Lucy Weber

BA Art History and Criticism  

 Senior Thesis Abstract 

The Spanish society of the late 1700s provoked Francisco de Goya to create Los Caprichos and Disasters of War. Previous scholarship has examined these prints within Goya’s contemporary culture. The faceless, ambiguous, and caricaturist way in which he depicted the moral falls and follies of man provide both series with a universal quality. This allows them to be applicable across time and in many instances of war, governmental injustices, and societal failures. 

Aided by Goya’s choice of visual imagery, the artist keeps the majority of his figures anonymous. They stand as symbols of causes, and carry through time and location, rather than specific individuals in a particular time and place. In the Los Caprichos series, Goya offered fervent accusations against organized religion, and those within it, as well as against superstition, nobility, royalty, and sexual practices present in Goya’s contemporary society. Los Chinchillas (fig. 1) offers an example of Goya’s critique on gluttony and ignorance, the figures show a lack of willingness to acknowledge truthfulness, as well as a willingness to accept what they are spoon-

fed. While Goya’s attack on these vices of ignorance and gluttony is clear, he made no attempt to identify the men. The artist presented similar anonymity through four ways within Goya’s Disasters of War series: Goya’s lack of specified location and time is evident in Plate No. 1 Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer (Gloomy Presentiments of Things to Come; fig. 2). The work’s heavily applied black ink background leaves only the man kneeling in the center, stripped of time and place. Plate No. 31 Feurte cosa es! (That is Strong!; fig. 3) presents what the viewer knows as a French soldier, due to the subject of the series, but the soldier’s uniform exists in such a sketchily etched fashion as to lack a strong personal identification. Just as the soldier’s identifications are stripped, so are those of the victims. Plate No. 30 Estragos de la Guerra (Ravages of War; fig. 4) demonstrates faceless victims. Bodies lay amassed on the floor, their figures blending together, arms and legs belonging to no one person but instead attached to a pile. Few bodies retain all their members, stripping the figures of individual identity. Finally, Goya encourages anonymity through his acknowledgement of a continuous ubiquity in the captions of Disasters of War, for example Plate No. 23 Lo mismo en ostras partes (The Same Elsewhere). Goya’s choice to maintain anonymity in Los Caprichos and Disasters of War propel his critiques throughout the world, into and beyond the twenty-first century. Both series provoke those who witness the work to consider the presented faults. 

Instagram: @ lucymackenzie_w