“In this authoritative and lucid biography, Janis Tomlinson brings her own compassionate insight into the personal paradoxes of this towering figure within a brilliant cast of supporting characters. Wallace, author of Michelangelo, God’s Architect
“The best book on Goya, a perennially fascinating yet startlingly modern old master.” Praise for Goya: A Portrait of the Artist As friends and acquaintances died or were forced into exile, as regimes changed, Goya endured, ceaselessly giving form to subjects never before imagined, in paintings, prints, and drawings and in formats ranging from monumental frescos to miniatures on ivory. Ever resilient, he suffered the deaths of six of seven children, the onset of deafness at the age of forty-six, and the invasion of Napoleonic forces that decimated his homeland. His faith in his own creativity, and his easy engagement with friends and patrons paved the road to his success at the royal court of Madrid. Goya’s story transcends what can be captured in exhibitions, and encompasses religious commissions, praised highly by his contemporaries but today lost, as well as portraits, small paintings, and drawings of which no trace remains. The figure who emerges overturns popular images of the artist as isolated and embittered by deafness, satirist of the court he served, or lover of the duchess of Alba. Interweaving the knowledge of her decades-long study of Goya with political and social history, recent discoveries, the lives of his contemporaries, correspondence, and chronicles and newspapers of his day, the author presents him within the complex fabric of his era. In Goya: A Portrait of the Artist, Janis Tomlinson restores the artist to his place within history.
Our familiarity with the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, through exhibitions, operas, plays, cinema, literature, and as the inspiration for artists from Édouard Manet to Leon Golub, might eclipse our understanding of him as a contemporary of Thomas Jefferson.
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