monsters that darkens Goya's self-portrait is that of popular ignorance, soon to be dispersed by the artist's satiric pen and sunlit powers of reason. Just as likely is it that Goya is reflecting upon the distressing antipodes of his own mind and upon the Janus-face of Enlightenment itself. For in fact, the very creation of art in an age of Reason entailed a dangerous flirtation with madness.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Detail of The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1799
In this view, the Age of Reason was the victim of its own ideology. Well-meaning Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Thomas Paine had prepared the way for the Terror of 1792-94 and for the rise of ruthless, opportunistic tyrants like Napoleon, whose his first military conquests occurred just as Goya prepared Los Caprichos for print.
The Enlightenment had, unwittingly, unleashed the inner demons of humanity, symbolized by the bats, owls and cats surrounding the beleaguered man - Goya, himself - in The Sleep of Reason.
Whatever interpretation one gives to this famous image, its nightmare imagery was amply confirmed by the horrific events of the Spanish revolt against Napoleon, lasting from 1808 to 1814.
Many of the prints in The Disasters of War are so graphic, so revoltingly accurate in their depiction of the atrocities committed by both sides that the series was not published until 1863. Yet, even though he did not personally witness the savage conflict in person, Goya did not exaggerate the unspeakable cruelty. This astonishing realism is indeed surreal because even these horrifying images do not convey the full magnitude of the suffering.
Francisco Goya, What Courage!, 1810-1814
Consider the print What Valor! It records an actual incident, when a young woman, Agustina Domènech, rallied Spanish troops during the siege of Zaragoza by firing a cannon at the advancing French. Goya, who was born in the nearby town of Fuendetodos, was obviously proud of this heroic event. But he was well aware of the staggering death toll of 54,000 Spanish, soldiers and civilians, who died during the long siege of 1808-09.
The pile of corpses that Agustina of Zaragoza stands upon to fire the cannon may be viewed as symbolic of the reality the Spanish War - and of the best and worst that human beings are capable of.
It would be some consolation to think that the loss of so many lives during the war against Napoleon resulted in freedom, justice and prosperity for Spain once the invader was expelled. But with the return of the Spanish monarchy in 1814, the constitution which the freedom fighters had created was suppressed and a reign of tyranny instituted, crushing the very patriots who struggled so courageously to free Spain from Napoleon's legions.
This is political "surrealism" at its absolute worst. Thomas Crow writes perceptively of Goya:
The reason Goya's despair was so great was that he had seen the barbarism of Enlightenment itself in the person of Napoleon as well as the defeat of Enlightenment by Spain.
Goya, following the war with Napoleon, lived in a state of emotional collapse. He produced bullfighting etchings and lithographs, brilliantly executed but essentially popular escapism.
Francisco Goya, A Way of Flying, c. 1815-1823
Goya also created a new series of fantasy works, Los Disparates (The Follies), that hint at the depths of his despair. This was to surface in his final "black paintings" created between 1819 to 1823, notably the chilling Saturn Devouring His Son.
What are we to make of these astonishing prints by Goya? I first saw The Disasters of War in a long-ago pilgrimage to the Prado in the late 1970's. The shock never wore-off. I have made two trips so far to the current exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and plan further visits. The wonder, the horror, the enigma of Goya's prints just keeps growing, an obsession that is linked, beyond doubt, to the mystery of life.
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved
Introductory Image: Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746-1828) The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 