Francisco Goya
Yesterday is the birthday of not only Vincent van Gogh but also of another great artist, Francisco Goya whose self-portrait you can see on today's DailyArt. He was born exactly 270 years and one day ago. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Throughout his long career, he was also a social commentator and chronicler of his era. Immensely successful in his lifetime, Goya is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.
As court painter to both Charles III and Charles IV of Spain, Goya achieved considerable fame as a portraitist. Self-Portrait with Dr. Arrieta, the last of his many self-portraits, was completed late in his life. In 1819, Goya had fallen seriously ill and his doctor, Eugenio Garc’a Arrieta, nursed him back to health. On recovering, he presented Arrieta with this painting which shows the physician ministering to his patient. The words at the bottom read in translation, Goya gives thanks to his friend Arrieta for the expert care with which he saved his life from an acute and dangerous illness which he suffered at the close of the year 1819 when he was seventy-three years old. He painted it in 1820. This inscription gives the canvas the look of an ex-voto, a type of religious painting still popular in Spain that expresses gratitude for deliverance from a calamity.
March is finally about to end - see you tomorrow on April Fool’s Day! :]