ABSTRACT
The advent of the Bourbon dynasty in 1700 resulted in a profound change in visual culture and artistic practices in Spain. The scope of these transformations were considered as a process of acculturation and this idea, revitalized in 1939, has prevailed in studies of Spanish eighteenth-century art and their rejection of the century for its ‘foreignness’ and their embracing of the main figure of Francisco de Goya as the unique Spanish genius of the period. In the following discussion, I will address two issues: historiography and Goya (his artistic training and practice, as well as his sociability).
