spain and His Family. This masterpiece is filled with life-size portraits of King Charles IV of Spain and the Spanish Empire and portraits of his family members. Charles IV, his wife, children, and other relatives are shown dressed in stunning clothes filled with jewellery. In the left corner of the painting, the artist also leaves his self-portrait as if he belonged to the royal family, and this is partly true because he was a permanent painter of the royal family.
Although Goya reached heights in the royal world as the painter of the Spanish aristocracy portraits, painting portraits of the king and the queen, the Spanish Prime Minister, and other members of the nobility, however, in his later works, not only the stroke of his painting changed, but also the very essence of his works. Following the chronology of Francisco Goya’s works, it is not difficult to see how they changed over time. Goya’s paintings change from playful, light, and elegant, comparable to the Rococo style, but because of an unknown illness that left Goya deaf, his creativity turned to the other side, this disease was a dark turning point in his life and art, he turned to the real dark world outside the palace and changed his art from bright heaviness to dark world. Goya’s dark period of painting turns to Enlightenment’s dark side when he turns to the history of Europe at that time in his works. In the works of that time, he turned to the real world, a world that was tortured and then reminded of terrible nightmares, a world with brutality, torture, and murder. Goya changes the styling and theme of his paintings, from the life of a luxurious palace to a
world devastated by horrors. The abundance of his work travels from classical portraits reminiscent of a Renaissance school of art to the beginnings of modernist art. From exquisite beauty to dark works of art, Goya travels from light to dark in his creative journey. Therefore, Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and one the first of the Modern artists.
One of the most impressive masterpieces which perfectly reveals the darker stage of Goya’s creativity is a painting completed in 1814, The Third of May 1808. In 1807 Napoleon invaded Spain, and the terrible massacre began. Goya was overwhelmed by events, which was, of course, reflected in his work. The scene that is depicted in The Third of May 1808 is showing Spanish resistance to the invasion of Napoleon’s troops. The painting consists of two parts, half of the painting shows the Spanish who are the victims, and the other half shows French troops who are the aggressors. In the painting, light fights with darkness. This is reflected in the white shirt of the frontman, who looks like a white peace dove in the darkness of war, quite the opposite of dark-clad French soldiers. The French soldiers are not only dressed in dark, but their darkness is also hidden in their invisible faces, unlike the Spanish with faces of fright. The Third of May 1808 painting is alive in its cruelty. The Spanish fright creates an intimate connection to the feeling of the picture. The emotion in this artwork is so real that you can even hear the atmosphere of the place in the painting. By looking at it the screams, threats, fear, courage, flowing blood, and shots, can be heard. The Third of May 1808 is perhaps one of the first modern revolutionary paintings. Even though war and revolution as a theme of paintings have been for centuries, but particularly this painting changed the classical style of how war should be portrayed.
Goya’s painting The Third of May 1808, is a revelatory depiction of war, resistance, and brutality. In this artwork, war is not portrayed as a theatrical scene as it used to be shown in the older paintings, which glorified war, in The Third of May 1808 real brutality of the war is shown. Goya changed the picture of war. Goya’s portrait of war creates a new contemporary take on war. He creates a new political masterpiece, which inspires the biggest artists of the 20th century, like Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and others who were seeking a new approach to portraying the horrors of war.
Goya is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Prado Museum currently exhibits more than 300 Goya masterpieces, as one of Spain’s most prominent artists.