Francisco de Goya

The dream of reason produces monsters

Clasificación
The dream of reason produces monsters
Datos Generales
Cronología
Ca. 1797 - 1799
Dimensiones
218 x 152 mm
Técnica y soporte
Etching and aquatint
Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
Undisputed work
Ficha: realización/revisión
15 Dec 2010 / 29 May 2024
Inventario
225
Inscripciones

el sueño de la razon produce monstruos (at the bottom)

 43. (in the upper right-hand corner)

Historia

See Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Painter.

There is a proof of the state before lettering and of the additional aquatint that is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Goya made at least two preparatory drawings for this engraving (1) and (2).

Análisis artístico

On an armchair with wheels on its legs sits a man, possibly Goya himself, who rests his arms on top of a bucket on the front of which we can read The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters. On this bucket rest various objects that allude to the man's work: pens, pencils and sheets of paper. Several nocturnal animals, bats and owls of various sizes, advance towards it from the background, which do not seem to bode well. Equally disturbing are the cat and the lynx watching the scene, as well as the two owls leaning on the bucket on which the man is sleeping.

The artist has used a two-tone aquatint, a darker one for the background and a softer one for the front of the table, where he has left a reserve of varnish with which to write the title in white letters. The light illuminates the head and shoulders of the sleeping figure, extending slightly to the owls nearest to him, as if a spotlight had been focused on his head.

This engraving is one of the most complex in the series and, at the same time, one of the richest that has been the subject of many interpretations. In order to understand it, it is necessary to refer to the manuscripts of the period, as the Ayala manuscript states: "Fantasy abandoned by reason produces monsters, and united with it is the mother of the arts". The Prado Museum's manuscript states: "The fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with it, it is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels", while the National Library's manuscript states that "when men do not hear the cry of reason, everything becomes visions". From the reading of these texts we conclude that the image has a double meaning. Firstly, Goya stresses the importance of reason, without which all kinds of irrational sentiments lead to ignorance. Reason is the light that makes us emerge from the darkness of our own subconscious and our fears.

However, it should be pointed out that the manuscripts suggest a second meaning in which the dream, as a liberation from an inner world controlled by reason, becomes an immense source of creativity. It is possible that in this print Goya had captured something of his own essence, his condition as an artist in whom the Enlightenment mentality coexisted with pre-Romantic sentiment.

The experience described in the engraving we are dealing with here would be related to what Francisco de Quevedo narrates in the prologue to The Dreams: "(...) I fell asleep: as soon as my soul was freed from the task of the external senses, the following comedy struck me in this way; and so my powers recited it in the dark, and I was an auditorium and theatre for my fantasies".

One of the possible visual sources for this engraving is the work by Salvator Rosa (Naples, 1615-Rome, 1673) entitled Democritus in Meditation (1650, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen). In it, a man in the middle of a wild landscape leans on a cube where he appears to be meditating. Both the figure in Goya's print and the Neapolitan and the portrait that the Aragonese artist painted of his friend Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos seem to be affected by a strange form of melancholy. In line with these images is the engraving that opens Alfabeto in sogno by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli (Bologna, 1634-Bologna, 1718), in which an artist can be seen sleeping on a table.

It is also possible that the Aragonese painter was familiar with the image that opens the second volume of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Philosophie, published in 1793. In it we can see a figure resting his head on one of his hands, seated at a table, just as the protagonist of the Goyaesque print does.

Conservación

The plate is preserved in the National Chalcography (no. 214).

Exposiciones
  • Goya. Gemälde Zeichnungen. Graphik. Tapisserien
    Kunsthalle Basel
    Basle
    1953
    from January 23th to April 12th 1953
  • De grafiek van Goya
    Rijksmuseum Rijksprentenkabinet
    Amsterdam
    1970
    from November 13th 1970 to January 17th 1971
  • Goya. Das Zeitalter der Revolucionen. Kunst um 1800 (1980 – 1981)
    Hamburger Kunsthalle
    Hamburg
    1980
  • Goya y el espíritu de la Ilustración
    Museo Nacional del Prado
    Madrid
    1988
    from October 6th to December 18th 1988. Exhibited also at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January 18th to March 26th 1989; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nueva York, May 9th to July 16th 1989, Madrid curator Manuela B. Mena Marqués, scientific directors Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez and Eleanor A. Sayre
  • Goya. La década de Los Caprichos
    Madrid
    1992
    organized by Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando sponsored by Fundación Central Hispano, Madrid, consultant editor Nigel Glendinnig. From October 26th 1992 to January 10th 1993
  • Goya
    Nationalmuseum
    Stockholm
    1994
    consultant editors Juan J. Luna and Görel Cavalli-Björkman. From October 7th 1994 to January 8th 1995
  • Ydioma universal: Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    Biblioteca Nacional
    Madrid
    1996
    from September 19th to December 15th 1996
  • Francisco Goya. Sein leben im spiegel der graphik. Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux. 1746-1996
    Galerie Kornfeld
    Bern
    1996
    from November 21st 1996 to January 1997
  • Das Capriccio als Kunstprinzip
    Wallraf-Richartz-Museum,
    1996
    from December 8th 1996 to February 16th 1997, exhibited also in Zurich, Kunsthaus, from March 14th marzo 1997 to June 1st 1997 and in Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum mi Palais Harrach, from June 29th 1997 to September 21st 1997.
  • Francisco de Goya
    Museo d'Arte Moderna
    Lugano
    1996
    exhibition celebrated from September 22nd to November 17th.
  • Goya e la tradizione italiana
    Fondazione Magnani Rocca
    Mamiano di Traversetolo (Parma)
    2006
    consultant editors Fred Licht and Simona Tosini Pizzetti. From September 9th to December 3th 2006
  • Goya. Opera grafica
    Pinacoteca del Castello di San Giorgio
    Legnano
    2006
    exhibition celebrated from December 16th 2006 to April 1st 2007
  • Goya e Italia
    Museo de Zaragoza
    Zaragoza
    2008
    organized by the Fundación Goya en Aragóna, consultant editor Joan Sureda Pons. From June 1st to September 15th 2008
  • Goya et la modernité
    Pinacothèque de Paris
    París
    2013
    from October 11st 2013 to March 16th 2014
  • Goya: Order and disorder
    Museum of Fine Arts
    Boston
    2014
  • Expérience Goya
    Lille
    2021
  • Agen
    2019
  • Madrid
    2017
  • London
    2015
  • Madrid
    2019
Bibliografía
  • HARRIS, Tomás
    Goya engravings and lithographs, vol. I y II.
    OxfordBruno Cassirer
    1964
    p.115, cat. 78
  • GASSIER, Pierre y WILSON, Juliet
    Vie et ouvre de Francisco de Goya
    ParísOffice du livre
    1970
    p.181, cat. 536
  • GUDIOL, José
    Goya, 1746-1828. Biografía, estudio analítico y catálogo de sus pinturas
    BarcelonaEdiciones Polígrafa s.a.
    1970
    p.395, fig. 627
  • WILSON BAREAU, Juliet
    Goya, la década de los caprichos: dibujos y aguafuertes
    MadridReal Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
    1992
    pp.9-13, cat. 139.141
  • MENA, Manuela B. y WILSON-BAREAU, Juliet (comisarias)
    Goya. El capricho y la invención. Cuadros de gabinete, bocetos y miniaturas
    MadridMuseo del Prado
    1993
    pp.59-61, fig. 32
  • SANTIAGO, Elena M. (coordinadora)
    Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    MadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional
    1996
    p.96, cat. 132
  • BLAS BENITO, Javier, MATILLA RODRÍGUEZ, José Manuel y MEDRANO, José Miguel
    El libro de los caprichos: dos siglos de interpretaciones (1799-1999). Catálogo de los dibujos, pruebas de estado, láminas de cobre y estampas de la primera edición
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado
    1999
    pp.238-245
  • CLAUSBERG, Karl
    Zwischen Hexensabbath und Psychoanalyse–Goyas sueño de la razon und Carl du Prels „dramatische Spal-tung des Ich im Traume“
    Staedel-Jahrbuch
    2001
    pp.213-250
  • POU, Anna
    Francisco Goya. Los Caprichos
    BarcelonaEdiciones de la Central
    2011
    pp.31-38
  • OROPESA, Marisa and RINCÓN GARCÍA, Wilfredo
    ParísPinacoteca de París
    2013
    p. 221
  • ILCHMAN, Frederick y STEPANEK, Stephanie L. (comisarios)
    Goya: Order & Disorder
    BostonMuseum of Fine Arts Boston Publications
    2014
    pp. 101/248-249
  • WILSON-BAREAU, Juliet y BUCK, Stephanie (eds.)
    LondonThe Courtauld Gallery
    2015
    pp. 134-135
  • WILSON BAREAU, Juliet
    Goya. In the Norton Simon Museum
    PasadenaNorton Simon Museum
    2016
    pp. 42-75
  • CALVO RUATA, José Ignacio, BORRÁS GUALIS, Gonzalo M. and MARTÍNEZ HERRANZ, Amparo
    ZaragozaGobierno de Aragón y Fundación Bancaria Ibercaja
    2017
    p. 220
  • MOTTIN, Bruno, EFEDAQUE, Adrien and WILSON-BAREU, Juliet
    AgenSnoeck
    2019
    p. 136
  • MATILLA, José Manuel y MENA, Manuela B. (comisarios)
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado
    2019
    p. 131
  • COTENTIN, Régis
    Expérience Goya (cat. expo)
    LilleRéunion des Musées Nationaux
    2021
    p. 32
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