The "Black Paintings"
1819-1823
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Goya's Flying Creatures
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There are heads which are so full of highly explosive gas that they
require neither a balloon nor a witch to fly.
Goya
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Francisco de Goya
A fine teacher!
Capricho No. 68
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Bats, owls, witches, with and without brooms, even flying
dogs, bulls and strange hybrid beings - such creatures populate
Goya's pictures. The whole range of his imaginary world, of both his
dreams and nightmares, is bound up in his representation of
flight. At the same time as this, the motif of flight reflects the
contradictions of his day, the age of reason. Science was constantly
making new discoveries; electricity, magnetism, meteorology, and
gravity were being researched. The conquest of gravity represented
the crowning triumph of reason. This scientific aspect of
flying fascinated Goya, and not only did he portray the first balloon
flight in several ways (page 47), he also occupied himself with the
idea of independent flight by man. Like Leonardo da Vinci, who also
drew designs for fantastical flying devices, Goya drew people with
bird-like wings, as in his print A way to fly, m which strange human
kites soar through the air. Yet the more man came to
believe that he could explain the world through reason, the more
Goya distrusted the principle of pure reason. During the course of
his life, he came to recognize increasingly that the dark reverse
side of reason still existed, that the power of the irrational, the
energy of unbridled passions, the power of aggression and fear, were
still omnipresent dangers. From time immemorial heaven had been the
sphere of the divine, an ethereal region reserved for gods and
angels. Goya was well acquainted with the traditional images of
heavenly beings; he knew the world of Christian imagery as well as
the mythological heaven of the classical gods. Yet for him, flying
was, above all, an embodiment of the demonic; and here images of
ancient magic practices, in which people and witches fly through the
air, played a key role in his imagination. With a few strokes, Goya
was able to achieve the illusion of flight in his images, and to
convince the viewer that figures are truly flying. Often the
symbolism of flying suggests erotic connotations, too, for floating
and a weightless levitation are familiar images of sexual pleasure.
This interpretation also plays its role in the well-known motif of
witches riding their broomsticks. Similarly, the subtitle of one of
his Black Paintings, Asmodea, refers to an oriental demon of sexual
desire. Nevertheless, here the relationship between image and title
remains unclear. On a broad landscape background, two closely linked
figures are rushing through the air without wings. One of the figures
is looking back, as though they were being pursued, while the other
figure is pointing to an enormous rocky outcrop in the background.
In the distance a group of horsemen are on their way to an unknown
destination; on the right, two riflemen take aim - are they aiming
at the two airborne figures or at the riders? The subjective world of
Goya's image is beyond interpretation. The fantastical scene depicted
by this painting, a work executed without a commission, points toward
the world of the 20th century; in Surrealism, too, for instance with
Salvador Dali or Max Ernst, a personal language of symbols, set in
unreal locations, plays a major role.
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Francisco de Goya
Asmodea
1820-23
Oil on canvas, 123 x 265 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Francisco de Goya
Atropos (The Fates)
1821-23
Oil on plaster mounted on canvas, 123 x 266 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Sense and Nonsense
Disparates
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Francisco de Goya
Ridiculous folly
Disparates
1815-1824
Etching and aquatint
24.5x35 cm
Wrapped in blankets, people perch on a dead branch. Anyone who moves will fall
into the bottomless depths below.
In spite of their absurdity, the scene has a
realistic effect. There is no firm indication of whether Goya intended a
political meaning.
These could be refugees, or people who have lost all contact
with their environment.
Others see here a symbol of the immobility of the
antiquated social structures of Spain.
Or, quite generally, a symbol of people
alienated by the modern world.
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The last of Goya's series of prints is also the most enigmatic. He
probably worked on them over a fairly long period, completing them
about 1824. The prints were known under the title Disparates,
which, loosely translated, means examples of nonsense, absurdities;
a lot of the inscriptions to the pictures include the word
disparate. Goya never published them, though they were undoubtedly
designed with an eye to publication. When the first edition was
printed from the plates in 1864, the series was given the title Los Proverbios (Proverbs), though no unequivocal equivalent of a proverb
was ever identified.
The prints contain more or less absurd, Surrealistic images: bulls
flying through the air, an elephant staring motionless at a group of
men, people crouching like frozen birds on a branch, a horse
catapulting a woman into the air, distorted faces screaming
silently, and people fleeing from phantoms. Like the Caprichos, the
Disparates could be described as a series of dreams. For, just like
nocturnal dreams, they are both strange and familiar. Whoever tries
to decipher them is groping in the dark. This enigmatic quality is
precisely what endows the series with modernity. These subjects are
no longer drawn from the traditional language of artistic images,
but from a private world.
In many pictures political references can he surmised, but they are
so deeply encoded that nowadays they can no longer be clearly
deciphered. To some extent the images reveal human passions,
superstition, and blindness. Many images seem no more than the whim
of the moment. On some prints, Goya revisits motifs from his earlier
works and stretches them to the point of absurdity. So, from the
tapestry designs, we have the motif of the dancer or of the women
playing with a man-sized straw doll. But the charming
images of the young Goya have become coarse caricatures. The Disparates are not exactly amusing prints: the laughter at these
absurd images is hollow and accompanied by a slight shiver of
horror. The dark, empty background of the Disparates reinforces the
observer's question regarding their meaning.
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Francisco de Goya
Disparate de bobo
(Blockhead folly)
Disparates
1815-1824
Etching and aquatint 24.5x35 cm
With a broad grimace, the clumsy blockhead, a traditional Spanish
clown, is parading about and playing the castanets as
though taking
a demonic pleasure in terrifying the other figure. The latter is
taking refuge behind the figure of a
woman who turns out to be a
life-size figure of the Virgin Mary.
Goya's criticism of the Church
becomes even clearer in a study for this print, where a monk is
hiding behind the figure of the Madonna.
Goya sets religious belief
and superstition face to face: they are nothing more than phantoms.
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Tio Paquete
c. 1820
Oil on canvas, 39,1 x 31,1 cm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
This image is said to be the portrait of a well-known beggar who
always sat in front of a church in Madrid and sang to the guitar.
With his sardonic, featureless laugh the painting matches the dark
humor of the Disparates.
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 Francisco de Goya
El exorcizado
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