Francisco Goya stands at a turning point between Old Master painting and modern art. His work evolved from elegant court portraits to some of the darkest and most psychologically complex images in European art.

He trained in Zaragoza and Madrid before becoming a painter to the Spanish royal court. A serious illness in the 1790s left him deaf and marked a major shift in his life and work. Later, the violence of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain deepened his focus on suffering, power, and human cruelty.

Goya’s legacy is immense because his art refuses to fit into one simple category. It can be elegant, raw, precise, shadowed, political, and deeply human — often all at once.