Goya and the northern tradition

The subject of this thesis is the influence of Netherlandish and German painting and prints on the work of Francisco Goya y Lucientes through 1799. Numerous Northern sources available to Goya in the royal collections are documented. Goya's work begins to show stylistic and thematic derivations in his tapestry cartoons, influenced by David Teniers the Younger whose prints and paintings had traditionally served as models for the Royal Tapestry Works. This influence, complemented by late fifteenth and sixteenth century prints, is examined in The Picnic, The Brawl at the Venta Nueva and The Wedding. Popular Northern themes -- the Unequal Couple, the Power of Women, the Vices, the Senses -- are identified in Los Caprichos. Iconographie and/or formal models are suggested in the work of Teniers, Brueghel, Bosch and others. Finally, it is shown that Goya's artistic theory, tacitly accepting Northern art, was a rejection of that of his predecessor, Anton Raphael Mengs