The fact that Spanish art reflects the aspirations and is largely concerned with the representation of scenes selected by its chief patron, the Spanish Catholic Church, accounts, in some measure, for the lack of sympathy and appreciation with which it is regarded in this country, but this prejudice does not explain the neglect from which Goya has suffered. Goya, it is true, accepted commissions from the Church, but his religious subjects do not comprise a tenth of his canvases, and in his etchings and engravings he is seen only as a secular moralist. As the painter of the Spanish Rococo period, he dipped his brush in beauty, gaiety, and humour; as a portraitist he was vivid, surprising, audacious, a maker of masterpieces; while his etchings constitute an unrivalled commentary upon the spirit of the age, recorded by its ‘most fearless and advanced thinker.’ Goya’s art would appear to be the reflection of his life. His youth was disordered and tempestuous; in the height of his success he accepted favours, but he was too conscientious an artist to repay the adulation of the world by flattering it in his canvases; and he published his disillusions in the biting satire of his Caprices and Proverbs. The authorities I have consulted would make a formidable list, but among those to whom I am under special obligation I must mention the ‘Lives’ of Goya by the Conde de la Viñaza, Paul Lefort, Paul Lafond, W. Rothenstein, Richard Muther and Julius Hofmann; Valerian von Loga’s works on Goya’s etchings and engravings; Don Juan de la Rada’s chapter on ‘Goya’s Frescoes in the Church of San Antonio de la Florida;’ Muther’s appreciation of Goya in his _History of Modern Painting_; Stirling-Maxwell’s _Annals of the Artists of Spain_; Carl Justi’s ‘Sketch of Spanish Art’ in Baedeker’s _Spain and Portugal_; C. Gasquoine Hartley’s _Spanish Painting_; the _Boletin de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_; and Théophile Gautier’s brilliant study of Goya in his _Travels in Spain_. In making the collection of Goya’s works that is presented at the end of this volume, I have taken the line of least resistance and included reproductions of every picture, etching, or lithograph that I could acquire. However inadequate photography and ‘process’ may be to convey an impression of the original works, I have endeavoured to give English students an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the subjects and general nature of much of the output of Goya’s sixty years of artistic effort.