Illustrations, Goya's own words and an informative text create a portrait of this visionary artist who chronicled the Spain of his day with a keen insight and a critical eye.From his early years as an aspiring painter producing religious frescoes and designing light-hearted tapestry cartoons for the royal court, Goya became an increasingly cynical and mordant critic of the prevailing social mores the older he became. He maintained a precarious balance between his official status as court painter and the subversive content of his works, while at the same time paving the way towards modernism."The world is a masquerade. Face, dress and voice, all are false. All wish to appear what they are not. All deceive," reads the caption to one of the etchings in Goya's famous Caprichos cycle that reveals not only the vanity of humankind, but also the arbitrary wielding of power by the monarchy and aristocracy. Yet beauty, too, has its place in Goya's oeuvre, from his Naked Maya, arguably the most famous Spanish woman of all time, to his seductive portraits of the capricious Duchess of Alba, whose fickleness he was to experience at first hand when he became her lover.This book conveys more than the fascination of Goya the artist. Above all, it portrays an individual whose chequered life in turbulent times still has the power to grasp our imagination. Read Less