Francisco Goya

Francisco Goya began with sunny tapestry designs of picnics and fairs for the Spanish royal workshop, then became a sharp court portraitist. After illness left him deaf in the 1790s, his etchings Los Caprichos and The Disasters of War turned to satire and horror. Finally, in the Black Paintings he painted straight onto the walls of his house around 1820, he reached a dark, rough style that looks a century ahead of its time.