(1746-1828)
Goya's first major undertaking in printmaking was Los Caprichos, a series of eighty etchings first announced for sale in 1799. In these images of evil (encompassing the secular and religious as well as imagined witches and goblins) Goya marked a breakthrough in the use of aquatint as an integral part of the design. This allowed the figures within the design (as with Bobalicón) to project against the dark velvety void provided by areas of aquatint.
The later series Los Proverbios, of which Disparate de Miedo and
Bobalicón are plates two and four respectively (out of a total of twenty-two plates), has proved more difficult to date, partly because of the enigmatic imagery, and also because the fact that although the plates were etched by 1824 (and left with Goya's son, on the artist's departure from Spain), they were effectively lost and not rediscovered until Xavier's death in 1854. Of the original twenty-two, eighteen of the plates remained in private hands before coming to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1862, which published the first edition in 1864. The remaining four were discovered in Paris in the 1870s, and were finally published by the French periodical L'Art in 1877.
Some of the carnival themes in Los Proverbios appear in the small painting Carnival Scene (Burial of the Sardine, Academia de San Fernando, Madrid, c.1815). Goya repainted the figure of Death, which appears on a banner under the word 'MORTVS' (in the original version) with a harmless, grinning mask that appears as the face of the laughing giant in Bobalicón. This change on Goya's part may have been due to the restoration of Ferdinand VII (1784-1833) in 1814, a move which resulted in an atmosphere of repression and religious intolerance. The burying of the Sardine was a mock religious custom from Madrid, that was celebrated on Ash Wednesday.
Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.
Extract taken from Prints, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery .