“Great Artists” - a collection about outstanding masters of painting. The book series contains more than 50 illustrations, an “exquisitely written” biography of the artist and the history of the creation of the paintings. The album is dedicated to the work of Goya.

The name of the great Spanish artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) is associated with the development of modern art. His work had a huge impact on world culture of the 19th-20th centuries, not only in painting and graphics, but also in literature, drama, theater and cinema. Shining bright colors in painting and dramatic effects of chiaroscuro in graphics influenced the development of impressionism in France, especially Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir. Goya developed into a major artist relatively late. His first significant success came from two series (1776-1791) numerous panels created for the Royal Manufactory of Santa Barbara in Madrid. The artist enriched this essentially decorative painting, which depicted street scenes, celebrations, walks, and games of urban youth, with new compositions, enlargement of figures, and a direct sense of national life, which he perceived as if from within (“Breakfast on the Bank of Manzanares,” “Umbrella,” “ Maha and her fans", "The Blind Guitarist", "The Game of Blind Man's Bluff" and many others). Since the 1780s, Goya has become a famous portrait painter, but his commissioned works still largely reflect his dependence on Velázquez (“Charles III on the Hunt”). The mental crisis he experienced in the late 1790s was aggravated by hearing loss as a result of a serious illness. The revealing power of his work is embodied in the famous graphic series “Caprichos” (“Whims”), which included Goya among the largest masters of world graphic art. Woven into the multi-layered string of “Caprichos” are echoes of the political caricature of the French Revolution, popular Spanish popular print, the demonology of the Middle Ages and the satirical traditions of Spanish literature of the “golden age”. Real life observations merge with the artist’s unbridled imagination. At the beginning of the 19th century, new trends emerged in Goya’s portraits, close to the artistic ideals of the era of romanticism. The people he depicts are distinguished by their energy, self-confidence, and are endowed with pronounced national traits (portraits of Count de Fernand Nunez, Marquise de San Adriana and the only work of the master in Russian collections - “Portrait of the Actress Antonia Zarate”, Hermitage). In pictures “Dressed Macha” and “Naked Macha” embody a type of sensual female beauty that is far from academic canons and is characteristic of Spanish women. A picturesque historical diptych depicting the tragedy of the Napoleonic invasion has gained worldwide fame: “The Uprising on Puerta del Sol on May 2, 1808” and “The Execution of the Madrid Rebels on the Night of May 3.” Goya's later work coincides with the years of reaction after the defeat of the two Spanish revolutions. He painted the walls of a country house in Madrid (“Quinta del Sordo” - “House of the Deaf”), creating 14 unique panels with a powerful artistic impact, full of allegories, allusions, and complex associations. The paintings are dominated by a devilish, unnatural principle, an ominous image appears as if in a nightmare, the set of colors is harsh, stingy, almost monochrome - black, white, reddish, ocher; the strokes are sweeping and swift. A graphic parallel to Kinta’s paintings is a series of etchings “Disparates” (“Proverbs”) with even more complex and dark symbolism. However, even in the paintings of the late period, he retains a sense of the unfading beauty of life (“Water-carrier”, “Funeral of the Sardine”, “Walk”, “The Milkmaid from Bordeaux”), and in “Self-Portrait with an Unbuttoned Collar” he appears full of creative will. Most of the artist's works are collected in the collection of the Prado Museum in Madrid.