The Naked Maja

Francisco de Goya, best known for his “The Naked Maja” and the “The Clothed Maja”, was the one of the greatest painters of all time. He was born in 1746 in Fuendetodos, a small village in western Spain. His beginnings as an artist were very slow. But soon the genius showed his capabilities as an artist. The first major breakthrough came when he was elected a member of the most reputed Madrid Academy. After Charles IV was crowned in 1789, goya became one of his court painters. It was a period of political unrest in Spain, chiefly due to the French invasion of Spain.Goya recorded the horror of the Napoleonic invasion in some of his famous paintings.The most famous painting of Goya are “The Naked Maja” and the “The Clothed Maja”. Like the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci, these two paintings are the source of one of the most popular legends in the history of art. Most of the critics believes that these two paintings are of the widowed Duchess of Alba, a rich and powerful woman with whom Goya was on particularly close terms. This woman, who was 16 years younger than Goya, was famous for her capricious nature. Her late husband had been Goya’s patron. After his death, she retired with the artist to her estate in Andalusia. Here it has been supposed that, the Duchess of Alba posed for the erotic painting “The Naked Maja” (1800). The other painting “The Clothed Maja”, painted three years before (1797) the first one, also hints at the fact that Goya had a very close relationship with this woman.But Goya was not a relentless womanizer or a manic depressive as some of his critics view. Although he is best known for his “The Naked Maja” and the “The Clothed Maja”, and also for the pictures depicting the horror of the Napoleonic invasion, they do not fully reflect his character. Some other prominent works of Goya include Portrait of Mariana Waldstein, The Incantatio,Dona Teresa Sureda,The Colossus,Group on a Balcony.