El tío Paquete

El tío Paquete, painted around 1819–20 and now at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, depicts a blind beggar well known in the streets of Madrid, his sightless eyes and open, toothless mouth rendered in the thick, urgent impasto of Goya's late manner without sentimentality or condescension. The portrait of a street person — given the same direct attention and compositional dignity as any court sitter — reflects Goya's democratic impulse in portraiture, his conviction that a blind beggar's face was as worthy of serious pictorial attention as an aristocrat's. The dark palette and expressive handling connect this portrait to the Black Paintings he was beginning on the walls of the Quinta del Sordo at this same moment, suggesting a stylistic and emotional continuity between his public work and his private mural campaign. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, built on one of the great private art collections assembled by the Thyssen-Bornemisza family in the twentieth century, holds this Goya portrait alongside old masters spanning five centuries, where it stands as a bridge between the old master tradition and modern expressionism.

Goya renders the blind singer with startling directness, the broad brushwork capturing the character's distinctive features with a few decisive strokes. The dark background and the minimal palette focus attention entirely on the expressive face.