Busacca Gallery

Plate 66 from 'Los Caprichos': There it goes (Allá vá eso.),1799 / Artist Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) Spanish / Date / Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) Spanish / Etching, aquatint and drypoint / Plate: 8 1/16 × 6 7/16 in. (20.5 × 16.4 cm) Sheet: 11 5/8 × 8 1/4 in. (29.5 × 21 cm). Witchcraft and Superstition in Goya's Los Caprichos 66 / Caprichos 66, D. 102, H. 100). Original etching and aquatint, c. 1798. A good impression from the sixth edition (230 impressions). There were about 610 impressions in the first five editions. Goya comments, "There goes a witch, riding on the little crippled devil. This poor devil, of whom everyone makes fun, is not without his uses at times." Image size: 215x150mm. Los Caprichos is an excellent example of an artist using their work to comment on and critique the morals of the world in which they live. Throughout these prints, Goya used the superstitions at the time to show that the real threat to society is not demons or witches but our own ignorance. The witches in Los Caprichos are identifiable by their old age and several symbols of evil and sin that are often pictured alongside them. They are in flight in many of the prints, often with a broom between their legs. Flying was seen as a symbol of lechery and sin. Similarly, cats, who have often been depicted as companions to witches, are a symbol of female seduction and also feature in many prints from this series. Owls are another symbol often found in these prints. Though they were thought to be ill-omens and symbols of darkness and ignorance in Goya’s time, they have also been traditionally associated with Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. It is said that an owl sat on her blind side allowing her to see all and to see truth. While Goya’s inclusion of owls is certainly a reference to their association with witchcraft, they may also symbolize the truth that Goya feels he is revealing in Los Caprichos. Goya created Los Caprichos using the aquatint technique which creates a strong contrast between light and dark which further emphasizes the dark and ominous nature of these prints. The aquatint plates degrade quickly and therefore only the first few editions of these prints have this striking contrast. Luckily most of the Los Caprichos prints in the SCMA collection are first editions. When analyzing the subject matter of the print it is important to remember that print No. 66 belongs to the second group of prints within the series that utilize dark creatures such as witches, goblins, demons, and bats for the purpose of Goya’s satirical criticism. To further understand the subject matter its important to compare the print to a similar one that can expand or clarify the creative process of the artist. the Print No. 66 “Allá va eso” where just like in “Linda Maestra!” we evidence an old witch teaching a young girl how to fly on a broomstick. There is a main difference between both prints can only be explained by analyzing the composition. Goya unlike in print no. 68, does not show the figures separately in fact, he places them in such a way that one appears to be part or an extension of the other; also the young lady has her eyes shut into the action, it is only the old witch the one aware of the environment. Based on this it can be argued that while the old witch is a bad example it is up to the blind judgment of the young girl to follow her example, and when viewing the bat wings that stem from the young lady’s back, in a way they emphasize the idea that it is indeed the young girl listening and acting upon the bad example of the old witch was truly enables them to have the wings to fly. When relating the title to the main action of the print it is important to think that Goya does not refer to them as individuals or even separate beings, but rather as one conjoined, deformed monstrous thing seen from a far, and that might perhaps be best to see it from a distance – “There it goes”. Goya manages to place the town in the background suggesting the women are flying in the outskirts of the city. Their monstrosity leads them to be casted outside of civil society. The figures are placed directly in the mid-section of the picture plane to emphasize its importance and message. High contrasts and great detailing in the bodies add to the grotesque and unpleasant display of their bodies. When thinking of modern Spanish art it is impossible not to bring Goya’s works into mind, even though he was not the only recognized painter at the time. Nevertheless, Goya managed to cast under the high contrast shadows of his paintings, most of his contemporaries. Goya’s works continue to serve as poignant reminders of human nature and in his works we can evidence the tragic ending of a man born in a world that praised reason, and to die in a world of decay, irrationality and chaos, leaving behind nothing but the cruelest most grim portrayal of the reality of the depravity our human nature is capable of in his artworks. As the 19th century philosopher, Pierre-joseph Proudhon would have mentioned and agreed: Let us recognize ourselves in our misery and learn to blush at our cowardice. No one more than the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Goya’s works succeed in bridging two traditions that seemingly appear to be on opposite sides of the artistic spectrum, this is done by having the praise for reason characteristic of Neoclassicism come to life through nightmare-like and fantastic subject matters. As a result, Goya succeeds in providing us a dystopian outlook of what happens when we fail to tame our monstrous inner demons through rationality. During 1799, Goya’s respected position as First Court Painter led Goya to feel confident in venturing in printmaking, the production of the prints were both financed and marketed by him. His first series of Prints Los Caprichos was advertised in the main Newspaper of Madrid, El Diario de Madrid, where he described the prints as a series of scenes, errors and vices of every civil society which seemed the most appropriate to be ridiculed. This ridicule of the errors in the Spanish society or satirical social criticism was not new to the Spanish people, for British prints were already distributed throughout Europe. They were introduced in Britain artists William Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray; Goya simply adopted the ideas and motifs to those encountered in every day Spanish life. Though the Prints didn’t generate a generous income, it was more about Goya establishing his independence and his own voice and style as an artist. Goya’s prints utilized a technique known as Etching, which next to engraving it is the most commonly used method employed in print making. Professional printmakers usually practiced engraving, but etching on the other hand was the method that caught the attention of many well-known artists aside from Goya, including some Tiepolo and Piranesi during the seventeenth century. Throughout the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, etching techniques became for sophisticated with the invention of the aquatint. In this process, soluble granules are mixed in the ground in a way that the acid is able to create a finely pitted surface; this technique was mastered by Goya and hence employed in the production of his prints. The series Los Caprichos consists in a group of around 80 prints depicting the social decay of Spanish society. The first 40 prints of the series seek to provide a straightforward representation of what Goya believes are the illnesses Spanish Society encounters. The second group of the prints makes use of nightmare scenery and subject matter as an alternative way of showing the social decay Goya strives to emphasize in his prints. Understanding the socio historical context of Goya and his motives in the production of his print series Los Caprichos, paves way to further discuss the artwork featured above:

Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes was born March 30, 1746 in Aragon, Spain. He began studying painting at the age of 14 under Jose Luzan y Martinez and later Anton Raphael Mengs. In 1786 he became a painter for the Spanish court serving under Charles III and Charles IV. Goya suffered from an unknown illness in 1793 which caused him to lose his hearing. After this, his work became darker and more disturbing in its subject matter. In 1799 he published a series of 80 prints titled Los Caprichos. In this series, Goya explores the state of the world around him. He uses satire to comment on what he saw as the folly of mankind. I was particularly interested in Goya’s depiction of witches in Los Caprichos. While Goya himself did not believe in the existence of witches, the general public did. Therefore, Goya used images of witches in his work to reflect the evil he saw plaguing society. The perception of witches and witchcraft at this time stood in direct opposition to the values of the church. However, it was often clergy members that were depicted in these horrific scenes as Goya saw the church as a source of corruption and evil in society. He portrayed the perils of ignorance and superstition by casting individuals in the roles of witches or demons performing evil acts.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Goya

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and throughout his long career was a commentator and chronicler of his era. Immensely successful in his lifetime, Goya is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. He was also one of the great contemporary portraitists. Los caprichos are a set of 80 prints in aquatint and etching created by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya in 1797 and 1798, and published as an album in 1799. The prints were an artistic experiment: a medium for Goya's condemnation of the universal follies and foolishness in the Spanish society in which he lived. The criticisms are far–ranging and acidic; he speaks against the predominance of superstition, the ignorance and inabilities of the various members of the ruling class, pedagogical short–comings, marital mistakes and the decline of rationality. Some of the prints have anticlerical themes. Goya described the series as depicting "the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance or self–interest have made usual. The work was an enlightened, tour–de–force critique of 18th–century Spain, and humanity in general. The informal style, as well as the depiction of contemporary society found in Caprichos, makes them (and Goya himself) a precursor to the modernist movement almost a century later. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters in particular has attained an iconic status. Goya added brief explanations of each image to a manuscript, now in the Museo del Prado; these help greatly to explain his often cryptic intentions, as do the titles printed below each image. Goya's series, and the last group of prints in his series The Disasters of War, which he called "caprichos enfáticos" ("emphatic caprices"), are far from the spirit of light–hearted fantasy the term "caprice" usually suggests in art.