#caprichos

27-02-26 (Forgot to post this one 🤓)

📍Real Academia de San Fernando (Madrid, Spain)

Their collection of the caprichos and disasters of the war added to the way they show both the copper plaque and stamp... it's simply gorgeous.

“El camino del descreimiento suele ser éste: primero creemos algo de un modo literal. Después creemos que es en verdad la metáfora de otra cosa. Más tarde, descubrimos que toda metáfora es un capricho y entonces dejamos de creer”.

MWW Artwork of the Day (11/27/22) Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) Caprichos #39 (1799) His Grandfather was one too (Asta su Abuelo) Aquatint print, 31.8 x 22.2 cm

The eighty "Los Caprichos" aquatint plates of 1799 were Goya's first foray in a new direction. Satirical graphic art certainly existed before him (Hogarth comes to mind) but never before had anyone dared such a scathing and uncompromising critique of social manners and hypocrisy. "Prado" Manuscript Commentary for this print: This poor creature has managed to make an ass of himself through Genealogy and Heraldry.  He's not the only one we know who has. (A este pobre animal le han vuelto loco los Genialogistas y reyes de Armas. No es el solo.) Goya caricatures here the pride of the hidalgos. Some 500,000 of Spain's population of around 10 million considered themselves to belong to this lesser branch of the nobility. Since work was beneath their station, most of them were impoverished, their only possessions being a long line of ancestors.