The George Washington University Dimock Gallery presents Goya: Los
Caprichos. This exhibition will feature the Spanish masters celebrated
collection of eighty prints. The series, which is part of the holdings of the
Museo de Zaragoza, Spain (Diputacion General de Aragon), has already traveled
to four countries in the Americas; The Gallery will be its only venue in the
United States. The Embassy of Spain provided major funding for this
exhibition and GWs Diversity Program Clearinghouse provided additional
funding.
The Caprichos have never been presented in its entirety in the Washington
area. Goya: Los Caprichos offers the most comprehensive overview of the
suite and provides a rare opportunity for examination by print aficionados and
art lovers.
The Caprichos are one of the most influential graphic series in the history
of Western art and continue to inspire contemporary artists. Although
comparable in importance to works by Tiepolo, Hogarth and Turner, the prints
echo the Baroque tradition of Rembrandt‚s dramatic lighting effects and
Piranesis grotesquely fanciful interiors. The peculiar sense of timelessness
expressed in the prints may be attributed to Goyas choice of aquatint for its
tonal properties and ability to weave an abstract aura of shadow and light.
Goya acknowledged the influence of nature, Rembrandt and Velazquez in his
work. Of his legacy, which included some 280 etchings and lithographs, the
Caprichos are the most celebrated. The works continue to be as current
today as they were two hundred years ago, perhaps because Goya lived in times
of deep transformation and his work expresses contradictions not too different
from those of our own times.
Enigmatic and controversial, Goyas Caprichos were published in 1799 at a
time of social repression and economic crisis in Spain. Influenced by
Enlightenment thinking, the painter set out to analyze the human condition and
denounce social abuses and superstitions. The Caprichos was his passionate
declaration that the chains of social backwardness had to be broken if
humanity was to advance. The series attests to the artist‚s political
liberalism and revulsion towards ignorance and intellectual oppression at the
same time as it mirrors Goya‚s ambivalence toward authority and the church.
The Caprichos deal with themes such as the Spanish Inquisition, the abuses
of the church and the nobility, witchcraft, child rearing, avariciousness and
greed and the frivolity of young women. The subhuman cast of the Caprichos
includes goblins, monks, celestinas (procuresses), prostitutes, witches,
animals acting like human fools and aristocrats; these personages populate the
world on the margins of reason, where no clear boundaries distinguish reality
from fantasy.
IMAGE:
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes
Plate 43: El Sueno de la razon produce monstruos
(The sleep of reason produces monsters), 1799
Etching and aquatint
Related Links:
