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power during the last term only with the
support of the nationalists of C
ATALONIA
,
was abandoned by these allies in 1995 and
defeated in the parliamentary election that
he was thereby forced to hold in March
1996. Although he continued as leader of
the Socialist opposition for a time, criticiz-
ing his successor, the conservative J
OSÉ
M
ARÍA
A
ZNAR
, González, embittered and
increasingly weakened within the PSOE's
ranks, surrendered the leadership and by
2000 had essentially retired from politics.
intensely conservative. Goya lived in
France (chiefly in Bordeaux) for the
remainder of his life, artistically active until
the very end.
Goya was undoubtedly the greatest
Spanish artist to appear in the 100 years
following the death of V
ELÁZQUEZ
. During
the 18th century, critics generally agree,
Goya had few competitors and no peers. His
artistic output paralleled the fecundity of
such Spanish writers as L
OPE
DE
V
EGA
, P
ÉREZ
G
ALDÓS
, F
ERNÁNDEZ
Y
G
ONZÁLEZ
, and B
ENA
-
VENTE
, amounting to 700 paintings, 900
drawings, 300 prints, and two major mural
cycles. Among his most notable works were
unsparing portraits of the elite and more
sympathetic portrayals of humbler folk. His
drawings reveal a sometimes horrifying
realism, both in the early series known as
Los caprichos
(
Caprices,
1799), with their
harsh revelation of social vice, and
Los desas-
tres de la guerra
(
The Disasters of War,
1810-
20), in which the ghastly cruelties
perpetrated during the Franco-Spanish
conflict present humankind at its most
degraded. His most shocking work (not
known to the public until long after his
death) was contained in the so-called
Black
Paintings
of the 1820s, depicting an appall-
ing array of demonic figures.
While certain critics have interpreted
Goya largely in terms of his growing pessi-
mism and disgust with the ultimate vileness
of human nature, most have preferred to
interpret him without psychological analy-
sis and concentrate on his bold innovations
in art. He has been widely recognized as the
“father of modern art,” avowing his per-
sonal debt to Velázquez and Rembrandt but
leaving the classical tradition behind as he
plunged into brilliant experimentation that
was not fully understood until the late 19th
Goya y Lucientes, Francisco José
de
(1746-1828)
Spanish painter
The son of a gilder, he was committed at an
early age to a career in art. He studied
painting in Z
ARAGOZA
and later in M
ADRID
;
he also spent several years in Italy. His early
paintings were mostly commissioned by
the church, but he later passed into the ser-
vice of the Crown, rising to the rank of
principal painter to the royal court. An ill-
ness in the early 1790s left him deaf but
did not significantly affect his prolific out-
put of paintings and prints. After producing
portraits of C
HARLES
IV, his family, and his
courtiers he fell out of favor, due, perhaps,
to his liberal tendencies. During the French
occupation (1808-13) he served as court
painter to King J
OSEPH
I (Joseph Bonaparte).
Although he was not persecuted for his
service to the usurper, after the restoration
of F
ERDINAND
VII he was never entirely
trusted by that monarch and left Spain in
1824 when the regime became more
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