Goya Prints: Sleep /Reason Caprichos: 3 Fine Art Prints

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The Etchings and Drawings of Francisco GoyaFrancisco Goya (Spanish,1746-1828)The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters - Three Caprichos, 1799The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueno de la razon produce monstros) - Caprichos 43Actual Size: 9.5 x 6.5 inchesLittle Hobgoblins (Duendecitos) - Caprichos 49Actual Size: 9.5 x 6.5 inchesUntil Death (Hasta la muerte)- Caprichos 55Actual Size - 9.5 x 6.5 inchesThree Fine Art ReproductionsFull Size ReproductionsThese reproductions are new, individually printed and proofed , superior quality, giclee* process, fine art prints.They are printed on 100% cotton rag acid-free, heavyweight fine art paper with a luxurious textured watercolor paper finish and archival pigment inks to ensure permanence.Created for collectors, they ARE NOT mass produced prints on low quality, inexpensive paper .Los Caprichos (translation: caprices - whims or quirks)The eighty etchings that make up Goya's most important series of prints, Los Caprichos (1799), have long been recognized as one of the supreme monuments of European art. A believer in the potential power of reason, his works show what happens when reason is trampled underfoot by individual human follies and corrupt social customs. In these works Goya looks at his country, Spain, and memorializes it as a monument to desperation, folly, arrogance, incompetence, and the need that some of his subjects have to try to control the uncontrollable.The eighty prints cover subjects of prostitution, child abuse, witchcraft, numerous superstitions, and satiric critiques of doctors, politicians, and clergy, among others. Nearly half of the imagery concerns itself with witchcraft often in a mocking tone that shows Goya's use of this particular subject was meant to have more than just one single understanding for the viewer.The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueno de la razon produce monstros) - Caprichos 43Goya's full motto for his etching is: 'Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the source of her wonders'.This is one of the most important prints in the history of European art. Originally intended to be the first print in the Caprichos , Goya wrote on one of the preparatory drawings for this print, "The author is dreaming. His only intention is to banish harmful superstition and to perpetuate with this work of fancy the sound testimony of Truth."The "monsters" are bats and owls flying around Goya in his dream. Accepted interpretations suggest that the owls do not represent wisdom; but rather 'the stereotype of mindless stupidity', which apparently was how owls were seen in Spanish folklore in Goya's time. Similarly, he suggests the bats are 'creatures of night, and thus of ignorance and possibly of bloodsucking evil as well, in their association with the devil'.These animals are balanced by the watchful lynx, a creature, it was believed, that 'could see through the thickest darkness and immediately tell truth from error'. The dozing man, the intellectual, is seen as Goya himself with the owl offering him an artist's chalkHobgoblins (Duendecitos) - Caprichos 49Goya comments, "Now this is another kind of people. Happy, playful, obliging; a little greedy, fond of playing practical jokes; but they are very good-natured little men." Contemporary references make it clear that priests and friars were commonly identified as hobgoblins. Goya's commentary provides a cover against the Inquisition by suggesting a different identity for the "little men."Until Death (Hasta la muerte) - Caprichos 55Francisco Goya (1746-1848) the famous Spanish court painter turned increasingly to drawing as his primary means of artistic expression after 1795. He filled over eight albums of approximately 600 drawings and published four major print cycles of etchings depicting a society in transition. With pitiless observation he captured an unstable and restless Spain - a Spain suffering from religious Inqui... read more

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