HE was man full of freedom. He loved everything from the people of the streets to the gypsies,bullfighters and even young rowdies.He himself was like that. The man talked about is - Francisce Jose de Goya y Lucientes. He was born of a peasant family in 1746. He lived in a violent period of the European history.He was strong and robust.
At the age of 14 he was sent to town of Saragossa to study under an artist named Jose Luzan Martinez. He became involved in a riot and was forced to leave the town.He fled to Madrid. That time he was only 19. Somehow or the other he got mixed up in a brawl. It became furious and Goya had to flee with a knife through his back. He was friendly to bullfighters and some of them took him out of the city and to Rome.After 2 years he returned to Spain to take up painting again.At the age of 29 he married the sister of Francisco Bayeau,his friend.The couple moved to Madrid. Goya drew so well that he,his work were in great demand. At the age of 40 he became the President of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.He also became the court painter of King Charles IV. Goya did a series of etchings that time called 'The Caprices'in which fun was made of everything from the courtiers to the army and clergy.The pictures were savagely drawn,the Spanish Church wanted to quetion him.But King Charles IV protected Goya by saying that the paintings were drwan at his order and took over the etchings. At the time of the French revolution Goya did a series of etchings called 'The Disasters of War' which shows the sufferings of the civilians. He made the horror of war real. He spent his last years in Bordeaux. He continued to paint there broadly, boldly and often wildly, with any instrument that was near him. He died at the age of 83. Francisco Goya was a man whom nothing could stop, from painting the subjects he wanted to paint in the way he saw them.

Agnibha Sen
Std.6 E
Bhavan's Gangabux Kanoria Vidya Mandir
Kolkata, West Bengal

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