Goya by François Crastre — Read

Francisco Jose Goya was born at Fuendetodos, in the province of Aragon, on the 13th of March, 1746. His father, Jose Goya, and his mother, Gracia Lucientes, were humble peasants and lived upon the product of the sluggish fields that surrounded their modest home. What the childhood of Jose was, we do not know, for his biographers are silent upon this point. They content themselves with saying that he aided his parents in the daily round of tasks upon the farm. As to his education, it was certainly that of all the young peasant boys of the Spanish farming districts. The child must have acquired the first rudiments from the village priest, or perhaps from the monks of the nearest convent. Reading, writing, and a little arithmetic made up the whole equipment that young Jose possessed at the age of fifteen. How his taste for drawing was first born, what occurrence or what object awakened his artistic instinct, we do not know. Perhaps, like so many others, he became suddenly conscious of his vocation at the sight of some of those cruel and violent pictures representing scenes of the Passion, such as abound in Spanish churches, and it is not unlikely that his youthful soul received a profound and lasting impression.

THE WOMAN WITH THE FAN (Museum of the Louvre)