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| PC1970.84,
I,II,III
Francisco Goya Spanish (1746-1828) from
the series-
1797
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| Before 1792, Francisco Goya was a prolific
Spanish artist working as a court painter to the king in Madrid, surrounded
by intellectual friends and living a fairly comfortable life. He was born
in the northeast region of Spain, in a small town called Fuendetodos. At
the age of 13, he received his artistic training from a minor artist, José
Luzán y Martinez,1 but his talent was really
fostered by his study of the art of Velázquez and later Rembrandt.
In the year 1792, however, Goya's life and in consequence, his art, changed.
He was struck with an illness that made him extremely ill. After a temporary
paralysis and long recovery, he was left deaf. Many believe it was this
tragic event that left Goya with a strong sense of human suffering and
stupidity--an awareness that would be heightened by the time of war and
corruption that he lived in. Goya emerged from his illness at the end of
worldwide revolution. The American and French Revolutions had just occurred,
and the ideas of the Enlightenment were in the foreground.2
Spain, as the "Sick Man of Europe", was still encumbered with an
overly large noble class, an inept monarchy, and a very powerful and rich
class of clergy. The Spain that Goya saw was one of poverty and corruption,
and it was this Spain that led him to create his first large series of
prints, Los Caprichos. The idea for Los Caprichos first came in a series
of sketchbooks that Goya made around 1796 in Sanlúcar and Madrid.3
The themes progressively became more cynical with each book. In the images
he criticized the church, the state, women, and overall, human stupidity.
In 1797, he first arranged the etchings that he did after the drawings in his sketchbooks, in sequence and entitled, Sueños, which means "dreams".4 Sensing that the images he presented were too aggressive, he removed the most damaging prints, mixed up their order and published them under the name of Los Caprichos in 1799. That first edition was composed of eighty plates, and was divided into two sections, each with a self-portrait of Goya. He titled each print and included a commentary that most believe was composed by a friend.5 Caprichos was a common word of the time that referred to things of imagination, spontaneity, and creativity, and which are not bound by any restrictions. This would be an appropriate description of Goya's collection of satirizing prints. Often punchy and enigmatic to the viewer, each print in the collection presents its own puzzle. A. Hyatt Mayor has also said that capricho could refer to a goat, or capra, that instead of grazing safely on the grass in the valley, meanders carelessly on the cliffs above.6 Perhaps this is descriptive of the chances that Goya took with publishing this series of prints. He did indeed pull the prints from the press an extremely short time after it was advertized, apparently because the powers behind the Inquisition strongly disapproved of its message.7 In 1803, Goya gave the plates and the unsold copies of the book to the king in hopes of somehow preserving his work. "Volaverunt" was Number 61 in the original Caprichos. Wake Forest has three states of the print, differences are minor from one state to the next. The word was a common one in Spain, derived from Latin, that was used to "express goodhumoredly the total loss of something".8 In response to the image it refers to, it creates quite a unusual print. Goya himself described the print: "The group of witches who serve as a pedestal to this stylish fool is more of an ornament than a need. There are heads so swollen with inflammable gas that they can fly without being helped by a balloon or by witches." The "stylish fool" as many have recognized is the Duchess of Alba. A female companion to Goya earlier in his life, she ends their relationship on a less than cordial note. Goya has focused on her image, therefore, in order to represent the idea of women as inconstant and fickle.9 In flight with a horde of witches under her, she seems oblivious to the desires or needs of others, and also perhaps even unaware of her own.” 1. Sayre, 1974, 2. 2. Sayre, 54. 3. Seidel and Bihalj-Merin, 1981, 12.
4. Seidel and Bihalj-Merin, 12. 5. Seidel and Bihalj-Merin, 13. 6. Mayor,
1971, ?. 7. López-Rey, 1953, ix. 8. López-Rey, 151. 9. López-Rey,
151.
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