Stories from Goya’s World

From the critical to the fantastical, Goya presented a vision of humanity that still resonates with us today. In his depictions of gender relationships, the abuse of power, and social injustice, Goya explores universal aspects of human nature. Through his unique imagination and satirical wit, he challenges us to think critically and independently, to empathise, and to act with a social conscience.

The Spanish artist was the most celebrated painter in late eighteenth-century Spain, known for his portraits and religious paintings. Yet he also made hundreds of drawings in which he recorded his private observations, thoughts, and dreams.

Goya was an obsessive observer, a habit that became more pronounced after he suffered a severe illness that left him profoundly deaf. After his recovery, Goya turned to drawing to record his humorous and critical observations. Unlike his paintings, these works were uncommissioned, which gave Goya the freedom to express his personal views. Los Caprichos (The Follies) was Goya’s first series of etchings and opens with a self-portrait of the artist, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Painter. Here, Goya presents himself in fashionable French-inspired dress, wearing the recently invented top hat. His attitude and attire are those of a modern flâneur. Casting a sideways glance, Goya observes the world around him from a critical distance.

From the critical to the fantastical, Goya presented a vision of humanity that still resonates with us today. In his depictions of gender relationships, the abuse of power, and social injustice, Goya explores universal aspects of human nature. Through his unique imagination and satirical wit, he challenges us to think critically and independently, to empathise, and to act with a social conscience.

The Spanish artist was the most celebrated painter in late eighteenth-century Spain, known for his portraits and religious paintings. Yet he also made hundreds of drawings in which he recorded his private observations, thoughts, and dreams.

Goya was an obsessive observer, a habit that became more pronounced after he suffered a severe illness that left him profoundly deaf. After his recovery, Goya turned to drawing to record his humorous and critical observations. Unlike his paintings, these works were uncommissioned, which gave Goya the freedom to express his personal views. Los Caprichos (The Follies) was Goya’s first series of etchings and opens with a self-portrait of the artist, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Painter. Here, Goya presents himself in fashionable French-inspired dress, wearing the recently invented top hat. His attitude and attire are those of a modern flâneur. Casting a sideways glance, Goya observes the world around him from a critical distance.

In early satirical works such as The old women laugh themselves sick because they know he hasn’t a bean, he observes the trickery and deception at play in courtship rituals. Here a fashionable man flirts with a young woman, whose attire suggests she is middle class, yet her open fan and outstretched foot signal she is a sex worker. The young man seems to mistake the woman’s attentive behaviour as innocent flirtation, while she is unaware that her suitor is poor. The title reveals that the two women in the background can see through the masquerade, and are implicated – as the final print reveals, one of them is a procuress. Throughout his social satires, we see Goya’s comments on social inequality, ignorance, superstition, and vanity.

In Neither more nor less, an ape paints the portrait of a donkey in a robe and wig that hides his large ears, concealing his true animal character. The inscription on the plinth ‘You will not die of hunger’ describes the sycophantic painter who makes flattering and deceptive portraits of his sitters in order to make a living. Goya clearly disapproved of such a compromise of artistic integrity. As the most famous portrait painter in Madrid in the late eighteenth century, he was well known for sensitive and honest portrayals of his sitters.

Goya’s most famous print is The sleep of reason produces monsters. Here we see an artist asleep at his desk while nocturnal bats and owls surround him. The etching, widely accepted as a self-portrait, has become an iconic image of the modern artist whose creativity is a balancing act between reason and the power of his imagination. The monsters produced by the sleep of reason appear throughout Goya’s drawings and prints.

Goya frequently depicted animals and predatory creatures in political allegories. In The consequences, a blood-sucking vulture with the features of Pope Pius VII is shown. The work can also be understood more generally as a scathing satire of the church and its complicity in Spain’s repressive government. It sits within the final part of Goya’s series The Disasters of War, which criticises the church’s support in the political repression that followed the reinstatement of Ferdinand VII as king in 1814.

Goya was fascinated with dreams, nightmares, and visions. The crayon drawings he made in Bordeaux, where he spent the last four years of his life in self-imposed exile, include numerous fantastical images. Phantom dancing with castanets is a carnivalesque figure who appears to be dressed in monk’s robes. His leering expression and carefree dance suggest a life of pleasure and disorder within the church. The image is amusing, absurd, and disturbing all at once. It is a characteristically ‘Goyesque’ vision.