Top 18 Quotes & Sayings by Francisco Goya

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Spanish artist Francisco Goya.

Last updated on September 19, 2024.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.

Spanish - Artist | March 30, 1746 - April 16, 1828

Source: Wikipedia

I will give a proof to demonstrate with facts that there are no rules in painting and that oppression or servile obligation of making all study or follow the same path is a great impediment for the young who profess this very difficult art.

Francisco Goya

I have just returned from Arenas and feel very tired. His Excellency loaded me with a thousand honours; I have painted his portrait and that of his wife and boy and girl with unexpected success, for other artists had been there previously and not been successful.

Francisco Goya

Painting (like poetry) chooses from universals what is most apposite. It brings together, in a single imaginary being, circumstances and characteristics which occur in nature in many different persons.

Francisco Goya

Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.

Francisco Goya

With all my work, I have not more, with my shares in the bank and the Academy, than twelve or thirteen thousand reales a year, and with all this, I am as contented as the happiest man on earth.

Francisco Goya

In art, there is no need for color; I see only light and shade. Give me a crayon, and I will paint your portrait.

Francisco Goya

I have now established myself in a most enviable manner. Those who require something of me must seek me out - I remain apart. I work for no one unless he is a high-ranking personality or a friend.

Francisco Goya

I am beginning to have more powerful enemies and more envious ones, too.

Francisco Goya

I see only forms that are lit up and forms that are not. There is only light and shadow.

Francisco Goya

Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters

Francisco Goya

The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.

Francisco Goya

But where do they find these lines in nature? I can only see luminous or obscure masses, planes that advance or planes that recede, reliefs or background. My eye never catches lines or details.

Francisco Goya

The act of painting is about one heart telling another heart where he found salvation.

Francisco Goya

The dream of reason produces monsters

Francisco Goya

Painting, like poetry, selects in the universe whatever she deems most appropriate to her ends. She assembles in a single fantastic personage, circumstances and features which nature distributes among many individuals. From this combination, ingeniously composed, results that happy imitation by virtue of which the artist earns the title of inventor and not of servile copyist.

Francisco Goya

First be a magnificent artist and then you can do whatever, but the art must be first.

Francisco Goya

I have had three masters, Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt.

Francisco Goya