University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online
Theses and Dissertations
Spring 2013
Anticlericalism in Goya's works
Karissa Elizabeth Bushman
University of Iowa
Copyright 2013 Karissa Elizabeth Bushman
This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2051
Recommended Citation
Bushman, Karissa Elizabeth. "Anticlericalism in Goya's works." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2013.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2051.
Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons
ANTICLERICALISM IN GOYA'S WORKS
by
Karissa Elizabeth Bushman
An Abstract
Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree in Art History
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
May 2013
Thesis Supervisor: Professor Dorothy Johnson
1
ABSTRACT
Throughout his career, Francisco de Goya drew, etched, and painted several
recurrent themes. One which began early in his career and was revisited by the artist
even in the last years of his life while in exile in Bordeaux was anticlericalism. Goya
lived during turbulent times in Spanish history, with the role of the Catholic Church
changing as governments and kings also changed. His art reflects the many abuses of
power the Church and its clerics perpetrated on the Spanish people during this period.
Throughout his oeuvre, Goya critiques the clergy and the Catholic Church for misconduct
such as sexual abuse, greed, acts of violence, and hypocrisy. If we consider the decades
in Spanish history in which Goya lived we note that the clergy and the church were
reformed under the enlightened monarchs of the Bourbon dynasty and were almost
completely disbanded under French control during the War of Independence against
Napoleon. We subsequently see a complete reversal with a reinvigoration of the Church
and the Inquisition under the restoration of Fernando VII. It makes sense that Goya, an
artist who used his art to provide us with a social critique of Spanish life, would have
turned to the many wrong doings of the Church since it was one of the most important
and powerful institutions in Spain during his lifetime. Goya’s critiques of the Church
were harsh, humorous, and many times intentionally ambiguous. My dissertation
examines a still much neglected facet of Goya’s art, namely his depictions of
anticlericalism throughout his career. I address how the cultural, religious, social,
political, and literary history of Spain help to explain why the artist denigrated members
of the Catholic Church in his art. A great deal has been written on some of Goya’s well-
2
known religious paintings, yet his fierce anticlericalism that informs so much of his art
has been largely overlooked.
The first chapter introduces anticlericalism and examines the historiography of
Goya’s works. It also explains my methodological approach and how my dissertation
seeks to expand upon the scholarship that discusses Goya’s complex relationship with
religion. My second chapter addresses the role of religious commissions in Goya’s early
career from his training to his beginnings in the royal court of Madrid. I emphasize how
even in his early career, Goya’s religious paintings had begun to satirize the Catholic
clergy as well as depart from traditional religious iconography. Subsequent chapters
focus on works he created while he was becoming the most famous and sought after artist
in Spain. Specifically in chapters three and four I examine anticlericalism in his print
series Los Caprichos and Disasters of War as well as in his paintings and drawings
completed while living in Spain.
My final two chapters examine Goya’s anticlericalism in the last years of his life,
first under the restored monarchy of Fernando VII and then during his self-imposed exile
in Bordeaux. The late works reveal the extent to which Goya continued to meditate on
and represent the abuses of the Catholic clergy in Spain, a topic that would be on his
mind until his final days.
Abstract Approved: ____________________________________
Thesis Supervisor
____________________________________
Title and Department
____________________________________
Date
ANTICLERICALISM IN GOYA'S WORKS
by
Karissa Elizabeth Bushman
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree in Art History
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
May 2013
Thesis Supervisor: Professor Dorothy Johnson
Copyright by
KARISSA ELIZABETH BUSHMAN
2013
All Rights Reserved
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_______________________
PH.D. THESIS
_______________
This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of
Karissa Elizabeth Bushman
has been approved by the Examining Committee
for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy
degree in Art History at the May 2013 graduation.
Thesis Committee: ___________________________________
Dorothy Johnson, Thesis Supervisor
___________________________________
Wallace Tomasini
___________________________________
Robert Rorex
___________________________________
John Beldon Scott
___________________________________
Tom Lewis
In loving memory of my grandfather, Max W. Sanchez
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Without the guidance of an amazing teacher in high school I would have never
taken an art history class to fall in love with and pursuit as a career. James Francis was a
history teacher who inspired countless of his students including me to study the past. He,
his wife, Karen Leibert, and especially their daughter, my friend, Kate Francis, have all
encouraged and supported my endeavors since I have known them.
While at Case Western Reserve University I had some of the best professors who
helped to shape me into the scholar that I have become. In particular I would like to
thank Elisabeth Köll, my history professor who inspired me and helped shape my
approaches to the study of the historical past. I would also like to thank Anne Helmreich
who offered the best advice and guidance while I studied with her. Most significantly, I
would like to thank Jake Ciofalo who was the reason why I began to study Goya as an
undergraduate. Due to his courses, his mentorship and his kindness I was introduced to
the topic that developed from a term paper in his class, to my MA thesis and now has
evolved into my dissertation.
I could not have made it through this process without a very strong friend base
who I have been able to relay on while working on this project. I would like to
particularly thank Betsey Kosier, Amanda Strasik, Shannon and Pat Cody, Nathan Popp,
and Alice Phillips for their friendship. Most of all I would like to thank my dear friend
Abby Yoder who never offered me anything but her most encouraging thoughts and
helpful comments as well as her wonderful sense of humor.
In Spain I was able to have the pleasure of being assisted both through the
friendship and the professional assistance of a number of individuals. Álvaro
iii
Carrendano, Susan Cormican and Gabriela Fernández have been some of the most
helpful people I have known since I began going to Madrid in 2008 when I attended their
study abroad program through USAC. I would like to also thank Maite Sanchez for the
many times she has allowed me to stay at her apartment while I have been in Madrid and
for her being the most patient host who has helped me improve my Spanish every time
that I am with her. Jan Aminoff and Helen Dickson have been great friends and showed
me the kindest hospitality at their home in Alicante as well as in our trips together to
Valencia. Trudy Hagberg has been one of the kindest and most interesting women I have
ever met who helped me immensely with her connections within Madrid with whom she
introduced me. Within the Museo Nacional del Prado I would like to thank Gudrun
Maurer in the department of Goya and 18th Century Spanish Painting who has been
incredibly kind with her suggestions as well as her assistance in executing my research at
the institution. I would also like to thank the Curator of Prints and Drawings, José
Manuel Matilla and his staff for their assistance in viewing many of Goya’s works on
paper in the collection of the Prado. Pablo Jiménez at the Instituto del Patrimonio
Cultural de España offered me some wonderful suggestions as well as several valuable
resources relating to Goya’s works. I am also entirely grateful to the friendship and
guidance offered to me by Jesusa Vega who has been very generous with her time and
help. Lastly I would like to acknowledge Susana Sartarelli who I met and became friends
with on my first trip to Madrid and sadly died less than two weeks before the completion
of this dissertation. Susana was an accomplished artist who loved to accompany me on
my visits to the museums in Madrid and would offer a new perspective on Goya to me
from the view of a working painter.
iv
My research has been generously supported through a number of grants and
fellowships. I would like to thank the University of Iowa Graduate College, the School
of Art and Art History and the University of Iowa Museum of Art for their many awards
that have helped fund my research for this project. I would also like to thank the Project
for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States
Universities for their generous support of my research.
This last academic year I have had the privilege and pleasure of teaching at
Augustana College where I have had the support, friendship and encouragement of a
number of people here. I would like to thank Kate McKormick and Jordan Kirkbride
who both have the amazing ability to make me laugh and feel better even on the worst of
days. I would like to also thank Margaret Morse who has been incredibly supportive
helpful since I started teaching there and was always willing to answer any of my
questions. Beth Ducey the secretary has been both a wonderful support through her help
with anything that I needed but also has been an amazing friend. Beth is not only the
most friendly and cheerful person in our department, but the first one who is willing to
help whenever anyone needs assistance. I of course want to thank Cathy Goebel who has
been a very kind and encouraging department chair and who is a pleasure to work for.
The kindness and support she gives her faculty and students is inspiring to see and I
greatly appreciate all of her advice and encouragement throughout the year on both this
dissertation as well as my teaching.
Through my years at the University of Iowa I have been lucky to be a part of a
department with an amazing faculty who has been inspiring, supportive and encouraging
throughout my years in the program. I would like to thank Professor Julie Hochstrasser
v
for her friendship. She has been able to always cheer me up to encourage me through
even some the hardest times I faced as a graduate student. Professor Tom Lewis has
helped me immensely both as my Spanish professor who helped me to improve my
language skills and also as a member of my committee who has offered me many
wonderful suggestions through his knowledge of Spanish literature and culture.
Professor John Beldon Scott has offered me some of the most thoughtful comments and
has helped me to at times rethink Goya’s religious paintings. Professor Robert Rorex
truly is one of the kindest individuals I have ever met and I will be eternally grateful for
his encouragement and support throughout my entire graduate career. Professor Wallace
Tomasini has been invaluable through his comments on my scholarship as well as his
advice throughout my time as a graduate student. I especially want to thank my mentor
Professor Dorothy Johnson. I cannot thank her enough for all of her support and
guidance through this dissertation and through my entire time at the University of Iowa.
Her classes, scholarship and guidance have been the biggest inspiration to me and I
appreciate how incredibly patient with me she has been as well as how generous she has
been with her help throughout my years as her student.
My greatest debt is owed to my very loving and supportive family. My sister,
Jenise Aminoff, has always encouraged and supported me since I was a child. She has
always been the first willing to help me throughout my academic career and I cannot
thank her enough. My brother, Jimmy, would remind me focus while I was living in
Albuquerque working on my dissertation. My parents have been supportive and
encouraging throughout my entire life. Mom and Dad both helped to guide me and
provide me with the best support I could ever hope for. My fiancé, Carmelo Medina has
vi
been very supportive of me and my research as well as the most patient companion on my
many museum visits throughout Spain. On a daily basis Carmelo would call or talk to
me online to check on me and remind me to work on and finish my dissertation. His love
and unwavering support helped to guide me through my final year working on this
project. Lastly I would like to thank my grandparents, Max and Mary Anne Sanchez.
Since an early age they have been the most proud grandparents who in their eyes I could
do no wrong. Grandpa especially encouraged me throughout my graduate work as he
was thrilled that I was doing research on Goya due to his lineage that can be traced back
to Valencia. This dissertation is dedicated in loving memory to him.
vii
ABSTRACT
Throughout his career, Francisco de Goya drew, etched, and painted several
recurrent themes. One which began early in his career and was revisited by the artist
even in the last years of his life while in exile in Bordeaux was anticlericalism. Goya
lived during turbulent times in Spanish history, with the role of the Catholic Church
changing as governments and kings also changed. His art reflects the many abuses of
power the Church and its clerics perpetrated on the Spanish people during this period.
Throughout his oeuvre, Goya critiques the clergy and the Catholic Church for misconduct
such as sexual abuse, greed, acts of violence, and hypocrisy. If we consider the decades
in Spanish history in which Goya lived we note that the clergy and the church were
reformed under the enlightened monarchs of the Bourbon dynasty and were almost
completely disbanded under French control during the War of Independence against
Napoleon. We subsequently see a complete reversal with a reinvigoration of the Church
and the Inquisition under the restoration of Fernando VII. It makes sense that Goya, an
artist who used his art to provide us with a social critique of Spanish life, would have
turned to the many wrong doings of the Church since it was one of the most important
and powerful institutions in Spain during his lifetime. Goya’s critiques of the Church
were harsh, humorous, and many times intentionally ambiguous. My dissertation
examines a still much neglected facet of Goya’s art, namely his depictions of
anticlericalism throughout his career. I address how the cultural, religious, social,
political, and literary history of Spain help to explain why the artist denigrated members
of the Catholic Church in his art. A great deal has been written on some of Goya’s well-
viii
known religious paintings, yet his fierce anticlericalism that informs so much of his art
has been largely overlooked.
The first chapter introduces anticlericalism and examines the historiography of
Goya’s works. It also explains my methodological approach and how my dissertation
seeks to expand upon the scholarship that discusses Goya’s complex relationship with
religion. My second chapter addresses the role of religious commissions in Goya’s early
career from his training to his beginnings in the royal court of Madrid. I emphasize how
even in his early career, Goya’s religious paintings had begun to satirize the Catholic
clergy as well as depart from traditional religious iconography. Subsequent chapters
focus on works he created while he was becoming the most famous and sought after artist
in Spain. Specifically in chapters three and four I examine anticlericalism in his print
series Los Caprichos and Disasters of War as well as in his paintings and drawings
completed while living in Spain.
My final two chapters examine Goya’s anticlericalism in the last years of his life,
first under the restored monarchy of Fernando VII and then during his self-imposed exile
in Bordeaux. The late works reveal the extent to which Goya continued to meditate on
and represent the abuses of the Catholic clergy in Spain, a topic that would be on his
mind until his final days.
ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... xi
CHAPTER
I.
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................1
II.
GOYA'S EARLY RELIGIOUS WORKS ......................................................12
Goya's Early Training and the Emphasis on Religion ....................................14
Breaking Away from Tradition ......................................................................36
III.
CORRUPT CLERGY IN LOS CAPRICHOS .................................................89
Sexual Misconduct of the Clergy ...................................................................93
Memories and Fears of the Inquisitional Clergy ..........................................113
Greed and Overindulgence ...........................................................................127
IV.
GOYA’S ANTICLERICAL IMAGES OF VIOLENCE AND WAR ..........166
Goya’s Maragato Series ................................................................................170
The Clergy in Times of War .........................................................................189
V.
ANTICLERICALISM IN THE REINSTATEMENT OF FERNANDO
VII .................................................................................................................232
Caprichos Enfaticos ......................................................................................234
The Inquisition Revisited ..............................................................................245
VI.
ANTICLERICALISM IN GOYA’S LAST WORKS ..................................275
BIBILIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................................301
x
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
1.
Apparition of the virgin of the Pillar
57
2.
José Luzán, Armario del Tesoro
58
3.
Aníbal vencedor contempla por primera vez Italia desde los
Alpes
59
4.
Sketch for Adoration of the Name of God
60
5.
Second sketch for Adoration of the Name of God
61
6.
Fresco of Adoration of the Name of God
62
7.
Layout of Sobradiel Palace paintings
63
8.
El Sueño de San José
64
9.
El Entierro de Cristo
65
10.
Michel Dorigny, print of Simon Vouet’s painting of St. Joseph
66
11.
Michel Dorigny, print of Simon Vouet’s painting of the
Internment of Christ
67
12.
La Visitacíon
68
13.
Carlo Maratta, print of The Visitation
69
14.
Construcción del templo del Pilar por los ángeles
70
15.
Detail of Construcción del templo del Pilar por los ángeles
71
16.
Flight into Egypt
72
17.
Life of the Virgin in Aula Dei
73
18.
Visitación
74
19.
Blind Guitarist
75
xi
20.
Cristo Crucificado
76
21.
Diego Velázquez, Cristo Crucificado
77
22.
Regina Martyrum
78
23.
Sketch of Regina Martyrum in oil on linen
79
24.
Sketch of Faith
80
25.
Sketch of Patience
81
26.
Sketch of Fortitude
82
27.
Sketch of Charity
83
28.
Predicación de San Bernardino de Siena
84
29.
San Francisco de Borja Asistiendo a un Moribundo Impenitente
85
30.
La Ultima Cena
86
31.
El Milagro de San Antonio
87
32.
Francisco Rizi and Juan Carreño de Miranda, Apotheosis of
Saint Anthony of Padua
88
33.
Lo que puede un sastre!
134
34.
Estan calientes
135
35.
Caricatura alegre
136
36.
De unos hombres q.e nos comian
137
37.
Que pico de oro
138
38.
Detail of Que pico de oro
139
39.
Dos Mujeres y un Hombre
140
40.
El Si Pronuncian y lo Mano Alargan Al Primero que Llega
141
41.
El Sueño De La Razon Produce Monstros
142
42.
Ya van desplumados
143
xii
43.
Todos Caerán
144
44.
Detail of Todos Caerán
145
45.
Ruega por ella
146
46.
¡Qual la descañonan!
147
47.
Las rinde el sueño
148
48.
Yard with Lunatics
149
49.
Detail of Las rinde el sueño
150
50.
Tragala Perro
151
51.
Mucho hay que chupar
152
52.
Sopla
153
53.
Detail of Sopla
154
54.
Auto de fe de la Inquisición
155
55.
Devota Profesion
156
56.
Witches about to Fly
157
57.
Dream of a Novice Witch
158
58.
Dream. Of Witches
159
59.
Detail of Devota Profesion
160
60.
Aquellos polbos
161
61.
No hubo remedio
162
62.
Porque esconderlos?
163
63.
Nadie nos ha visto
164
64.
Ya es hora
165
65.
La Familia de Carlos IV
206
xiii
66.
Drawing based on Don Quixote
207
67.
Highwaymen Attacking a Coach
208
68.
Attack on a Coach
209
69.
Early print depicting El Maragato
210
70.
Companion print for the story of El Maragato
211
71.
Companion print for the story of El Maragato
212
72.
Later print depicting the story of El Maragato
213
73.
El Maragato Threatens Friar Pedro de Zaldivia with His Gun
214
74.
Friar Pedro Offers Shoes to El Maragato and Prepares to Push
Aside His Gun
215
75.
Friar Pedro Wrests the Gun from El Maragato
216
76.
Friar Pedro Clubs El Maragato with the Butt of the Gun
217
77.
Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off
218
78.
Friar Pedro Binds El Maragato with a Rope
219
79.
Detail of Friar Pedro Clubs El Maragato with the Butt of the Gun 220
80.
Duro es el paso
221
81.
Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes
222
82.
Bárbaros!
223
83.
Y no hai remedio
224
84.
Todo va Revuelto
225
85.
Tambien estos
226
86.
Esto es Malo
227
87.
Asi Succedio
228
88.
El Dos de Mayo
229
xiv
89.
El Tres de Mayo
230
90.
Assassination of Five Valencian Monks
231
91.
Extraña Devocion!
256
92.
Esta no lo es Menos
257
93.
Que Locura
258
94.
No saben el camino
259
95.
Contra el bien general
260
96.
Esto es lo peor!
261
97.
Que se rompe la cuerda
262
98.
Drawing for Que se rompe la cuerda
263
99.
Murió la Verdad
264
100.
Procesión de disciplinantes
265
101.
Casa de Locos
266
102.
Pedro Berruguete, Auto de fe precidio de Santo Domingo de
Guzman I
267
103.
El entierro de la sardina
268
104.
Haber nacido en otra parte
269
105.
Por no tener piernas
270
106.
Por traer cañutos de Diablos de Bayona
271
107.
Por Casarse con quien quiso
272
108.
Que Crueldad
273
109.
No sabias lo que lleabas a questas
274
110.
Disparate Ridiculo
288
111.
Hasta tu Abuelo
289
xv
112.
Bobalicón
290
113.
Disperate claro
291
114.
Saturno devorando a un hijo
292
115.
Witches Sabbath
293
116.
Promenade of the Holy Office
294
117.
Monk and old woman
295
118.
Two old men
296
119.
Semana Santa en tiempo pasado en España
297
120.
Man Killing Monk
298
121.
Wolf and Man
399
122.
Monk Guzzling from a large bowl
300
xvi
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Throughout his career, Francisco de Goya drew, etched, and painted several
recurrent themes. One which began early in his career and was revisited by the artist
even in the last years of his life while in exile in Bordeaux was anticlericalism. Goya
lived during turbulent times in Spanish history, with the role of the Catholic Church
changing as governments and kings also changed. His art reflects the many abuses of
power the Church and its clerics perpetrated on the Spanish people during this period.
Throughout his oeuvre, Goya critiques the clergy and the Catholic Church for misconduct
such as sexual abuse, greed, acts of violence, and hypocrisy. If we consider the decades
in Spanish history in which Goya lived, we note that the clergy and the church were
reformed under the enlightened monarchs of the Bourbon dynasty and were almost
completely disbanded under French control during the War of Independence against
Bonaparte. We subsequently see a complete reversal with a reinvigoration of the Church
and the Inquisition. It makes sense that Goya, an artist who used his art to provide us
with a social critique of Spanish life, would have turned to the many wrong doings of the
Church since it was one of the most important and powerful institutions in Spain during
his lifetime. Goya’s critiques of the church were harsh, humorous, and many times
intentionally ambiguous. My dissertation will examine a still much neglected facet of
Goya’s art, namely his depictions of anticlericalism throughout his career. I will address
how the cultural, religious, social, political, and literary history of Spain help to explain
the reasons why the artist denigrated members of the Catholic Church in a great variety
of paintings and prints. A great deal has been written on some of Goya’s well-known
religious paintings, yet his fierce anticlericalism has been overlooked.
2
Goya’s complex relationship with religion has been examined by many art
historians in past scholarship. While books that survey Goya’s art and articles briefly
mention some of his works as being anticlerical, the vast majority of the scholarship on
the topic of Goya and religion focuses on his religious painting. Numerous articles have
been written by distinguished scholars shedding light on specific paintings. Two
examples of such articles are Thomas Buser’s “La actitud religiosa de Goya en San
Antonio de la Florida” and Andrew Schulz’s “The Expressive Body in Goya’s St. Francis
Borgia at the Deathbed of an Impenitent.” Both examine specific religious paintings in
detail.1 Buser’s article examines the role of enlightenment philosophy on religion and
how that influenced Goya’s frescoes in the Hermitage. Schulz’s article helps to explain
Goya’s painting of St. Francis by examining religious interpretations of the life of St.
Francis circulating in Spain at the time and by considering the conventions of aesthetics
being taught in the art academies of Spain.
Numerous book chapters and articles have also contributed to the examination of
Goya’s religious works. A more comprehensive examination of his religious painting,
however, was presented in an exhibition held in Zaragoza in 1990. The catalogue of the
exhibition, Goya Pintor Religioso by José Louis Morales y Martin examines the religious
works of Goya and attempts to explain them in the context of his training. It also studies
many of the individual paintings in depth, shedding light on the history of their
1 Thomas Buser, “La actitud religiosa de Goya en San Antonio de la Florida.” Goya, No 203.
(1988), p. 262-265. and Andrew Schulz, “The Expressive Body in Goya’s St. Francis Borgia at
the Deathbed of an Impenitent”, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 80, No. 4( Dec 1998), p. 666-686.
3
commissions as well as their conceptions from sketches to finished products.2 Another
valuable source on Goya’s training and early religious works is Arturo Ansón Navarro’s
Goya y Aragón Familia, Amistades y Encargos Artísticos. In this book he examines the
works and life of Goya in the region of Aragón emphazising his early career as a
religious painter.3
Scholarship for the past several decades has focused on situating Goya’s works in
the historical context of the period. Art historians and other scholars have specifically
examined how Goya’s works reflect his ties to Enlightenment philosophy and writing.
Edith Helman, a scholar of Spanish literature, contributed much to the field in her books
on writers who influenced Goya’s works. Helman used her vast knowledge of Spanish
literature to relate poetry, literature, and philosophical writings to Goya’s Los Caprichos
in her book Trasmundo de Goya.4 Her book sheds light on many possible sources for
specific prints within Los Caprichos by comparing formal aspects of the prints to
literature. Helman also further examined Goya’s possible influences from literature by
specifically studying him in relation to the Spanish Enlightenment thinker and writer,
Jovellanos, in her book Jovellanos y Goya.5 Similar to Helman, Nigel Glendinning also
draws on his vast knowledge of Spanish literature for his many articles and chapters on
Goya’s works. Glendinning also contributes to the field by not only examining several
2 José Louis Morales y Martin, Goya, Pintor Religioso (Zaragoza: Departamento de Cultura y
Educación, 1990.)
3 Arturo Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón: Familia, Amistades y Encargos Artísticos (Zaragoza:
Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada de Aragón, 1995).
4 Edith Helman, Transmundo de Goya (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1963).
5 Edith Helman, Jovellanos y Goya (Madrid: Taurus, 1970).
4
possible literary sources that may have inspired Goya, but also by strongly grounding his
research with relation to the historical context of Goya’s time.6
Goya in the Spirit of Enlightenment, the catalogue edited by Alfonzo Pérez
Sánchez and Eleanor Sayre, began very important research by examining the context of
the Spanish Enlightenment in which Goya worked. 7 By expanding upon the research
done by Helman and Glendinning to include a more historical perspective on Goya’s
work, Pérez Sánchez, Sayre and the contributing authors to the catalog provided the most
comprehensive study of Goya’s work with an emphasis on historical context at the time it
was published. This methodological approach has been adopted by several art historians
who have since been adding to the body of literature by examining other aspects of
Goya’s work with a solid understanding of time in which the artist lived and worked.
Just as more historical research has been completed on Spain and the Spanish
Enlightenment in the past few decades, so art historical research on Goya has been
changing and evolving to include the latest historical research that has been published.
One example of this has been the work of Janis Tomlinson. Tomlinson examines
the historical context in order to better understand Goya and his works. Her book, Goya
in the Twilight of Enlightenment, adds to the previous research presented in the edited
6 Nigel Glendinning has written extensively on Goya’s works. Some examples of his research
include Nigel Glendinning, “The Monk and the Soldier in Plate 58 of Goya’s Caprichos” in The
Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 24 no 1/2, (1961). and Nigel Glendinning,
“Re-contextualizing Goya’s Allegories: History and Poetry” in The Art Bulletin of the
Nationalmuseum Stockholm. Vol. 5 (1998).
7 Alfonso Pérez Sánchez and Eleanor Sayre, Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment (Boston:
Museum of Fine Arts Press, 1989).
5
work or Sayre and Pérez Sánchez.8 In this book, Tomlinson focuses on the general
political history of Spain as well as the history of Spanish artistic traditions and the royal
court, adding to the much-needed historical revision. While her arguments are strong,
Tomlinson’s use of historical context is in many cases generalized for the time period.
This becomes problematic in some of her discussions because, although she addresses
specific themes within Goya’s works, her analyses do not use specific areas of Spanish
history to strengthen her arguments.
In a series of articles, Tomlinson has extensively researched censorship and the
Inquisition during Goya’s career. Tomlinson’s article “Goya and the Censors” examines
the long-argued claim that the reason Goya halted the sale of Los Caprichos shortly after
they were put up for sale was due to the threat of the Inquisition. Tomlinson uses
archival discoveries to characterize the role of the Inquisition and censorship during the
late eighteenth century. She cites as well a letter written by Goya to argue that the
Inquisition did not pose a threat to the artist at the time Los Caprichos was printed and
marketed.9
Andrew Schulz’s recent book, Goya’s Caprichos: Aesthetics, Perception, and the
Body, relies heavily on formal analysis since his concern is “vision” and the prints—both
the vision of the artist transferred onto the plates, and the reception when audiences
viewed the prints. Schulz examines in great detail the way in which the human body is
transformed by the etching needle into caricatures throughout the series. He then uses
8 Janis Tomlinson, Goya in the Twilight of Enlightenment (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1992).
9 Janis Tomlinson, “Goya and the Censors” in Elizabeth C. Childs Suspended License:
Censorship and the Visual Arts, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998).
6
theories from the Spanish Enlightenment as well as Neoclassical and Romantic ideals to
explain the way in which Goya depicted the human form and how these ideas may have
been interpreted by the original viewers.10 Schulz observes many details within the
prints that have been long overlooked by Goya scholars, thereby shedding new light on
the meaning of many of them. However, his emphasis on aesthetics, primarily related to
the human body, seems to overshadow at times the overall meaning of the prints.
Jesusa Vega examines Goya’s prints in even further detail as well as the history of
printmaking in Spain. Vega’s large body of work includes books, chapters, and many
articles. She studies Goya’s paintings but has focused a great deal of attention on Goya
as a printmaker. Her knowledge of printmaking in Spain has added to our understanding
of Goya’s contributions to the history of prints in Spain and Europe. Vega studies
Goya’s printmaking techniques but also attends to to the formal qualities of the prints.
She also has made very significant contributions to our understanding of many of Goya’s
prints by studying them in a broader historical context.11 Vega’s methodological
approach has inspired the methodology I use in this dissertation.
Goya en Tiempos de Guerra, an exhibition held in 2008 at the Prado to celebrate
the two hundred-year anniversary of the insurrections of the Second of May in Madrid,
sheds new light on Goya’s works in relation to the political context in which he worked.
10 Andrew Schulz, Goya’s Caprichos: Aesthetics, Perception, and the Body (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2003).
11 Some of her most important studies to this dissertation include Jesusa Vega, “ De la
imaginación a la realidad: dibujar y grabar el capricho” in Caprichos de Francisco de Goya: una
aproximación y tres estudios. (Madrid: Calcografia Nacional, 1996.) 113-131. Valeriano Bozal,
Coca Garrido and Jesusa Vega. Estudios: Desastres de la Guerra. (Madrid: Planeta, 2008). J.
Portús and Jesusa Vega. La estampa religiosa en la España del Antiguo Régimen. (Madrid:
Fundación Universitaria Española, 1998). and Jesusa Vega, “New Light on the Dating and
Interpretation of Goya’s Disasters of War” in Print Quarterly, Vol. 1, 1994, p 145-164.
7
The exhibition brought together many of the paintings and prints that Goya produced
during the most turbulent times of Spanish history in which he lived. The catalogue as
well as the exhibition emphasized works that depict Goya’s cynicism about war, politics,
and other aspects of Spanish life around the time of the War of Independence.12
My dissertation will engage the dialogue begun in previous studies of art
historians and scholars by also examining Goya’s works in the social, political, religious,
and literary historical contexts in which they were made. Similar to the research that has
examined how the study of the Spanish Enlightenment can be used as a context to better
understand Goya’s art, my dissertation will apply these concepts specifically to the many
works in Goya’s oeuvre that relate to anticlericalism. By carefully examining the formal
qualities of these works and using documentation found in both secondary and primary
sources, I seek to explain not only the ways in which these works can be interpreted as
anticlerical, but also to provide reasons why Goya chose to represent this theme
throughout his career. I will also address reasons why this important part of Goya’s
iconography has been neglected in the historiography.
The second chapter focuses on Goya’s early training as a religious painter in
Zaragoza and his ascension in the court. I specifically examine how he started out in the
studios of Luzán and Bayeu and trained by looking at and copying religious paintings and
prints. I then discuss how his trip to Italy and subsequent religious commissions mark a
departure from purely copying other works of art. This was the moment when Goya
12 Manuela B. Mena Marquéz, ed., Goya en Tiempos de Guerra (Madrid: Museo Nacional del
Prado, 2008).
8
began to compose works that were inspired by great artists of the past, yet reflect his
unique training and experience. This led to his gaining notoriety as a religious painter in
Zaragoza, which earned him more commissions and an eventual invitation to the court in
Madrid, where he would aspire to be a court painter to the king. Finally I discuss how
after he began to be recognized in Madrid as a painter and was accepted into the Real
Acaemia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, he began to break with the tradition of
religious painting in Spain and Europe. While most of his early religious paintings do not
represent themes of anticlericalism, they do constitute a vast departure from what was
expected of a religious painter and would eventually lead to his creation of anticlerical
critiques.
Chapter three shifts to his first major series of prints, Los Capichos. I investigate
how Goya’s print series and preparatory sketches which depict the abuses of the clergy
represent a departure from his earlier art. This chapter is organized thematically since
Goya’s depictions are typically non-sequential and therefore prints that represent many of
the same critiques are not near each other in the series. The first section focuses on the
theme of sexual misconduct since Goya depicted so many different instances of these
abuses. My second section examines his depictions of the Inquisition in Los Caprichos.
I argue that while the prints representing sexual corruption reflect of the many problems
with the Catholic Church at the time Goya etched the plates, the prints about the
Inquisition represent the horrible abuses associated with the institution in the past. The
last section addresses critiques about greed and excess associated with the Catholic clergy
contemporaneously to Goya’s life.
9
My fourth chapter examines Goya’s depictions of the clergy during the time of
the Spanish War of Independence and centers around violent images of atrocity. Prior to
the War of Independence, Spain was in turmoil from other wars with France and England
and suffered under the weak monarchy of Carlos IV. Due to these upheavals and also
due to the persistent problems with banditry, the countryside was dangerous for travelers.
The first section of this chapter examines the Maragato Series of panel paintings. While
art historical scholarship in the past has stated that this is one of the few instances in
which Goya treated the clergy in a positive light, I argue that when looking carefully at
the details of the paintings it becomes evident that Goya manipulated the historical events
in order to cast the friar in negative light. I then examine Goya’s images of war and the
role of the clergy during the Spanish War of Independence. Goya depicted many scenes
of the clergy in his print series Los Desastres de la Guerra and these depictions are
representative of the many different parts the clergy played in the war. In some images
Goya is critical of the clergy, while in others he is sympathetic to their victimization at
the hands of the French soldiers. This section then shifts to Goya’s two well-known
paintings, El Dos de Mayo and El Tres de Mayo to examine how the clergy and the
Church are represented.
My fifth chapter focuses on depictions of the clergy around the time of the
restoration of the Spanish monarch, Fernando VII. While Carlos IV and Carlos III, the
father and grandfather of Fernando, were liberal monarchs who used Enlightenment
thinking to help make Spain a progressive country, Fernando was a conservative monarch
who did away with many of the liberal reforms and realigned the Crown with the Church.
The first section of this chapter focuses on Goya’s prints known as Los Caprichos
10
Enfáticos which comprise the third section of his Disasters of War series. In them, Goya
harshly criticizes the newly allied State with the Church during the corrupt and
conservative monarchy of Fernando VII. My second section will then shift to the many
depictions of the Inquisition that Goya completed after Fernando VII became the king.
Fernando VII reinstated the Inquisition and gave the church more power than it had held
for many decades. Goya’s depictions of the Inquisition represent a shift in monarchical
power and emphasize the barbarism of the Inquisition. They also are similar to Goya’s
depictions of the Inquisition in his Los Caprichos as some of them are inventive and do
not accurately depict the judicial process of the institution contemporaneously to when
they were created.
Chapter six is my final chapter in which I examine the extent to which the artist,
even towards the end of his life and career, was still depicting the theme of
anticlericalism. Goya’s black paintings present us with satirical commentary on the
clergy in the private setting of Goya’s home. Goya continued these criticisms through
caricature in his print series Los Proverbios where he presents us with inventive imagery
similar to that of his Los Caprichos. Throughout his final days both in Spain and in
France, Goya continued to draw. These drawings continued until he died in Bordeaux in
exile, and one of the themes that was present even as Goya was in his eighties was
anticlericalism. It therefore is evident that throughout his entire life and career, Goya
observed and represented the horrible abuses that the clergy perpetuated on the people of
Spain.
My dissertation seeks to prove that Goya’s treatment of the Catholic clergy
throughout his life and career was untraditional, satirical, and innovative. It will also
11
seek to demonstrate that Goya’s critiques of the clergy reflect historical and
contemporaneous problems within Spain while he was creating the images. But most of
all, Goya’s anticlericalism is not just a commentary on the Spanish Catholic Church, it
also either rejects or reflects the political climate between Crown and Church during
which Goya was an artist. Throughout his career as a court painter we will see that
Goya’s critiques began with historic problems of the Clergy that the enlightened
Bourbons such as Carlos III and Carlos IV attempted to fix. Many of these depictions are
whimsical and inventive. There is then a dramatic shift within his art from the fanciful
depictions of historical problems to a harsh biting criticism of the relationship between
the Church and State during the monarchy of Fernando VII. Even while Goya was living
his final days in Bordeaux, he was still depicting scenes that were critical of Catholic
practices and the clergy in Spain. Anticlericalism is a theme present throughout Goya’s
career, both in his art that was intended to be sold and circulated and in his more private
paintings, prints, and drawings. This dissertation will use the context of Spanish
literature, history, culture, and politics to examine many of Goya’s depictions of
anticlericalism through case studies to better explain their significance within the artist’s
oeuvre.
12
CHAPTER II
GOYA’S EARLY RELIGIOUS WORKS
Almost mythically it is thought that Francisco de Goya’s artistic talent was
discovered by a monk. Janis Tomlinson recalls the story: “According to a nineteenthcentury legend, one day the young peasant Francisco was on his way to the mill. He put
down the sack of wheat he was carrying to draw a pig on a wall and was discovered by a
passing friar who recommended further artistic training.”13 Whether or not it is true that
Goya began his artistic training on the advice of a monk, one thing that is certain is that
much of his early exposure to art and his early training centered around religious works.
Goya’s father and his early instructor in Zaragoza both were deeply involved with
religious art in the region of Aragon. While Goya would later become best known for his
painting, he was exposed to art at a very young age because his father was a master
gilder. His father was also friends with the father and older brothers of José Luzán
Martinez, the painter who would train Goya. Luzán’s father and brothers were also
master gilders, and Goya’s father was so close to the family that he was even named as
the executor of the estate of one of the Juan Luzán in 1772.14
Goya first studied in the studio of Luzán who was known for his abilities as a
teacher. He later apprenticed under one of Luzán’s other students and the brother of
Goya’s future wife, Francisco Bayeu. In his early training, Goya was exposed to
religious paintings and prints while he learned by copying from them and assisting in
their creations. Furthermore, on his self-funded trip to Italy while he was still a young
13 Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828 (London: Phaidon Press, 1999), 11.
14 Ibid.
13
student, it is believed that his help was enlisted by Antonio González Velázquez for the
restorations of the frescoes in S Trinita degli Spagnoli.15 Goya’s early religious works
that were completed both under his masters and independently were in line with the
traditions of religious painting in Spain. They show the influences of his two instructors
as well as his trip to Italy. In the early years of his career when he was trying to be
accepted to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid as well as to establish himself
as a great painter he had little opportunity to change the conventions of religious painting.
Therefore, his early religious works were ones to be expected of a student coming from
the region of Aragon.
His conventional religious paintings contrast greatly with his religious works that
he completed once he began to be an established painter in the elite circles of Madrid. As
Goya began to receive commissions from the monarchy as well as the nobility in Madrid,
he began to break with traditional religious painting and offered new and inventive
approaches in his commissioned paintings. He would at times paint scenes from the lives
of saints that were not traditionally depicted by artists, causing his works to be unique in
the history of art. Goya would also study the history behind the religious scenes that he
was depicting in an attempt to better understand the subject that he would be painting,
going beyond what most painters would do to prepare for their commissions. He
therefore changed the tradition of religious painting to better fit the stories as he
understood them. Goya not only used his art to offer new interpretations of religious
history paintings, but also began to question the role of the clergy and their effectiveness
as agents of the Catholic faith. In these religious works, as Goya was rising to the status
15 Jeannie Beatricle, Goya (Paris: Fayard, 1992), 47.
14
of a court painter to the king, he demonstrates his faith through his accurate and intimate
knowledge of the saints and biblical history while being highly critical of the clergy and
the problems that he perceived they contributed to society. This chapter will examine
Goya’s training and specifically his early work on religious subjects. It will then
examine the role of religious commissions in Goya’s early career through his beginnings
in the royal court of Madrid. Through these examinations I will demonstrate that while
his early religious works were not anticlerical in the sense that his later works were, they
did break with tradition and also began to satirize the Catholic clergy.
Goya’s Early Training and the Emphasis on Religion
Goya was born to a commoner father of Basque ancestry and a mother from the
kingdom of Aragon that was from a family of petty aristocracy. While he was born in the
small village of Fuendetodos, he grew up and trained in the capital of Aragon,
Zaragoza.16 In the eighteenth century in Spain, religion played a crucial role in the lives
of all citizens. While it is true that the Catholic church had lost a lot of its power and
hold that it had on society and the government of the proceeding centuries,17 Spain was
still a country where the influence of the Catholic Church was present in almost every
aspect of life from government to education. Francisco de Goya attended a Catholic
school which was typical of children who received education at this time period and most
16 Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya, (New York:
Harrison House, 1981), 33.
17 For more information see Richard Herr, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 3-10.
15
of the extant documents concerning his early childhood come from church records.18
Religion was important to the Goya family, as witnessed not only through the many
documents that remain addressing the different sacraments they all received in the
different churches as well as their enrollments, but also through Goya’s letters in which
he refers to God and religious subjects many times. The Catholic faith was so important
to the family Goya came from that Francisco’s youngest brother became a priest and
served as the vicar in a church in the small village of Chinchón.19
Growing up in his family, Goya would have been exposed to religious art early on
since his father was a master gilder and many of his commissions came from churches. It
has in fact been suggested that the reason why Goya’s birth took place in Fuendetodos
rather than Zaragoza was due to the possibility that his father was working on the main
retable for the parochial church in the small village.20 We also know that Goya was
exposed to his father’s work on religious art at an early age due to the mention of his
presence in the Calahorra Cathedral where his father José and the brother of Goya’s first
painting instructor, Juan Luzán Martinez, worked together on gilding the organ for the
cathedral. Goya was ten years old while he was with his father as he worked on the
18 Jose Luis Ona González, Goya y Su Familia en Zaragoza: Nuevas Noticias Biográficas
(Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1997). In this book Ona González has gathered and
discusses many of the archival documents pertaining to Goya and his family during the times that
they lived in Zaragoza. The first portion of this relates to Goya’s parents and when Goya was a
small child. Nearly all of the documents listed and written about come from different parishes
within Zaragoza announcing events such as Goya’s baptism. Documents that were not primarily
concerned with religious events were typically ones detailing where the Goya family was living
or were partially quoted letters to friends and acquaintances.
19 Gassier and Wilson, Life and Complete Work, 33.
20 Ona González, Goya y Su Familia, 38.
16
organ.21 Four years later, Goya began studying painting under José Luzán. Goya’s
father was a friend and colleague of the Luzán family. Furthermore, his parents were
also friends to the family of Francisco Bayeau, one of José Luzán’s students and the
painter who would later become Goya’s second instructor and eventual brother-in-law. It
is likely through these connections that Goya began his artistic training in Luzán’s studio.
At age fourteen, Goya entered the studio of Luzán, but was also enrolled in a
school run by the Church. At the school the monk who instructed him “drummed the
elementary dogmas of life into him with a cudgel amid invocations of the saints.”22 His
education left a lasting impression on him through his training and career as an artist.
Goya’s training in Luzán’s studio consisted mostly of copying from prints. Luzán had
spent years in Italy, studying in Naples where he adopted a late baroque Neapolitan style
for his painting. It was likely due to this time and training in Naples that Luzán
developed his training techniques and insistence on gaining inspiration from the masters
of art, especially the Italian masters. In doing so Goya learned the fundamentals of
drawing and the lesson of copying from the prints stayed with him since it has been noted
that even in his later religious paintings, the influence of Italian engraving can be
found.23 It was only towards the end of his training in Luzán’s studio that he began to
paint.
21 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 11.
22 Otto Bihalji-Merin, trans. John E. Woods, Goya Then and Now: Paintings, Portraits, Frescoes
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981).
23 Gassier and Wilson, Life and Complete Work, 35.
17
In what is believed to be one of Goya’s earliest works, Apparition of the Virgin of
the Pillar (Figure 1), painted on the doors of a reliquary for a church in Fuendetodos, the
influence of Luzán can be seen. The painting was destroyed in the Spanish Civil War, so
it is impossible to fully verify the attribution to Goya through the photographs that
remain.24 Goya painted two other panel paintings, which were also destroyed, depicting
Saint Francis and the Virgin as well as a fresco of a canopy held by angels for the same
church. These four paintings, the first of his commissioned works mentioned to his
friend Martín Zapater, have all been lost and exactly what they looked like is uknown.
However, what has been mentioned by previous art historians is how Goya’s style in each
of the paintings was greatly influenced by the teachings of Luzán, and was possibly based
on Italian prints.25
In looking at the photographs that remain of the Apparition of the Virgin of the
Pillar we see that Goya painted the doors of the reliquary with a scene depicting the
moment when the Virgin appeared to Saint James in Zaragoza and present him with a
column and a statue of herself to place upon it. This event took place on the site of the
cathedral of El Pilar, and the exact location of the apparition is marked by the Santa
Capilla within the cathedral.26 Goya painted the saint in the lower right hand corner
looking up towards heaven where the Virgin is seated on a cloud and among angels. She
looks down upon and points to the middle of the left door of the reliquary where the
statue of the Virgin and the column are depicted. Both the statue and the column are
24 This is discussed further in Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 11-12.
25Ibid., 12.
26 Ibid.
18
being carried down from the heavens towards the earth and the saint. The diagonal
formed by the column points towards the top of the right hand door, into heaven where
the Virgin is seated. There is another diagonal formed when we look at where the
column and statue are being carried down to the saint on earth. The composition of this
painting can be compared to Goya’s instructor José Luzán’s painting Armario del Tesoro
from 1757 (Figure 2). The way in which Luzán composed the saints and holy trinity
seated on clouds and surrounded by angels forming compositional diagonals with each
other is similar to how Goya formatted his painting.
Goya’s studies with Luzán proved to be beneficial, and Goya left his studio in
1763 at the age of 17 for Madrid. The First Court Painter to the king, Anton Raphael
Mengs, had seen Goya’s work and recommended he assist in Madrid with the new
decorations within the Royal Palace. It was also in this year that Goya is believed to have
entered the studio of Francisco Bayeu in Madrid to receive more training.27 Goya
competed for a scholarship to study painting at the Real Acadamia de Bellas Artes de San
Fernando in Madrid in the same year by submitting a drawing based a sculptural cast in
the academy. He was unsuccessful since he received no votes, a result which was
repeated in 1766 when Francisco Bayeu’s younger brother, Ramón, won the competition
with all of the votes from the judges.28 These failures surely had a profound effect on
Goya since we know little of what he did for the next five years and do not see much
activity with regard to his painting until he is living in Italy.
27 Ibid., 12-15.
28 Ibid., 12 and Gassier and Wilson, Life and Complete Work, 36.
19
Goya’s trip to Italy was most likely an attempt to broaden his education in art and
gain more patronage within the court in Madrid. After all, the two highest court painters
to Carlos III were Mengs, who had studied in Rome, and Tiepelo, the Venetian painter.
Goya’s first master, Luzán, even trained in Italy. Luzán trained in the workshop of
Giuseppe Mastroleo in Naples, which influenced his art and teaching style.29 It was
obvious to Goya that Italian painting was sought after in both Zaragoza and Madrid. He
aspired to be a painter in the elite circles in the capitol city, and he wanted to be able to
compete with the painters who were considered to be the best and received the highest
paying commissions from the royalty and nobility. He likely viewed his trip that he later
proclaimed as self-funded to Italy as an investment in his future as a painter to the most
elite clientele in Spain.
The exact dates of Goya’s trip to Italy are unknown. However, a letter dated 20
April 1771 accompanied Goya’s entry to the Royal Academy of Painting in Parma’s
competition. His letter states:
Having advised Your Excellency of the painting that I have made for the
Competition of the Royal Academy, I now give notice that I have
forwarded the painting by post to be in your hands. The device with
which I have distinguished it, in accordance with the Academy’s rules, is
from Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid, Libro sesto: ‘Iam tandem Italiae fugien
[sic] prendimos oras’.
I hope the painting will arrive in time for the competition and that
my feeble efforts will be viewed sympathetically by the Academy. 30
29 Juan J. Luna in Joan Surreda, ed. Goya e Italia: Estudios y Ensayos Volume II (Zaragoza:
Turner, 2008.) 35.
30 A portion of Goya’s letter to the Academy in Parma was translated and quoted in Sarah
Symmons, ed., Phillip Troutman, trans. Goya: a Life in Letters. (London: Random House,
2004), 62.
20
The letter above was sent with the painting Aníbal vencedor contempla por
primera vez Italia desde los Alpes (Figure 3) for the painting competition of the Royal
Academy in Parma. The painting shows a shift in Goya’s style of painting to one more in
line with the Rococo, a style that Goya would revisit in the future while he worked on the
tapestry cartoon designs for the royal family.31 Similar to his results for the competitions
in Madrid, Goya did not win the competition for the Royal Academy in Parma. However
he did receive votes and an honorable mention for his painting. The painting proves that
Goya’s style and sophistication was evolving, and he was thinking about how to appeal to
the tastes of the academies and the tastes of the elite circles in Spain. Goya’s paintings
and notebooks from his time in Italy focused on religious works and classical themes.32
He would use what he learned and experienced in his time in Italy in order to further his
career in Spain.
Not long after his failed entry in the competition with the Royal Academy of
Parma, Goya returned to Zaragoza.33 Upon returning to Zaragoza after his trip to Italy,
Goya found that many of the best painters from the region had moved to paint primarily
in Madrid, including his two former instructors, Luzán and Bayeu. Thus, he was able to
receive more commissions, especially those for religious subjects.34 While Goya aspired
to be a painter in Madrid, where the commissions were for the wealthiest and most
31 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 15.
32 Juan J. Luna in Joan Surreda, Goya e Italia.
33 When Goya’s painting was sent back to him from the Royal Academy in Parma, he had
already left for Spain and the painting had to be forwarded to him. Goya was in Zaragoza by
October of 1771. Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 18.
34 Tomlinson, Francisco de Goya, 18.
21
prestigious clients in Spain, he also was faced with the declining health of his parents
when he returned from Italy. His father was so ill he was no longer able to work as a
guilder to support himself and his wife. The financial burden of caring for his parents fell
primarily on Francisco, as his older sister, Rita, cared for their health and wellbeing but
did not have financial resources. His brother Tomás already had married, started a family
of his own and was not financially successful. Goya’s last brother Camilo had just began
studying theology at the University of Zaragoza to become a priest. Goya needed to be
financially successful not only for himself but also for his parents. He stayed in Zaragoza
to try and fill the niche left behind by the other painters who left for Madrid and began to
compete for the commissions of religious paintings around the city. One of the first
paintings for which he would compete for the commission to paint was a fresco for the
Cathedral of El Pillar.
In October of 1771 Goya was requested to present sketches to the committee
overseeing the frescoes in the Cathedral of El Pilar. He was competing for the
commission to paint a small barrel vault in a choir. Goya submitted a sketch for the
commission in November demonstrating how he was planning to compose the scene if he
was selected by the committee. Goya, needing to provide for his family and wanting to
gain as many prestigious commissions as he could in order to become more well known,
made himself more competitive against the other two painters competing for the
commission by suggesting he could paint the scene for significantly less money. Goya
offered to complete the barrel vault for 15,000 reales, which included his paying for his
assistants and all of the materials. In comparison, a much better established artist within
Spain, Antonio González Velázquez, suggested that his fresco would cost 25,000 reales
22
as well as all of the expenses of his equipment, assistants, and the expenses of his trips
between Madrid and Zaragoza to paint the fresco.35 The other painter competing for the
commission was Juan Andrés Merclein, who was the teacher and father-in-law to Goya’s
instructor, Francisco Bayeu. 36
Goya mostly likely knew the competition he was facing, and painted the
preliminary sketch for the competition in a very traditional manner that would have been
familiar to the committee. While it is not completely known if this particular sketch
survives, it is highly likely that the earliest sketch for the fresco, which was attributed to
him in the 1980s, was the initial sketch submitted to the committee. Assuming that this
was the first sketch submitted by Goya for the Adoration of the Name of God (Figure
4)37 commission, one of the most important things to note is how Goya was mimicking
the art of his competitors in the sketch to prove his talent and ability. It has been
suggested that Goya looked at his competitors’ work for inspiration when he painted the
sketch since it closely resembles González Velázquez’s painting of the same theme in the
Santa Capilla in Zaragoza. Due to the style and format in which he painted it, the sketch
was even attributed to González Velázquez until the 1980s.38 It would make sense for
Goya to do this as he was a younger, lesser known artist competing against established
artists who were well known in Zaragoza. In completing a sketch in the style of his
competitors and offering to complete the fresco at a highly reduced rate, Goya was
35 Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 88-9.
36Ibid and Tomlinson, Francisco Goya,18.
37 Morales y Martín, Goya Pintor Religioso, 56.
38 Ibid.
23
making a statement to the committee that his work would rival his competitors at a
fraction of the cost.
Goya’s first sketch for the painting depicts the angels carrying a cross in the upper
half of the center of the composition. The cross is set against a yellow background with
the upper half of the cross encircled in a lighter yellow, drawing attention to it. Below
the cross and on either side are Christ’s apostles looking up towards and paying homage
to the cross. Directly below the cross are several angels, one of which is in the center of
the composition dressed in red and looking out towards the viewer. To the left is another
angel blowing a trumpet that is cut off at the bottom of the painting. Goya is
demonstrating his newly acquired foreshortening techniques that he learned while in Italy
in the figures of the two angels. Overall, most of the colors in the painting are light and
subdued pastels with very little bright red, which is similar to his painting The Victorious
Hannibal Seeing Italy from the Alps. Goya’s painting therefore was trying not only to
mimic that of his competitor Antonio González Velázquez’s work, but also demonstrates
his newly acquired knowledge and training from Italy. In doing so, Goya was trying to
be competitive with the artists in Spain who had trained and worked in the Italian
traditions of painting, since he knew this style was sought after by patrons of the time.
Goya received the commission for the vault and was asked to complete a second
sketch that would be submitted to the committee as well as the Academia de San
Fernando for approval prior to his painting of the vault.39 Goya’s second sketch (Figure
5) makes significant changes to the design and style of the first sketch. The cross, which
had been the main focal point of the original sketch, has been replaced by a triangle in the
39 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 18 and Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 88.
24
top center of the composition. The triangle then becomes the main focal point in the
composition, not just because of where it is placed but also because of its brightness
compared to the rest of the painting. It is encircled in a slightly darker ring of light, but
overall contrasts against the much darker tones of the rest of the composition. Goya has
also made significant changes in the figures of the second sketch. While the figures are
all still seated on clouds, they are pushed back from the front plane of the painting,
making them appear further away from the viewer in the second sketch. Furthermore,
many of the figures in the second sketch are also cast in darker light which, combined
with the figures’ smaller sizes, causes them to be less distinguishable than in the first
sketch. This suggests that the figures are now all being depicted as various types of
angels rather than have a principal focus be on figures of the apostles as was in the first
sketch. While the figures and scene present us with a style of painting similar to that of
the first sketch, overall the second sketch has significantly changed the composition and
characteristics of the scene.
The fresco of Adoration of the Name of God (Figure 6) is similar to the second
sketch with only minor changes. The scene ended up being painted with lighter yellow
tones throughout the composition, which differs from the darkness of the second sketch.
The rich primary colors present in the sketch become more subdued and painted in a
more pastel color palette, similar to the first sketch. One of the greatest changes was the
addition of ancient lettering onto the triangle in the top center of the composition, causing
it to be more distinguishable. The figural compositions of the angels also direct the
viewer’s attention to the triangle as many of them are looking towards it or pointing to it,
which constantly directs the attention back to that focal point in the image. Overall,
25
though, the figures and major compositional elements of the painting have not changed
position or style from the second sketch to the completed fresco.
Still assuming that the first sketch was the one that Goya presented to the
committee for the commission of the barrel vault in the cathedral, the second sketch and
the final fresco present us with Goya breaking away from the tradition of how the scene
would have been composed by his predecessors and contemporaries in order to add his
own artistic interpretation to the scene. None of the changes he makes in the second
sketch and final painting challenge church doctrine or radically challenge the artistic
conventions of his time. However, his compositional and stylistic changes he makes are
significant enough to note that in doing so Goya was making a very bold statement about
his painting. With the first sketch being done in the style of his competitor in order to
gain the commission, and his second sketch making major changes to the composition,
Goya effectively cast away the work of his contemporaries in order to promote himself
and his artistic style. This second sketch marks one of the first instances in which Goya
chooses to paint a religious scene that is different than that of his contemporaries and
predecessors within Spain.
This move was both bold and risky on Goya’s part. While the building committee
seems to have liked Goya’s final fresco, when he bid to complete other vaults in the
cathedral directly after completing them, he was turned down in favor of Francisco
Bayeau. Bayeau had returned to Zaragoza while also being a court painter in Madrid,
and effectively became in charge of the committee that named painters to work on the
different campaigns within the Cathedral. Even though Goya did not receive the next
commissions within the Cathedral, his Adoration of the Name of God gave him more
26
recognition within the city of Zaragoza and he started to receive more commissions,
especially for religious paintings. Because he was passed up for the new vaults in the
Cathedral in favor of Bayeau, this created a rivalry and tension between the two artists
that would later and only briefly be tamed by Goya’s marriage to Bayeau’s sister in
1773.40 Goya would compete for commissions against Bayeau in both Zaragoza and
Madrid for years until the two collaborated on the Cathedral of El Pilar in the early
1780s.
Around the time he was completing the fresco for the barrel vault in the Cathedral
of El Pilar or shortly after it was completed, Goya received the commissions to work on a
series of paintings in the chapel in the Palace of the Count of Sobradiel in Zaragoza. In
1772 Goya painted La Visitacíon and El Sueño de San José on walls facing each other on
the chapel, while his third large painting, El Entierro de Cristo, was painted on the
ceiling. He also painted four small paintings depicting San Joaquín, Santa Ana, San
Cayetano, and San Vicente Ferrer that were significant to the lives of the Count of
Sobradiel, Joaquín Cayetano Cavero, and his wife María Joaquina Marín de Rosendi,
which is believed to have been on the altar wall (Figure 7).41
When painting the three main narrative scenes in the chapel, Goya modeled his
paintings after prints.42 Goya’s paintings El Sueño de San José (Figure 8) and El
40 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 18.
41 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 21 claims that the saints were painted “paired on either side of
the chapel” however a much more thorough and in depth look at this paintings was done in Ansón
Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 94-99. which more convincingly argues and reconstructs the chapel
showing that the paintings were completed on the front altar wall.
42 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 21. Ansón Navaro, Goya y Aragón, 95-98. and Morales y Martín,
Goya Pintor Religioso, 72-76.
27
Entierro de Cristo (Figure 9) were both based on Michel Dorigny’s seventeenth-century
prints of the French artist Simon Vouet’s paintings of the same subjects (Figure 10 and
11). La Visitacíon (Figure 12) was also based on a print. However, in this case it was
Carlo Maratta’s print from a painting in the Chigi Chapel in Siena (Figure 13). 43 Goya
painted these scenes directly on the walls and ceilings of the oratorio with oil paint,
however, they were transferred from their original forms to canvas when they were
brought to the attention of an early biographer of Goya in 1915 so they could then be
exhibited in Zaragoza for the 100 year anniversary of Goya’s death.44 What is evident
with all of these paintings and their respective prints that inspired them is that Goya made
relatively few changes to the compositional elements of each of the works, however, he
did change at least a small portion of each image. The most notable change that Goya
made was in reversing the figures of La Visitacíon, which could be argued that he was
trying to paint the image the way that Vouet did, as the print probably reversed the way it
was presented. However, he did not do this with either of the other two paintings so it
seems unlikely that he would chose to do so only for one of the three scenes.
These paintings, when compared to his previous religious fresco of the vault in
the cathedral, demonstrate Goya’s ability to model his figures better and to pay closer
attention to anatomical detail. Part of the reason for this was most likely due to the fact
that Goya was looking at the reproductive prints and mostly copying them into fresco
form. El Entierro de Cristo, when compared to his Adoración del Nombre de Dios,
43 All three of these prints and their influence on Goya’s paintings are discussed in Ansón
Navaro, Goya y Aragón, 95.
44 Ibid., 94-95.
28
demonstrates Goya’s ability to model the figures through the use of drapery and
musculature. Janis Tomlinson argues that this attention to human anatomy was
something completely new within Goya’s works, and it has led art historians to seek
outside sources for the inspiration of the paintings to accounts for the connection between
the frescoes and the reproductive prints.45 However, this assessment completely ignores
several other works done by Goya prior to the murals in the Oratorio of the Palacio de
Sobradiel.
Looking back to Goya’s painting submitted to the Academy in Parma, Aníbal
vencedor contempla por primera vez Italia desde los Alpes (Figure 3), we see that Goya
did pay attention to human anatomy and modeling of figures, which can be seen most
notably in the back of the minotaur seated in the lower left-hand corner as well as in
Goya’s painting of Hannibal. Looking even further back in Goya’s career as a painter,
his Construcción del templo del Pilar por los ángeles (Figure 14) from 1765-1768 also
clearly demonstrates Goya’s ability to paint human anatomy and musculature. Especially
considering the figure seated in the lower right-hand corner (Figure 15), his treatment of
the muscles in the man’s back are similar to those of the Minotaur in the painting with
Hannibal. The Construcción del templo del Pilar por los ángeles is similar to Goya’s
Entierro del Cristo in the sense that Goya was looking to other works of art for
inspiration. In this case Goya was interpreting a sketch by Antonio González Velázquez
from the Cathedral in Zaragoza. Since González Velázquez was the same artist Goya
imitated for his vault commission in the Cathedral, it is interesting to note that with this
earlier painting Goya paid more attention to how he painted the human form, therefore
45 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 18.
29
suggesting that Goya was capable of completing works that focused on anatomy and
form at an early stage in his artistic development. Accordingly, it can be assumed that
even in his early years as a painter Goya had the ability to focus on realistic modeling of
figures, but only chose to do so in certain paintings regardless of the works of art that
Goya looked to for inspiration.
Upon further examining the influence of the prints on the paintings it has been
suggested that the patron who owned the prints chose them specifically for the room and
had Goya copy the reproductive prints onto the walls, therefore making this a less
prestigious commission that other more established artists would have turned down.46
However, this is purely speculative since the commission records for the paintings have
been lost, and past scholarship does not account for the fact that Goya’s early training in
Zaragoza under Luzán emphasized the practice of copying prints through drawing and
painting. It is possible that after he did not receive further commissions in the Cathedral
after his last vault, he decided to return to his training and the practices of his master
Luzán, who was a well-respected and established artist in the region of Aragón, in order
to satisfy his clientele. In fact, Goya painted a similar visitation for the Charterhouse of
Aula Dei just outside of Zaragoza between 1772 and 1774,47 which could suggest that
the prints used for inspiration were not only used for the Sobradiel paintings.
Goya’s earliest print was also completed on a religious subject. His Flight into
Egypt (Figure 16) from 1770 is his first etching he completed and illustrates his
46 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 21.
47 The exact dates of when Goya painted the murals for Aula Dei is unknown and argued about
in the literature on the paintings. The dates and arguments of different art historians on these
paintings is best discussed in Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 109-111.
30
beginnings as a printmaker. Rather than using more sophisticated techniques such as
aquatint as he later mastered with Los Caprichos, the Flight into Egypt is a very basic
print depicting the virgin and child on the back of a donkey while Joseph is standing next
to them. The shading for the print has been completed by cross hatching. As Janis
Tomlinson has argued, Goya was accustomed to looking at prints due to his training and
knew that the medium was able to be used as a way to advertise the talent of the artist
producing the print.48 Goya signed the print with the inscription “Goya invt et fecit” in
the lower right hand corner, which states that he both engraved the plate but was also the
one who printed the image. Goya, therefore, may have been attempting to act like past
printmakers who produced etchings in order to be disseminated easier than with paintings
in order to gain more recognition and therefore more commissions.
Goya’s next major commission in Zaragoza was for the Charterhouse of Aula Dei
where he painted a cycle of mural paintings for the Life of the Virgin (Figure 17) and had
several paintings of subject matter that he had depicted before. Originally there were
eleven paintings in the series. However, the charterhouse was neglected for years,
leaving the paintings in poor condition, which resulted in several of the paintings being
destroyed or lost in the process of renovation in 1902.49 One of the paintings lost was
the Flight into Egypt which would have made for a good comparison with his first print
of the same subject matter completed two years earlier. One painting from the
Charterhouse that we can compare to Goya’s other religious works of the same subject
matter is that of his Visitación (Figure 18) which can be compared to his painting of the
48 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 21.
49 Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragon, 108.
31
same subject from the Sobradiel Palace. Goya’s method of painting the murals between
both locations was the same since he applied oil paint directly to the walls. While the
paintings share similar formal qualities, there are some notable changes that can be seen
between the two Visitations.
Goya adapted the Sobradiel Palace’s Annunciation to fit with the longer
rectangular format for the mural in Aula Dei. In examining the central scene in both
paintings, in which Mary and Saint Elizabeth are meeting, Goya has dramatically
changed the way in which he depicts the two women interacting. In both paintings, Goya
emphasizes the pregnancy of Mary, not of Saint Elizabeth. In the Sobradiel Visitacion he
does so through the pose of Elizabeth so that she does not appear to have as large of a
belly, while Mary is depicted in profile view, emphasizing that she is carrying Christ.
His treatment of the drapery is stylistically similar in both paintings. However, he made
one significant change to the composition in Aula Dei of the two women meeting with
regard to their costume. Saint Elizabeth holds out her hand and therefore extends the
cloth of her dress. The cloth hides the fact that she is pregnant with Saint John the
Baptist and therefore obscures her pregnancy, which de-emphasizes the important part of
the story in which John the Baptist in Saint Elizabeth’s womb recognizes the divinity of
Christ in Mary’s womb and jumps inside his mother. In doing so, Goya makes a
significant change to the traditional depictions of the Visitation with this painting. While
the paintings of Aula Dei such as this one are all similar in style to the rest of his early
religious works completed in Zaragoza at this time, this alteration of how Elizabeth is
depicted foreshadows how Goya would later in his career make much more significant
changes to the traditions of religious painting. It is also one of the last paintings Goya
32
depicted in this style, since he left for Madrid not long after the completion of the Aula
Dei fresco cycles. In Madrid he would be introduced to the royal Court since he began to
work on the first of his Tapestry cartoons.
Goya’s marriage to Fancisco Bayeu’s sister most likely helped him to be chosen
to work on the tapestry cartoons in Madrid. 50 Goya was one of four artists brought to
Madrid in 1775 to work on the cartoons that would be turned into tapestries for the Pardo
and Escorial palaces in order to meet the increasing demand of new tapestries for the
palaces. Goya’s early tapestry cartoons depict genre scenes rather than historic events
which could have been encouraged by the First Court Painter, Anton Raphael Mengs.
Several other artists prior to Goya who had worked on the tapestry cartoons for the
Spanish royal family had also turned to genre paintings, and specifically looked to the
traditions of the Dutch and Flemish Baroque for inspiration. Goya and some of his
contemporaries, however, did not include stylistic or subject matters inspired by the
Dutch, but rather began to reveal the influence of France in their style of painting as well
as through the subjects being presented. This makes sense since French culture was also
significantly impacting life in the Enlightened circles of Madrid.51 This new style that
Goya developed as a painter for the royal Court marks a departure from the way he
painted in Zaragoza.
Goya’s new appointment as an artist working on the tapestry cartoons was an
important step in his professional development as a painter, and would provide him with
50 Janis Tomlinson has written extensively on Goya’s Tapestry Cartoon paintings. Her most
extensive study on them is her book Francisco Goya The Tapestry and Early Career at the Court
of Madrid (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
51 Ibid. 9-10.
33
the opportunity to advance within the elite circles of Madrid. Janis Tomlinson explains
that while Goya was ambitious in his new job in Madrid, working as a tapestry cartoon
painter was not a very prestigious position. His brother-in-law Bayeu even commented
on the limitations of the position, since once used to make the tapestry, the paintings
would be forgotten and never viewed by the general public. Tomlinson goes on to argue
that since Goya’s paintings were rolled up and stored in the basement of the tapestry
factory, this proved that Bayeu was correct in his assessment of the insignificance of
Goya’s position.52 It is true that the cartoons were not works of art made for the general
public to view, and therefore would not advertise Goya’s artistic talents to a larger
audience. However, it is also important to note that the intended audience for the
tapestries was the royal family, and therefore would provide him with the opportunity to
make an impression upon the most important patrons in Spain at the time, which would
then lead to his gaining more lucrative and prestigious commissions from them and their
contemporaries in the elite circles of Madrid.
Goya’s paintings that he claimed to be of his “invention” were often comical and
entertaining. His work granted him the opportunity to be known by the royal family,
since he was painting the designs for tapestries that would hang in their palaces and he
made a great impression on the prince and his wife, Carlos IV and Maria Louisa. Goya’s
work was appreciated by the royal family and when he turned to the subject matter of an
annual fair held in Madrid, he first painted his Blind Guitarist (Figure 19 ) to be woven in
1778.53 He continued to paint other scenes of the fair to accompany this tapestry which
52 Tominson, Francisco Goya, 25.
53 Ibid. 33.
34
led to his eventually meeting members of the royal family. Goya enthusiastically wrote
to his friend Martin Zapater about his meeting: “Si estubiera mas despacio te contaria lo
que me onro el rey y el principe y la princesa que por la gracia de Dios me proporcionó el
enseñarles cuatro cuadros y les besé la mano… tubieron de berlas y la satisfacciones que
logré con el Rey y mucho mas con sus Altezas.”54 As evinced in the letter, Goya made a
lasting impression on the royal family, especially on Carlos IV and his wife Maria
Louisa, who would eventually become the king and queen of Spain and Goya’s most
important patrons. Goya’s work as a tapestry painter therefore was critical to his
development into a court painter to the King later in his career as well as in his
introduction to the elite circles in Madrid. While in Madrid he continued to work on
tapestry cartoons for the royal palaces for several more years until the factory closed, and
also worked on other paintings in order to attempt to gain recognition and status as a
painter.
One such painting that Goya produced with his career advancement in mind was
his Cristo Crucificado (Figure 20 ) which he submitted to the Real Academia de Bellas
Artes de San Fernando to gain admission. Cristo Crucifacado is stylistically different
from Goya’s Tapestry cartoons as well as his religious paintings completed in Zaragoza.
Goya departs from his previous paintings in order to appeal to the academic tastes of the
time that would allow him entry and therefore help him to achieve higher status as a
painter in Madrid. Goya modeled his Christ after well-known examples that were widely
54 Goya to Zapater, 9 January 1779. Reproduced in in Mercedes Águeda Villar and Xavier de
Salas, ed., Cartas a Martín Zapater (Madrid: Ediciones Istmo, 2003), 72. “Had I been slower in
telling you about meeting the king, the prince and the princess who by the grace of God I gave
and taught them about four paintings and I kissed his hand… They viewed with great satisfaction
what I did with the King and even more so with their Highnesses [the prince and princess].”
35
known and accepted as academic models within Madrid. Janis Tomlinson argues that he
was inspired by a painting by Mengs.55 However, the more widely accepted model for
the painting is Velázquez’s Cristo Crucificado (Figure 21), which was in the royal
collection and well known throughout Madrid through reproductive prints.
Velázquez would be the likely inspiration for Goya considering how much Goya
looked to his other works of art for inspiration. Goya had done a series of prints
reproducing the works of Velázquez in 1778 and while his Christ was not among them,
he more than likely knew about it. When examining the two paintings side by side, the
similarities are obvious with regard to both style and color palette. Goya, however,
changes the pose of Christ by having his head and eyes look up towards heaven for
salvation rather than downcast as in the Velázquez painting. Since Velázquez was a
highly regarded Spanish painter who became an example for all those who trained in the
Real Academia to follow, Goya most likely modeled his painting of Christ after
Velázquez in order to appeal to the judges in the academy to gain entry. In doing so and
through the examination of his other paintings from his early career, it can be said that
one of Goya’s primary driving forces behind how he composed and painted was based on
his patrons and the intended audiences of the works.
Goya’s early religious paintings in his time in Zaragoza represent his emulation of
painters of his time period as well as masters he was acquainted with through
reproductive prints. Goya’s early works reflect his training by copying prints and works
from the masters, and he used this technique throughout his early career as an artist in
order to gain more prestige and recognition. What we see in his even in his very early
55 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 51.
36
works as a young artist, however, is that he begins to make small changes to the works
that he is copying and being inspired by. This will continue as Goya moves to Madrid to
work there as a painter ascending to the court circles. It will last with him throughout his
career as a painter, since religious paintings were commissions he received often.
Breaking Away from Tradition
Goya had tensions with his brother-in-law, Francisco Bayeu for years, but after he
married Bayeu’s sister their relationship improved which led to Goya receiving several
important commissions. In 1870 Goya was summoned back to Zaragoza with Ramón
Bayeau to work on cycles in Nuestra Señora del Pilar at the request of Francisco Bayeu.
This would lead to further tensions between Goya and Bayeu and their eventual
separation of their artistic partnerships. Even after Bayeu was no longer supervising
Goya on the murals in the cathedral, there were problems between Goya and the Building
Committee over his designs for the paintings. This would eventually lead to a pivotal
point in Goya’s career in which much of his religious paintings as well as other works
would no longer focus on the traditions of Spanish painting, nor would they be so heavily
influenced by his prior training. This section will seek to demonstrate that Goya’s murals
in Zaragoza between 1870 and 1871 and his other religious commissions up until the time
at which he printed Los Caprichos differ from his earliest religious works because they
diverge dramatically from the artistic tradition of his training, and at times they also focus
on religious scenes that were not typically painted. In examining these paintings, it will
become evident that before Goya’s harsh attacks on the Catholic Clergy made in his Los
Caprichos he was already beginning to question the traditional role of religion in Spain
37
and how artists should represent religious historical paintings as well as religious scenes
of his contemporary time.
Francisco Bayeu had been put in charge of overseeing the decorative campaigns
within the Cathedral of Nuestra Señora del Pilar around the time that Goya had finished
his early fresco for the vault La adoración del Nombre de Dios.56 While overseeing the
new cycles in the cathedral, Bayeu asked Goya to return to Zaragoza and complete the
painting on a cupola dome and later extended the commission to include the pendentives
adjoining it.57 Goya accepted the commission for Regina Martyrum (Figure 22) because
he needed money after the Royal Tapestry factories closed due to economic reasons. He
was corresponding with his friend, Martín Zapater, from May of 1780 about the
commissions and arranging for his family’s move back to Zaragoza.58 In one of his
earliest letters that he writes to Zapater about his upcoming move to Zaragoza, Goya
indicates his fondness for religion. In reference to what he would need in his new home
in a letter to Zapater, Goya states: “Para mi casa no necesito de muchos muebles, pues me
parace, que con una estampa de Na Sa del Pilar, una mesa, cinco sillas, una sarten, una
bota y un tiple y asador y candil todo lo de mas es superfluo.”59 Goya’s inclusion of a
56 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 18. Arturo Ansón Navarro. Goya y Aragon, 93 and Morales y
Martín, Goya Pintor Religioso, 63-4.
57 Goya writes to his friend Martín Zapater on May 17, 1780 and mentions that he was given the
commissions for the pendentives as well. Letter from Goya to Zapater transcribed in Águeda
Villar and de Salas, Cartas a Martín Zapater, 78.
58 For more information see Symmons, Goya: a Life, 92-101.
59 “For my house I do not need much furniture, but I believe a print of Our Lady of the Column,
a table, five chairs, a frying pan, a wineskin and a small guitar, and a roaster and a lamp, any
more would be superfluous.” Letter transcribed in ibid., 81.
38
print of the Virgin of the column as the first and one of the few items requested to be
placed in his home emphasizes his religious devotion to the subject.
From the beginning of the commission Goya worked in an untraditional way
which may have led to some of the tensions between him and Bayeu. Goya considered
Francisco Bayeu to be very strict and rigid in his artistic practices and was used to his
expectations since he had been his pupil. Bayeu followed the practices of the academy
for preparing for a large commission and Goya refused to follow this tradition for the
copula dome by not completing any preparatory drawings or preliminary sketches in
grays or sepia.60 Rather, Goya only painted oil-on-linen sketches (Figure 23) for the
copula while he was still in Madrid, and had them looked at by Francisco Bayeu as he
was preparing to move to Zaragoza and paint the cycle.
It was not until three months later that Bayeu began to complain to the Building
Committee of the cathedral about the execution of the prints and Goya’s insubordination.
He asked to no longer be in charge of overseeing Goya’s work in the cathedral.61 Most
of the criticisms that Bayeu had for Goya’s sketches were most likely due to the vast
difference in the use of color from what Francisco and Ramón Bayeu had used with their
frescoes. Bayeu was in charge of being sure that the fresco cycles in the cathedral all
complemented each other and were done so in a cohesive style and manner. On August
ninth, Goya wrote to Zapater saying that he had finished the sketches for the dome, but it
60 Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 130.
61 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 53.
39
would be close to two months or longer before he would arrive in Zaragoza since his wife
was expecting a child.62
Goya’s sketches differed greatly from those presented by Ramón Bayeu and the
overall style that Francisco Bayeu was looking for within the cathedral. Most notably,
the sketches emphasized colors, techniques and a style that was not in line with the
academy. Goya was criticized for his excessive use of vermillion, blue, and white as well
as for his sketch depicting the saints more like real humans rather than the figures of
classical gods.63 Goya did not want to accept the criticisms and correct his sketch the
way that Bayeu had instructed him to do, which led to the two fighting and Bayeu asking
to be relieved from supervising Goya’s work. On December fourteenth, the minutes from
the building commissions meeting reflect the tensions between Bayeu and Goya:
The Administrator of the Works reported that Don Francisco Bayeu,
Painter to his Majesty, had come to see him and explained that there had
been some friction with his brother-in-law Don Francisco Goya. The
Latter had refused to permit the said Bayeu to correct his work and bring it
into line with the other paintings, as the former wished in order to achieve
the necessary overall effect; so Bayeu had requested that they should
excuse him and absolve him from carrying out his commission as regards
his brother-in-law’s part in it. The Board, bearing in mind that Don
Francisco Goya’s presence in the Cathedral was mainly the result of the
offers and recommendations that Bayeu had made in his letters relating to
the undertaking when acting as agent for his brother and brother-in-law,
proposed that the Administrator of the Works should see Don Francisco
Goya and his painting at frequent intervals and bring to his notice that
anything he should consider to be defective. He should also point out how
grateful he should be for the good offices of his brother-in-law Don
Francisco Bayeu and that he should agree to continue with the work.64
62 Goya’s letter to Zapatar transcribed in Symmons, Goya: a Life, 95-6.
63 Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 132.
64 Minutes transcribed in Symmons, Goya: a Life, 101.
40
The supervision of Goya’s work was taken over by the canon Mathias Allué who
had been the person to oversee Goya’s work in the cathedral previously when he was
working on the barrel vault. Goya completed the dome without submitting to the
critiques of Bayeu or the Building Committee, and in February of 1781 had both finished
the dome and submitted the preliminary sketches for the pendentives depicting the
allegorical figures of Faith, Patience, Fortitude, and Charity (Figures 24-27). These
sketches were rejected by the committee since their critiques were that the figures were
too dark, and they specifically stated that the figure of Charity was “less decent than is to
be desired.”65 Goya objected to the criticisms made by the committee. In his letter from
March 17, 1781 Goya writes about the critics “a certain group of people whom he
overheard seeking to criticize his work and whose intention was clearly not inspired by
any impartial criticism, or at least had nothing to do with the art of painting…”66 In the
same letter he goes on to argue that Francisco Bayeu had seen his sketches before he left
Madrid and had approved, thus trying to add credibility to his work. He then criticized
Bayeu for changing his mind later in order to please people in Zaragoza, which he said
was damaging to his reputation as an artist.67
Goya’s pleas were mostly ignored and he had to submit a second set of sketches
to the committee on April seventeenth. Goya was allowed to finish the pendentive
paintings while the committee did not approve of them, and harshly criticized the figures
65 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 53.
66 Symmons, Goya: a Life, 103. The entire letter is transcribed laying out all of Goya’s
objections to the committee and his pleas for the acceptance of his sketches from pages 103-107.
67 Ibid., 104-6.
41
as well as the already completed copula dome. As a result of the criticisms, the building
committee paid him for his work but agreed to never allow Goya to paint within the
cathedral again. This enraged Goya and he complained about how he was treated by the
Building Committee in a letter to Zapater, proving that the memory of being in Zaragoza
for the commission was soured.68 One of the major criticisms that Goya received was
that the figures of his saints in Regina Martyrum competed for the main attention within
the painting, therefore taking away the focus from Mary, the subject of the painting.69
The way Goya depicted the figures in this copula dome as well as the other compositional
elements that he was criticized for, such as his use of color and the sketchy quality of his
painting, would become prevalent throughout many subsequent religious paintings that
he would complete later in his career. The Regina Matyrum and the pendentives
therefore represent a starting point for Goya breaking away from the rigorous traditions
of religious painting in Spain and his development of his own style.
Leaving Zaragoza angrily, Goya returned to Madrid where he would have to find
commissions on his own due to the tainted relationship between him and Bayeu. Upon
returning to Madrid, Goya’s first major commission that would prove to be one of his
most important was to paint the altar of a side chapel in San Francisco el Grande, a royal
commission that was offered to him directly by Carlos III’s minister, the Count of
Floridablanca. This commission would put Goya’s work front and center in one of the
most important churches within Madrid where the public would see it. His painting was
commissioned at the same time as those of six of his contemporaries and competitors
68 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 53.
69 Ibid., 54
42
who were well established in the academy and the court, such as Mariano Maella and
Francisco Bayeu.70 Goya therefore would have seen this as an opportunity to showcase
his talent as an artist and to compete with the other painters who were commissioned to
paint the other side chapels. In his letter to Zapater, he comments upon how the painting
would offer him vindication in Zaragoza since he was forwarding the commission to his
friend, the wealthy patron Goicoechea, to show around town.
Amigo, llegó el tiempo de el mayor empeño en la pintura que ofercido en
Madrid, y es que á competencia a determinado S.M. que se hagan los
quadros para la iglesia de San Francisco el Grande esta Córte, y se a
dignado el nombrarme a mi, cuya carta orden el Ministro se la embia oy a
Goicoechea para que la enseñe a esos viles que tanto an desconfiado de mi
mérito y tu la llevaras adonde conozcas que as de hacer fuego que ay
motivo para ello, pues Bayeu el Grande aze también su cuadro, Maella
también ace el suyo y los demás formal…71
As noted in the letter, Goya’s painting would be displayed in the church along
with works by his greatest competitors of the time. This would be a huge step in his
career as it marked him as being accepted into the court in Madrid as a painter of the
same caliber as those who received royal commissions for years. As Janis Tomlin stated:
“The San Francisco el Grande commission was more than an opportunity at Court; it was
a vindication.”72 While Goya had worked on royal commissions before, they were
limited to the tapestry cartoons where his paintings would be rolled up and put into
70 Ibid.
71 As transcribed in Águeda Villar and de Salas, Cartas a Martín Zapater, 95. “Friend, the time
has arrived for the most important commission in painting offered in Madrid, and it is namely
determined by his Majesty that the paintings for the church of San Francisco el Grande to be
done, and he has chosen to include me, whose commission letter from the Minister is being sent
to Goicoechea so he can show those vile people who doubted my merit and you will take it where
you know it will have fire and motive for it, because Bayeu the Great will also be creating his
painting, Maella also will make his and other court painters.”
72 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 54.
43
storage after they were transferred into tapestries. The painting for San Francisco El
Grande, however, would be one that would be on display in one of the most important
public churches in Madrid. Therefore it would serve as an advertisement of his
achievement as a painter and an endorsement of his merit in comparison to all of the
other well-known painters who would have their works on display in the same church.
The commission for the project also gave Goya some freedom with the subject matter for
the painting. Goya’s letter to Floridablanca explains what he has chosen as his subject
matter for the painting, stating:
de la vida de San Bernardino de Sena, hé pintado en el borroncito de la
medida que se me dió el Milagro, de quando predicando el Santo es una
espaciosa llanura inmediata á la Ciudad Aquilina en la presencia de
Renato Rey de Sicilia, y de numeroso concuso: Encarenciendo la
coronación de la Reyna de los angeles, se vió con el mayor asombro por
quel admirable Auditorio, descender de el cielo una lucidísima estrella la
que fijándose sobre su Cabeza, le baño de Resplandor Divino.73
Goya made significant changes in his painting that differed from the historic story
of the life of the saint in his Predicación de San Bernardino de Siena (Figure 28).
Besides placing his self-portrait into the painting as one of the people witnessing the
sermon, Goya also changed the King of Sicily in the painting. He chose to replace the
Angevin King Renato, who was present in the story from the life of the saint, with a
representation of Alfonso of Aragon, the Spanish monarch who was the king of Naples
before him. While it is true that the change in the representation of the monarch makes
73 Goya’s letter is quoted in Morales y Martín, Goya Pintor Religioso, 149. “Of the life of San
Bernardino de Sena, I painted in the side chapel that I was given the miracle of when the saint
preached at a spacious plain close to the City Aquila in the presence of the King Renato of Sicily
and of a large audience: as he was glorifying the Coronation of the Queen of angels, was seen
with the greatest astonishment for the admirable congregation, the descent from heaven a
luminescent star that stayed above his head and bathed him in divine splendor.”
44
sense for the commission, historically painters in Spain had not substituted figures in
historical paintings for generations.
This was particularly true with the Spanish baroque masters such as Zubaran,
Murillo, and Velazquez. Goya found inspiration from the great painters of the Spanish
past, and was particularly influenced by Velazquez. He therefore would have known that
the painter whom he aspired to emulate in the royal court would not have changed the
history within a religious story for one of his paintings. One of the reasons why historical
revision was not prominent in Spanish religious painting for over a century was likely
due to the strict regulations from the Council of Trent. In the twenty-fifth session of the
Council of Trent held under Pope Pious IV, guidelines were established for sacred images
to be used within the Catholic Faith. One of the major changes made to works of art that
changed the history of art in European countries was the new emphasis on morality
within the images of the Saints and the Holy Family. The decree established that works of
art should no longer depict religious subject matters such as drunkenness or any images
of the religious figures that could be considered lustful.74 Within Spain the Hapsburgs
carefully observed the Council of Trent, which caused them to change their patronage for
the arts. They not only were insistent on the morality of religious works of art, but they
also followed the decrees about works of art being depicted accurately vis-à-vis to the
sacred texts.
And if any abuses have crept in amongst these holy and salutary
observances, the holy Synod ardently desires that they be utterly
abolished; in such wise that no images, (suggestive) of false doctrine, and
74 James Waterworth, ed and trans., The Cannons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical
Council of Trent: Celebrated under the Sovereign Pontiffs Paul III, Julius III and Pius IV
(London: Dolman, 1848), 235-6.
45
furnishing occasion of dangerous error to the uneducated, be set up. And if
at times, when expedient for the unlettered people; it happen that the facts
and narratives of sacred Scripture are portrayed and represented; the
people shall be taught, that not thereby is the Divinity represented, as
though it could be seen by the eyes of the body, or be portrayed by colours
or figures.75
Due to this decree, religious painting in Spain, especially those done for the royal court,
had focused on being historically accurate according to the texts of the Bible or of the
lives of the saints for centuries prior to when Goya was painting in Madrid.
Goya, therefore, broke away from the customs and the ways in which his masters
and competitors painted within Spain in his first religious commission by the royal
family, since he changed the established story in his painting. Goya specifically changed
the events by including two portraits in the painting of people who were not present when
San Bernardino was preaching, one of which was Goya’s own self-portrait which can be
seen on the right side of the painting with the artist looking out towards us and meeting
our gaze. The inclusion of a self-portrait within historical and religious paintings, while
differing from the story presented in the text, was at times used by artists prior to Goya.
It was therefore not without precedent for Goya to include himself in the painting. The
second major change was his choice of the king who was hearing San Bernardino’s
sermon. As mentioned earlier, rather than paint King Renato, who was present in the
story, Goya painted King Alfonso of Aragon in his place. This major historical revision
would not have been considered appropriate under the cannons of the Council of Trent,
however, with the new philosophies of the Spanish Enlightenment, representations of
history in literature and in Goya’s art changed.
75 Ibid., 235.
46
Janis Tomlinson explains that the reason for the change was “the altarpiece was a
royal commission for a Franciscan church: the theme of a Spanish king before the
Franciscan preacher provided a suitable historical model of royal humility before greater
powers.”76 Tomlinson goes on to explain that Goya placing himself in the painting as
one of the courtiers present at the sermon suggests his desire to work for the current
Spanish King as a court painter.77 While Tomlinson is correct in her assessment of these
two changes to the historical story painted by Goya, John J. Ciofalo adds more about the
historical context of Spain in the Enlightenment that would have contributed to Goya’s
breaking away from the tradition of religious painting. Ciofalo explains that the
connection between King Alfonso and Goya’s patron, Carlos III, helps to explain the
historical revision present in the painting. Just as King Alfonso had conquered Naples
and united the two Sicilies in the fifteenth century, Carlos III did the same in the
eighteenth century.78 Goya was also thinking of the similarities between the two
monarchs when he placed himself in the painting as someone associated with Alfonso,
therefore making a statement of his goals to be a court painter for the current Spanish
monarch in Madrid.
Ciofalo also convincingly argues that another reason for Goya’s painting breaking
the traditions of religious painting in Spain was due to the ideas of the Spanish
Enlightenment. He argues that Goya wanted to present himself as a filósofo-pintor. In
76 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 54.
77 Ibid.
78 John J. Ciofalo, The Self-Portraits of Francisco Goya (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), 19.
47
doing so, Goya would have been paying attention to the ways in which the ilustrados
were changing the discipline of history. Ciofalo points out: “History was no longer
regarded as a succession of events but rather as a selective, self-conscious interpretation.
In fact, a filósofo was defined as a historian who, from a single vantage point, is able to
select, meditate upon and judge significant events outside the continuum of time.”79
Goya wanted to establish himself as an enlightenment thinker as would have been
expected of any painter in the royal court in Madrid. Therefore, his use of these
enlightenment principles to change the history of the life of San Bernardino showed his
alignment with the Enlightenment as well as his use of these philosophies to tailor his
painting to appeal to his patron, the king of Spain.
Goya’s painting of San Bernardino caused the artist to achieve greater fame
within the elite circles of Madrid, and therefore he began to receive more commissions.
One such family that would have seen the painting was the Duke and Duchess of Osuna
who became some of Goya’s most influential and lucrative patrons as his career in
Madrid was beginning. Just as Goya was looking to gain commissions from the
enlightened elite, the Osunas were looking for artists to decorate their homes and help
improve their status in the court. The Duchess of Osuna purchased a large country estate
known as El Capricho which is now located in the city limits of Madrid. The small home
was converted into a palace and the Osunas began commissioning artists to decorate their
new country estate. El Capricho was used by the Osunas to hold theatrical events and
salons, and due to its proximity to nature, it was a place frequented by those in Madrid
79 Ciofalo, Self-Portraits, 18-19.
48
for elaborate picnics.80 Goya was selected by the Duchess to paint three small portraits
of her children as well as seven country scenes in order to match the theme of their
country home.81
These commissions proved to be important within his career. Similar to his
tapestry cartoons, they exhibited Goya’s inventive subject matters and also were very
satirical. One of these works that emphasizes Goya’s sense of humor was his Village
Procession in which Goya mocks rural religious practices. While there was much
occurring in Spain that could have led to Goya presenting his viewers with a religious
scene that mocks the pageantry of the upper classes attending the services, this treatment
of a religious subject as satirical was not common in Spain during Goya’s life. Village
Procession depicts a rural village of Spain partaking in a religious festival. Goya paints
the man standing next to the priest as an aristocrat, as we can see by his attire. However,
Goya is satirizing the scene by painting him in old-fashioned clothing, therefore
suggesting that he is out of date.82
Because he stands next to a member of the clergy and is engaging with him, it is
possible that Goya is here trying to suggest that the church, as well, is old-fashioned.
Goya’s inclusion of a man playing bagpipes and the format of the procession suggest that
he is also satirizing the rural practices of religion which were criticized by those in
Madrid as both out of date and at times superstitious.83 Eleanor Sayre also adds that
80 Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 24.
81 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 66.
82 Ibid., 70.
83 Ibid.
49
among the enlightenment circles in Madrid, religious processions were also criticized
since both clerics and the government wanted to reform processions to have them focus
more on religion and faith, and less on pageantry.84 This painting is also significant in
Goya’s career since it was the first of many depictions of religious processions that he
would complete throughout his career as an artist. While this one begins to satirize
religious practices in Spain, his critiques would become much more harsh in his later
paintings as well as print series such as Los Caprichos and Los Desastres de la Guerra.
Not long after completing Village Procession, Goya was commissioned by the
Duke and Duchess of Osuna to paint two large religious paintings from the life of Saint
Francis of Borja to be placed in the family’s side chapel in the Valencia Cathedral. One
of the two paintings has been discussed a great deal by art historians as one of Goya’s
most innovative works- San Francisco de Borja Asistiendo a un Moribundo Impenitente
(Figure 29), known in English as Saint Francis Borja at the Deathbed of an Impenitent.
The large painting depicts the saint on the right hand side of the canvas with his hands
held up contrasted with a dying man lying on the bed on the left side. San Francisco has
a halo of light around his head which is echoed by the window above him while the dying
impenitent is diagonally slanted downward on his bed with demons behind him and his
side of the circular window being eclipsed by the curtain. San Francisco is holding a
crucifix in his right hand with blood spurting from Jesus’s hand in the direction of the
impenitent’s face.
The most recent scholarship on this painting focuses on an eighteenth-century
account of the saint’s life by Álvaro Cienfuegos. As this is the only painting of this
84 Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 24.
50
subject from the saint’s life ever painted, art historians have used this text to explain from
where Goya may have taken his inspiration to paint this event. Frank Hecks began to
discuss the literary source for this painting in his 1985 dissertation thesis, Supernatural
Themes in the Art of Francisco Goya.85 Janis Tomlinson, Andrew Schulz, and John J.
Ciofalo all use his dissertation as the basis for their arguments about the painting since
they all quote nearly exactly the same passage that Hecks translated:
“… feeling exasperated, detached its nailed right arm, and placing its hand
in that profusely bleeding lacerated wound on its chest, withdrew a fist
filled with a lot of blood, and hurled it with indignation at the frowning,
denigrated face, saying ‘since you scorn this blood, which was shed for
your glory, let it serve for your eternal unhappiness.’ Then that pitiful
man, with an awful, blasphemous shout directed against Jesus Christ, gave
up his soul, convulsed by a horrid moan, and it was turned over to the
infamous ministers of fire and fright.”86
In doing so, none of them referred to the original Spanish text and only use what
has been translated by Hecks as well as his interpretation of what the text said and how it
relates to the painting. Their general argument is that the text from this eighteenth
century account of the life of the saint emphasizes that the scene is one of condemnation
as Jesus rips his hand from the crucifix to throw his blood on the dying impenitent
damning him to hell and the demons behind him. However, I believe that the use of the
selected passage takes the quote out of context, thereby altering the story, and Heck’s
translation is not entirely correct.
85Hecks translates passages of Cardinal Álvaro Cienfuegos, La heroyca vida, virtudes, y
milagros del grande S. Francisco de Borja (2nd ed., Madrid, 1717). For more information see
Frank Irving Hecks, Supernatural Themes in the Art of Francisco Goya (Ph.D. thesis, Ann Arbor,
1985).
86 This is the exact quote that Janis Tomlinson uses while Ciofalo and Schulz both omit the first
two words. For more information see Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 73, Ciofalo, Self-portraits,
99, and Schulz, “The Expressive Body”, 666-8.
51
Before the part of the story where Christ supposedly condemns the dying man to
hell, Cienfuegos writes about how San Francisco de Borja arrives in a town where he is
told that a man is dying and will not confess his sins in order to seek eternal salvation.
San Francisco wants to help the man and as is the case with much of the rest of the stories
from the life of the saint, he looks to his crucifix for guidance. Christ lifts up his head
and offers his assistance to San Francisco and says to the saint: “Francisco, vè è visitar
esse enfermo, que yo assistirè visiblemente contigo en trage de Medico, mientras tu le
persuades à que se confiesse luego.”87 Acting upon Christ’s advice San Francisco goes
to the home of the impenitent to try to save him. When he is there, the impenitent man
refuses to confess his sins and instead directs blasphemous comments at the saint.
The saint leaves the home sad and feeling as if he failed. Christ, realizing that the
saint was upset about his inability to help the dying man, turns to him in the inn and once
again offers his advice by stating that they should return to the house of the impenitent
and this time he would play a larger role in helping get the man to confess to save him
from damnation. San Francisco cheers up and rushes back to the home where both the
saint and Christ will try to convince the dying man to confess his sins so that they can
save him. In an attempt to help cleanse him the crucifix starts spurting blood, which then
begins to cover the bed with what Christ sacrificed for humanity. The dying man
absolutely refuses to confess his sins and we finally come to the part of the story where
art historians have interpreted it as a scene of damnation.
87 Cienfuegos quotes Christ on the crucifix talking to San Francisco de Borja. Cardinal Álvaro
Cienfuegos, La heroyca vida, virtudes, y milagros del grande S. Francisco de Borja (2nd ed.,
Madrid, 1717). 266. “Francisco, go and visit this sick man, I will assist visibly with you in this
medical tragedy, meanwhile you persuade him to confess.”
52
However, it is important to examine the original Spanish version of the text in
order to better understand exactly what happened according to this book. While the Saint
is upset about the impenitent’s refusal to confess, Christ states the following before the
quote that is referred to by Hecks, Tomlinson, Schulz, and Ciofalo: “Advierte, ò
miserable, lo que essa alma rebelde me hà costado! Mira los extremos, que haze mi amor
por tu salud eterna, y por recibirle en mis brazos, y en las felicidades de la gloria, si
quieres convertirte à penitencia!” 88 This emphasizes that all along in the story, Christ
and the saint have been doing all they could to bring about the salvation of the dying
man.
This can be further supported by examining the original Spanish text of what all
former art historians have quoted as being the condemnation of the impenitent. It reads:
el qual irritado desclavó el brazo derecho, y metiendo la mano en aquel
seno pródigamente roto, sacó cerrado con mucha sangre el puño y se la
arrojo con indignación al ceñudo rostro denegrido, diciendo: Esta sangre,
que se derramaba para tu gloria, pues la desprecias, sirva para tu
infelicidad eterna. Entonces aquel desdichado con un clamor pavoroso, y
blasfemo contra Jesu Christo, despedió el alma embuelta en un gemido
horroroso, y fué entregada á los infames Ministros del fuego, y del
espanto. Y Borja entre el horror, la pena, y el susto no acertaba á moverse
de aquel infeliz sitio…89
88 Ibid., 267. “I warn you, oh miserable, that this rebellious soul has cost me! Look at the
extremes of my love for your eternal happiness, and to receive you in my arms, and the happiness
of glory if you want to convert with penitence.”
89 Ibid. “that which irritated him, he pulled his right arm from the nail, and reaching his hand into
his lavishly broken heart, pulled out his closed fist full of a lot of blood and threw it with
indignation at his scowling face saying “This blood which was shed for your glory, because you
reject it, serves for your eternal unhappiness.” Thus the wretched man with a painful clamor, and
blasphemy towards Jesus Christ, gave out a final horrible groan and was given over to the
ministers of fire and terror. And Borja between horror, grief, and shock could not move from the
unhappy place…”
53
In examining the quote from Christ in the translation as presented by Hecks,
Christ says “since you scorn this blood, which was shed for your glory, let it serve for
your eternal unhappiness.” This, however, could be an incorrect translation of
eighteenth-century Spanish and I propose that a better approximation of what Christ said
is “This blood which was shed for your glory, because you reject it, serves for your
eternal unhappiness.”
Hecks rearranged the order of the statement which changes the meaning of the
quote. Rather than Jesus ripping his hand from the cross, pulling out a fist full of blood
and throwing it at the impenitent to condemn him, it seems more likely that he is doing so
as a last effort to save him although he knows that it will not work. The key word that
emphasizes this is “serve,” which Christ uses to emphasize that his blood could either
serve one for salvation or in condemnation, but the choice was that of the impenitent
since he rejected Christ’s shed blood, not that of the saint or Christ himself. When
examining the painting, the detail of the blood being thrown onto the impenitent is key to
this interpretation that I am proposing. Focusing on the stream of blood from the hand of
Christ to the impenitent, it leads directly into the impenitent’s gaping mouth. Therefore
Christ is throwing his blood into the mouth of the dying may therefore evoking the act of
communion, another sacrament in the Catholic Church that leads to salvation.
Furthermore, it seems unlikely that Goya would want to cast the saint in a
negative light considering the painting’s location and who the patrons were. The
previously mentioned art historians who have written about this painting all argue that
Goya has cast the Saint in a negative fashion since he is playing a role in the
condemnation of the impenitent. John J. Ciofalo states “In this case Goya is
54
condemning, not mythologizing, the saint. Indeed, Borja, as Goya has depicted him, does
not exude saintly or even human, compassion.”90 This, however, seems highly unlikely
considering who the patrons were for the painting, as well as the fact that it was to be
hung in the Valencia Cathedral in the side chapel dedicated to San Francisco de Borja.
The Osunas were some of Goya’s most important patrons and religious painting
was and had been one of the most lucrative means for which Goya earned a living.
Considering that the Duchess of Osuna had familial ties to San Francisco de Borja and
that the Osunas were an enlightened family who were highly educated and intelligent,
Goya would not have risked offending them by presenting the saint in a negative manner.
He also would not have done so in a painting that would hang in a cathedral. Had he
done so, this could have had disastrous effects on his career as the Osunas would most
likely have never commissioned him to paint for them again, and it would have damaged
his reputation as a religious painter. What is also interesting is that the painting’s title in
Spanish, as stated by the Cathedral, is completely different from the English translations.
The title in the Cathedral reads “San Francisco de Borja asistiendo a un moribundo
impenitente” which properly translated into English is “San Francisco de Borja assisting
at the deathbed of an impenitent.” It therefore seems as if past interpretations of this
painting have been quick to jump to conclusions about the intention of the saint and of
the crucified Christ, and it should be read not as a condemnation but as a failed salvation.
Goya’s La Ultima Cena (Figure 29) in a small oratory church of Santa Cueva in
Cadiz also presents a very strange take on a religious painting. The figures partaking in
the Last Supper are painted by Goya in a way that is different than the tradition of
90 Ciofalo, Self-Portraits, 99-100.
55
depicting a Last Supper subject. Goya has painted the figures seated on the ground rather
than at a table which is one of the main departures he makes from the typical depiction of
the scene. He then also changes the tradition by composing Jesus and his disciples as
seated in a triangular shape rather than sitting at a rectangular table. This therefore
represents a complete departure from what was typically done with regard to scenes of
the Last Supper in the history of art.
Towards the end of the eighteenth-century in 1798, Goya’s reputation as a
religious painter had grown and he was given the commission to paint the frescos inside
of the Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida which was a small church under royal
patronage.91 Goya painted all of the frescoes, including the angels on the arches and the
pendentives, however it is the cupola dome that is most interesting and important to
consider. In El Milagro de San Antonio (Figure 30) Goya paints a miracle from San
Antonio’s life in which his father has been accused of murder and the saint miraculously
makes it back to Lisbon in time to resurrect the dead man who declares his father as
innocent before he can be condemned to death. While Goya may have looked at models
such as Francisco Rizi and Juan Carreño de Miranda’s Apotheosis of Saint Anthony of
Padua painted in the 1660s in Madrid’s Iglesia de San Antonio de los Alemanes (Figure
31), Goya makes significant changes to the traditional representations of the depictions of
San Antonio.
Similar to how Goya included himself as a contemporaneous figure in the
altarpiece for San Francisco el Grande, Goya here changes the religious history painting
to include contemporary figures. Enrique Lafuente Ferrari comments extensively on how
91 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 115.
56
the witnesses in Milagro de San Antonio do not resemble people who would have been
alive when at the time when the Saint resurrected his father, but rather those that would
have been around in Goya’s time.92 Tomlinson also adds that in doing so, Goya
contributes a new added realism to this painting that had never been achieved before with
this subject matter. She goes on to explain that the figures are lifelike and very similar to
those presented in his tapestry cartoons.93 The interactions of the figures as well as the
way in which they are depicted in modern clothing not only resembles his tapestry
cartoons but also is very similar to his the prints that he would publish in the next year.
The figures’ facial expressions and interactions with each other are echoed in many of the
prints that Goya then produced for his Los Caprichos series. In the case of this painting
Goya is changing the tradition of the scene is similar to many of his other early religious
works. In so doing he would begin to pave the way for his harsh criticisms of the
Catholic Clergy and mark the beginning of his anticlericalism that would be prevalent in
Los Caprichos.
92 Enrique Lafuente Ferrari. Goya: The Frescoes in San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid.
(Geneva: Skira 1955).
93 Tomlinson, Goya, 116-7.
57
Figure 1. Apparition of the virgin of the Pillar
Source: Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco
Goya, (New York: Harrison House, 1981).
58
Figure 2. José Luzán, Armario del Tesoro
Source: Photo courtesy Carmelo Medina
59
Figure 3. Aníbal vencedor contempla por primera vez Italia desde los Alpes
Source: Juan J. Luna in Joan Surreda, ed., Goya e Italia: Estudios y Ensayos, (Zaragoza:
Turner, 2008).
60
Figure 4. Sketch for Adoration of the Name of God
Source: Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco
Goya, (New York: Harrison House, 1981).
61
Figure 5. Second sketch for Adoration of the Name of God
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
62
Figure 6. Adoration of the Name of God
Source: Photo the author
63
Figure 7. Layout of Sobradiel Palace paintings
Source: Photo the author of wall display in Museo de Zaragoza
64
Figure 8. El Sueño de San José
Source: José Louis Morales y Martin, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento
de Cultura y Educación, 1990).
65
Figure 9. El Entierro de Cristo
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
66
Figure 10. Michel Dorigny, print of Simon Vouet’s painting of St. Joseph
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
67
Figure 11. Michel Dorigny, prints of Simon Vouet’s painting of the Internment of Christ
Source: Arturo Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón: Familia, Amistades y Encargos
Artísticos, (Zaragoza: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada de Aragón, 1995).
68
Figure 12. La Visitacíon
Source: Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco
Goya, (New York: Harrison House, 1981).
69
Figure 13. Carlo Maratta, print of The Visitation
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
70
Figure 14. Construcción del templo del Pilar por los ángeles
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
71
Figure 15. Detail of Construcción del templo del Pilar por los ángeles
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
72
Figure 16. Flight into Egypt
Source: Biblioteca Nacional de España website. www.bne.es.
73
Figure 17. Life of the Virgin in Aula Dei
Source: Heraldo online edition.
http://www.heraldo.es/noticias/aragon/empieza_restauracion_las_pinturas_goya_cart
uja_aula_dei.html
74
Figure 18. Visitación
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
75
Figure 19. Blind Guitarist
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado website http://www.museodelprado.es
76
Figure 20. Cristo Crucificado
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado website http://www.museodelprado.es
77
Figure 21. Diego Velázquez, Cristo Crucificado
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado website http://www.museodelprado.es
78
Figure 22. Regina Martyrum
Source: Photo the author
79
Figure 23. Sketch for Regina Martyrum
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
80
Figure 24. Sketch of Faith
Source: Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco
Goya, (New York: Harrison House, 1981).
81
Figure 25. Sketch of Patience
Source: Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco
Goya, (New York: Harrison House, 1981).
82
Figure 26. Sketch of Fortitude
Source: Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco
Goya, (New York: Harrison House, 1981).
83
Figure 27. Sketch of Charity
Source: Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco
Goya, (New York: Harrison House, 1981).
84
Figure 28. Predicación de San Bernardino de Siena
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
85
Figure 29. San Francisco de Borja Asistiendo a un Moribundo Impenitente
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
86
Figure 30. La Ultima Cena
Source: Photo the author
87
Figure 31. El Milagro de San Antonio
Source: José Luis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento de
Cultura y Educación, 1990).
88
Figure 32. Francisco Rizi and Juan Carreño de Miranda, Apotheosis of Saint Anthony of
Padua
Source: Photo courtesy of Javier Medina
89
CHAPTER III
CORRUPT CLERGY IN LOS CAPRICHOS
Goya’s Los Caprichos has been written about extensively as the artist’s satirical
prints on life in Spain. Within the eighty plates he criticizes institutions that he felt were
corrupt within Spanish society such as marriage, education, medicine, and religion,
bringing to light the many problems that Spain faced in the late eighteenth century. The
announcement in the Dario de Madrid for the sale of the prints states the following on
Los Caprichos:
A collection of prints of imaginary subjects, invented and etched by Don
Francisco Goya. The author is convinced that it is as proper for painting to
criticize human error and vice as for poetry and prose to do so, although
criticism is usually taken to be exclusively the province of literature. He
has selected from amongst the innumerable foibles and follies to be found
in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful
practices which custom, ignorance or self-interest have hallowed those
subjects which he feels to be the more suitable material for satire, and
which at the same time, stimulate the artist’s imagination.94
Keeping this in mind, Goya seems to leave no aspect of Spain untouched and
addresses many issues that were commonly considered to be taboo, such as witchcraft
and the infidelity of the Queen. From Goya’s time through today, the meaning of the
series and the individual meanings of the prints have been puzzling to Goya’s
contemporaries and present day scholars. Not long after the publication and sale of Los
Caprichos several manuscripts were written either to accompany the prints, therefore
shedding light on their meanings, or by collectors of the series adding their own
interpretations to the prints. One such manuscript, held in the Prado, is believed to have
been written in close coordination with Goya and is therefore thought to be the
94 Quoted from and translated in Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 140.
90
manuscript that most closely records what the artist wanted to be written about the
prints.95 However, we cannot rely upon these manuscripts to convey all of the meanings
of the prints. In fact, often times the writings seem to divert attention from the important
details within the images. The prints themselves are often difficult to interpret because,
although the engraved titles complement the image, at the same time they allude to how
the plates can be understood in more than one way. Many of the meanings of these prints
also can be found in obscure details of the images that are often not written about because
they are difficult to find upon first observation. It can be assumed that these details are
occluded by Goya because they reveal scandalous tendencies within Spanish society, and
these criticisms would have most likely been met with strong opposition.
In many cases, these hidden details and overlapping meanings make sense due to
Goya’s wit with the etching needle as well as with the pen. It does not seem likely that
Goya would have wanted the vices presented in the prints to be immediately clear in the
images, the titles, or the Prado manuscript. After all, these prints are satires on society,
not to be taken completely seriously and not to be overtly obvious to the casual viewer.
Similar to the way he penned many of his informal letters,96 Goya’s humor is not often
easily observed at first glance in Los Caprichos, and viewers need to use careful
observation in order to understand them fully. This is especially true when examining his
prints that reveal anticlericalism. As we observed in the first chapter, Goya’s early
religious works many times depicted scenes that were not typical of the traditional ways
95 Otto Bihalji-Merin, trans. by John E. Woods, Francisco Goya Caprichos: Their Hidden Truth
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981), 13-14
96 This is commented upon in Symmons, Goya: a Life, 1-9.
91
in which the subject manner was typically treated. Goya chose strange moments in the
lives of the saints and also altered history by depicting contemporary figures in his
historical religious paintings. Los Caprichos goes beyond this and outright attacks the
injustices the clergy perpetrated on the Spanish people.
Plate 52 Lo que puede un sastre! (What a tailor can do!, Figure 33) seems to
epitomize Goya’s view point of the Catholic clergy in Los Caprichos. Goya has
presented us with a tall cloaked figure in the center of the print that dominates the scene
and is easily recognizable as wearing a monk’s robe. Kneeling before him is a woman
with her hands raised up in prayer. In the background to the left of the figures are more
people looking at the cloaked figure with praise fully believing that this is a religious
spectacle deserving of their devout faith. The only figure not praying to and exhibiting
piety in the print is that of the child next to the woman kneeling in prayer. Rather than
praising the figure, the child is terrified by it and has a horrified look on his face.
Looking more carefully at the cloaked figure we see what the child sees. The figure is
not one of a holy being, but rather of a tree that has been draped with the monk’s robe as
is evinced by the trunk coming out of the bottom of the robe on the right hand side and
the branches in the place of the hands. As Eleanor Sayre comments “Only the innocent
child sees this object of faith for what it is, a scarecrow.”97 The print is a criticism of the
priests and monks throughout Spain who had been creating false miracles in order to con
people into both piety and also to profit from these falsehoods.98
97 Eleanor A. Sayre, The Changing Image: Prints by Francisco Goya (Boston: Museum of Fine
Arts, 1974), 107.
98 Ibid.
92
Goya is depicting people quick to worship and accept an object as authentic
without carefully examining its validity. He is presenting us with Spanish people who
worship false idols and praise the clergy based on their cloth, not on who they are or what
they have done. The print and the title present the idea that the clergy, religion and faith
were things that could literally be fabricated. In this case a tailor has manufactured an
oversized monk’s robe to become the object of devotion. The cloak represents the clergy
and is what the people are praising, but beneath it is an object of wood, not of flesh and
blood. Goya therefore seems to be suggesting that the clergy in general is not composed
of people who had become saints in the past and had done miraculous works, but were as
hollow as the dead tree that is supporting the monk’s robe.
Here and throughout Los Caprichos, the clergy are not depicted as helping their
parishioners, performing real miracles or living by the rules of the church. Rather he
depicts them as sexually corrupt, abusing the Spanish through the Inquisition, greedily
taking money from their parishioners, and unable to control their own vices. In this
chapter I will examine the prints of Los Caprichos that Goya etched to criticize the
Catholic clergy in Spain. In the first section of this chapter I will discuss the depictions
of sexual corruption in the series and how the prints can be better understood by
examining the history of sexual abuse by church members as well as literature written on
the same theme that was published contemporaneously to Goya’s life. The second
section will examine Goya’s depictions of the Inquisition and I will seek to prove that
these depictions were concerned mainly with the history of the Inquisition in Spain,
rather than with the structure of the Holy Office at the time Goya etched and printed the
plates. My third and final section will look at the depictions of greed and
93
overindulgence. In each of these sections I will emphasize how the history of clerical
abuses can be used to better understand the criticisms that Goya etched in Los Caprichos.
Sexual Misconduct of the Clergy
Sexual misconduct within the Catholic clergy is not new to our age, but has been
a problem with the institution for centuries. In Spain there had been a long history of
inappropriate sexual behavior among the clergy that was still present during the life and
career of Goya. A recurring theme in Los Caprichos is the sexual misconduct of the
Catholic clergy which ranged from breaking vows of celibacy to more horrific offences
such as the severe abuses of children and the solicitation of women in exchange for their
“purified” souls.99 Both Janis Tomlinson and Robert Hughes have briefly discussed the
sexual undertones of these prints, but what is lacking in their studies is strong historical
evidence to support their claims.100 In this section I propose to examine the historical
evidence for the misconduct of the Catholic clergy as well as the complaints made about
the clergy as a context for a clearer understanding of the meaning of the prints. Through
the caricatures and witty titles that were engraved into the plates, Goya satirized the
sexual delinquency of the clergy. And in many cases he did so in a way that only
becomes clear when one looks very carefully at the subtle and sinister details of the prints
99 Stephen Haliczer’s book, Sexuality in the Confessional: A Sacrament Profaned (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996), discusses at length the many misconducts the Spanish clergy
engaged in. These are a select few that he mentioned that are also presented in Los Caprichos.
100 Janis Tomlinson addresses the historical context of the Catholic church in several of her
books. However, she does not fully address sexual misconducts. Robert Hughes makes specific
references to historical events and misconducts of the clergy but has few footnotes to support his
findings, therefore making his conclusions less concrete.
94
and sees them through the light of historical documents as well as the Spanish literature
that exposed the abuses of the clergy.
The first print in the series that deals with clerics engaging in immoral activities
and who may have broken their vows of celibacy is Estan calientes (They are hot, Figure
34). Like many of the prints in Los Caprichos, the text and image of Estan calientes
complement each other, yet create a complex relationship in which there is more than one
meaning or moral lesson presented. In this case we are presented with monks who are
commonly referred to as committing the sin of gluttony since they are depicted at a table
with their spoons rising to their gaping mouths. At the same time, the title of the print
makes reference to a very different sin, one of a more sexual nature. This is best summed
up by Janis Tomlinson: “In the final etching the creepy darkness of the setting confirms
the monk’s isolation and enclosure in a world where only certain appetites can be
satisfied. Gaping mouths and blank expressions suggest that they have fallen into some
kind of stupor, as eating becomes a ritual of sublimation implied by the figurative
meaning of the caption Estan Calientes, or ‘They’re Hot.’ ”101
These two meanings are further exemplified by three initial drawings for this print
in Goya’s notebooks.102 The preliminary drawing attributed to this print, Caricatura
alegre (Merry Caricature, figure 35) presents the foundation of the image as one more
concerned with the sexual nature of the Catholic clergy. The monk seated nearest to the
picture plane is drawn with an exaggerated and clearly phallic nose. Andrew Schultz,
101 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 138-9.
102 A clear and concise evaluation of the evolution of the print from the two drawings was
written by Elizabeth Lizarralde in Elizabeth Lizarralde and Helena Scannone, eds., Goya: en la
colección de Dibujo y Estampa del Museo de Bellas Artes (Caracas: El Museo, 1988), 63.
95
who, as mentioned earlier, has written a recent book on Los Caprichos, states: “The nose,
in turn, suggests an alternative identification for the found and open mouth into which he
shovels food. Thus, the inversion of the senses implied in the final print by the closed
eyes and open mouths (as well as by the textual connection between eating and arousal)
had been coupled in the drawing…”103 The second study, De unos hombres q.e nos
comian (Of some men who eat us, figure 36) does away with the phallic nose in favor of a
cannibalistic theme. In this drawing a human head is presented on the platter which is
being brought into the room for the monks to feast on. This detail along with the text
alludes not only to the gluttonous clerics, but also could be a pun on the sacrament of
communion. Hughes writes: “The idea that the holy men of the Church actually eat their
flock, thus perverting the Catholic belief that the real body and blood of Christ are
consumed in the guise of bread and wine in the sacrament of Holy Communion…”104
As we will see later in this study, clerics metaphorically devour the people through other
abuses such as high land taxation, the Inquisition, and the many sexual misconducts that
occur between cleric and parishioner.
In the final print and the last drawing, we are presented with a much tamer scene
than in either of the two earlier drawings. Instead of being confronted directly with a
sexually-charged image, Goya has substituted a text that communicates an innuendo to
the viewer. Rather than contemplating the head on a platter, we are left with monks
raising spoons to their hungry mouths from plates with nothing on them. Their appetites
therefore may be for something that is not on the table, but alluded to in the text. Goya,
103 Schulz, Goya’s Caprichos, 144.
104 Robert Hughes, Goya (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 196.
96
in this case as well as in his depictions of other vices, has commented upon how
compulsions such as gluttony are self-perpetuating vices which cannot and will not ever
be satisfied. The Prado commentary105 on the print makes reference to the rapidity with
which the monks are eating their food and how it is associated with their pleasures:
“They are in such a hurry to wolf it down that they do so boiling hot. In pleasures, it is
necessary to use temperance and moderation.”106 As the text was most likely penned by
a close friend of Goya, it is interesting to note how the commentary supports the pun in
the title of the print. Both the title and commentary connect the image of gluttony to
sexual pleasure, thus enhancing the complexity and meaning of the print.
In Estan calientes and the first two drawings, we see a similar configuration of
three figures seated at the table. In all three compositions we see a figure to the side of
the table closer to the picture plane and not physically separated from the viewer by the
table. There are also two figures behind the table that are seated in close proximity to one
another. The figure on the left and the figure in the middle share the act of eating, both
have deep, open mouths while the figure seated on the right has an unsettling grin that is
present in many of the prints in the series as well as in other works by Goya such as his
carnival images. Since this figure is not engaging in the eating process, he turns to face
his fellow monks and grins about something of which we, the viewers, are not aware.
105 There are three significant commentaries on Los Caprichos that were written around the time
of the prints’ publication; one is held in the Prado and is argued by some to have been penned by
Goya himself, but more likely it was written by his close friend, Moratin, under Goya’s direction.
See Bihalji-Merin, Francisco Goya Caprichos, 13-14, another in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid
and the Ayala manuscript named after its owner. Schulz, Goya’s Caprichos, 118 and 219.
106 All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own due to inconsistencies in translations.
The original text: “Tal prisa tienen de engullir que se las tragan hirviendo. Hasta en el uso de los
placeres son neccesaias la templanza y la moderación.” Quoted from Helmen, Transmundo de
Goya, 222-3.
97
What is particularly interesting about this monk is that while the other two are
preoccupied with their appetites, his hand is not grasping his spoon, but has instead
disappeared somewhere under the table in the direction of the cleric seated next to him.
Since his hand is missing from clear view and he is grinning, we are led to wonder where
his hand is, and what is he doing? Goya seems to be suggesting that they are engaging in
inappropriate sexual conduct with the visual evidence as well as the title. As we will
soon see, this is not the only depiction in Los Caprichos in which the hand of one cleric
disappears toward the genitals of another cleric in the print.
Que pico de oro (What a golden beak, figure 37) is similar to Estan calientes in
many ways. Like Estan calientes, the meaning of the print is occluded from the casual
viewer and is even further skewed by the title and the commentaries. The Prado
commentary reads: “This is an academic session. Is the parrot speaking on some medical
subject? Don’t you believe a word he says. There is many a doctor who has the golden
beak when he is talking but is useless when it comes to prescribing. He can describe
diseases in the most able manner, but he can’t cure them. He beguiles the sick and fills
the churchyard with skulls.”107 What is peculiar about this print is that it does not depict
members of the medical profession, but rather members of the Catholic clergy who are
being preached to by a parrot.
In the literature on this print, there is surprisingly little consensus concerning its
interpretation. Opinions range from comparing the print to images of witchcraft, to
suggesting that it is about Church land taxation, neither of which is supported by the
107 Quoted in Aldous Huxley, The Complete Etchings of Goya (New York: Crow Publishers,
1943), 20.
98
visual evidence in the print. A common theory about this print is that it may have been
created to reflect Isla’s book, Gerundio, a satire about ignorant peasants and the mindless
plagiarism of the clergy.108 While it is unknown if Goya read the novel, which was
banned twice by the Inquisition, ‘gerundios’ became a commonly used term in Spain to
describe the liturgically mindless clerics.109 It does however seem extremely likely that
Goya had read the book as historian Julio Caro Baroja argues that in the eighteenthcentury it was the most popular satire of anticlericalism in Spain.110 As is well known,
in Western art, the parrot is often a symbol for mimicking. Furthermore the higher
ranking members of the clergy were also unhappy with the poorly trained rural priests for
their poor sermon skills. One cleric who was in charge of finding a replacement for a
parish priest stated that the ones he interviewed spoke Latin “like parrots” and rehearsed
Mass “Without understanding what they were saying.”111 Here it most likely refers to
the use and reuse of plagiarized sermons throughout the Catholic clergy. Que pico de
oro, like many of the other prints in Los Caprichos, reveals that there is much more to the
image than initially meets the eye.
108 Gwyn A Williams, Goya and the Impossible Revolution (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976),
44. and Alfonso Pérez Sánchez and Julian Gallego, Goya: The Complete Etchings and
Lithographs (New York: Prestel, 1995), 71-72 are among many sources that claim this. These
two provide the most complete explanations of the theory in English. However, the first and by
far the most extensive study of the book on Que Pico de Oro is Edith Helman’s Trasmundo de
Goya where she claims that Goya read Isla’s novel yet provides no evidence that proves that he
did.
109 Williams, Goya and the Impossible, 44.
110 Julio Caro Baroja, Historia Del Anticlericalismo Español. (Madrid: Editorial Caro Raggio,
2008). 96.
111 Quoted in William J. Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society in Spain 1750-1874
(Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1984), 15.
99
What is surprising in the literature on this print is that one detail has been
completely overlooked and yet it is a very significant detail, one that reveals a subtle
meaning. At first glance, Que pico de oro seems tame compared to others in Los
Caprichos where fornication, prostitution, orgasms, and other explicit activities take
place vividly. However, when looked at more carefully, there is a much darker sexual
side to Que pico de oro.
If we draw attention to the two figures seated next to each other in the lower left
hand corner, (Figure 38) there appears to be something odd occurring between them. If
we further consider the figure seated closest to the viewer, it is clear that his arm is not
resting on his knee as it first appears, but is slightly lifted. Looking even closer at his arm
we note that his robe changes pattern, just after the elbow bends. If we focus even closer
at this pattern change it becomes evident that it is not a change in his robe’s pattern, but
an overlap of a different robe, the robe of the monk seated next to him. It is then
apparent that while the monks seems to be engaging in an innocent act of worship, in
actuality the two monks are in deep sexual contact. The monk in the solid robe is
reaching into the ribbed robe groping the other cleric’s genitals and giving him sexual
pleasure. The monk who is experiencing the manual manipulation is no longer a
mindless worshiping priest, but a monk who is being masturbated to orgasm by one of his
brothers. His left hand is clenching his knee tightly and his right hand is grasping the
area around his neck, close to his open mouth which no longer signifies mindless
preaching and worshiping, but reveals a state of ecstasy. The sole revelation in Que pico
100
de oro was therefore not with regard to the taxation of the Catholic Church,112 nor was it
an attack on the mindless and plagiarizing priests113 nor was it a comparison of priests to
witchcraft.114 It tells us about the lewdness of priests and is a complex image in which
one of the many meanings is an attack on the sexual misconduct of the clergy.
Just as Estan Calientes is a plate about monks that are metaphorically on fire in
the sexual sense, Que Pico de Oro continues to address the sexual misconduct of the
clergy by again playing on the hidden hands of the monks while they are in each other’s
company. The historical sexual abuses of the Catholic clergy in Spain were numerous,
and here Goya specifically comments on masturbation. One reason why Goya may have
decided to represent masturbation in Que Pico de Oro is that he seems to have enjoyed
masturbating; he even advocated its benefits and he depicted it many times in his art,
such as in the probable self-portrait from his black paintings commonly titled Dos
Mujeres y un Hombre (Two Young People and a Man, figure 39).
Goya seems to have viewed masturbation as a means of creativity, imagination,
and as an effective way of creating satisfaction and happiness. Goya wrote in a letter,
making reference to Diogenes, the following on masturbation “It puts me in very bad
humor, until I masturbate – you laugh? Well, do it, do it, and you’ll see what a good
112 Tomlinson argues in her introduction to the book Goya in the Twilight of the Enlightenment
that Goya was attacking the monistic abuses of the Catholic Church when the taxes were raised
on church lands and goods which caused economic problems for the peasantry and for the
government.
113 Williams, Goya and the Impossible, 44.
114 Lopez-Rey, Goya’s Caprichos: Beauty, Reason and Caricature Volume One and Two
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970.), 144-145.
101
effect it has on you and now you need it...”115 A depiction of a similar masturbation
scene from Los Caprichos is the print El Si Pronuncian y lo Mano Alargan Al Primero
que Llega (They Say Yes and Give Their Hand to the First that Comes, figure 40). In this
print, a masked woman is being led up to the altar by the man whom she is
masturbating.116 Just as the monks in Que Pico de Oro are depicted as being blind, the
groom is blind to the plotting of his bride. In other words, she may be taking him for a
ride in more than one way.
Although Goya seems to have used his heated imagination when creating Los
Caprichos, there is a historical connection to the depiction of a cleric being masturbated
by another monk. It was common for priests to masturbate in Spain since it was
considered to be a better way to relieve sexual anxieties by clerics than it was for them to
engage in intercourse with prostitutes, concubines, or their parishioners. Priests admitted
to their masturbation tendencies since in some cases they felt as if being deprived of
sexual activity took away from their ability to be respected by their parishioners. In his
study, Sexuality and the Confessional: A Sacrament Profaned, Steven Haliczer addresses
this as well as many other sexual misconducts of the clergy. He writes, “In 1738 Fray
Francisco Carrasco told the Canaries tribunal that in spite of having masturbated
frequently and engaging in such foreplays… [he] had been frequently mocked by women
who called him impotent because he was unable to have an erection.”117 Since priests
were openly admitting to masturbation, there was a need for the church to establish
115 Quoted in Ciofalo, Self-Portraits, 176.
116John J. Ciofalo Lecture on October 23, 2002 at Case Western Reserve University.
117 Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional, 151.
102
guidelines for these sinful acts. Therefore, it was decided that masturbation that was not
done to oneself on purpose, but done either by another person, or especially through
sexual fantasies or dreams, was to be allowed. According to Haliczer, “Theologians even
gave such erotic fantasies some legitimacy in their discussions about voluntary and
involuntary masturbation. While willful masturbation was condemned as a mortal sin,
most casuists were willing to exempt involuntary masturbation, specifically during erotic
dreams.”118
As the original title of Los Caprichos was Sueños, or dreams, it seems likely that
Goya was making reference to a dream that has turned into a nightmare. What is
interesting about the dreams being a significant part of masturbation in the eyes of the
church, is that it brings to mind one of the most famous plates in Los Caprichos, El Sueño
De La Razon Produce Monstros (Figure 41). While the common title for the print is The
Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, I tend to agree with the argument of John J.
Ciofalo119 in which the translation of sueño should actually be both dream and sleep. In
The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters the author is asleep at his desk, dreaming of the
enlightenment ideals. Like Don Quijote, who dreamed of the fantasy worlds that he
found in his books, the author has gone mad dreaming of reason, which therefore
produces monsters.120 In the case of the Catholic church, the dream of producing a
church based on greater reason on the part of the sexually corrupt clerics resulted in
priests pushing the limits of toleration and crossing lines to the point at which they too
118 Ibid., 159.
119 Ciofalo, Self-Portraits, 60.
120 Ibid.
103
produced “monsters” in the forms of illegitimate children, sexual diseases, and
corruption.
Another possible allusion Goya was trying to make in this print could have been
to the spread of syphilis within Spain. Haliczer writes, “In Spain, fear of syphilis and
increasing concerns about the sins caused by prostitution led the government of Philip II
to issue new ordinances in 1570 that compelled prostitutes to reside in regulated
municipal brothels where they would have to undergo regular medical inspections.”121
Goya allegedly suffered from syphilis through most of his life, and was plagued by an
illness that may have been related to syphilis just before he created Los Caprichos. When
we consider the print in this context, we note a possible connection between the sickly
demeanor of the monks, the spread of syphilis amongst the Catholic clergy, and Goya’s
illness. It is probable that Goya was depicting the monks as infected by syphilis. Two
major visible signs of the advanced stages of the disease are thinning hair and skin
irregularities.122 The print displays the monks as having less than a full head of hair,
even taking into consideration the area that may have been shaven for religious purposes.
Those participating in the sexual act are also depicted as having abnormal skin and the
two monks in the back are ghostly white. While it may not be probable to contract
syphilis through hand to genital contact, it is what the priests do outside of such group
meetings that would give them the disease. If priests would be comfortable enough to
grope each other in front of a preacher dictating nonsense, along with a group of other
121 Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional, 149.
122 Robert E. Rothenberg, The New Illustrated Medical Encyclopedia for Home Use (New York:
Abradale Press, 1967), 1413.
104
clerics, it is highly likely that they would be illicitly engaging in more deeply involved
sexual acts in private, such as intercourse with prostitutes.
Goya’s depictions of prostitution within the print series are numerous, and a
significant number of them include depictions of the Catholic clergy.123 One such print
is plate 20, Ya van desplumados (There they go plucked, figure 42). Hughes writes,
“Watched by a degenerate-looking pair of friars, two sturdy prostitutes have finished with
their client-victims and are now hurrying them out the door with brooms… It may be that
the baldness of their bodies is also a reference to syphilis, caught from prostitutes: loss of
hair was one of the classic symptoms of advanced pox.”124 Ya van desplumados is
between two other images that are related to the theme of bird-human figures that are
being plucked and taken advantage of. Plate 19, Todos Caerán, (All Shall Fall, Figure
43) is one in which a male has been lured into a trap by a puppet and plucked clean by the
women below. Both the Ayala and Bibliotheca Nacional commentaries from the period
refer to the birds flying around the rigged woman bird as soldiers, countrymen, and
priests.125 While it is hard to know whether the men depicted flying around belong to all
of these three groups, the one clearly identifiable figure is wearing a monk’s robe (Figure
43). In the next plate Goya has also clearly identified the clerics that are an integral part
of the scene.
123 I will only be addressing a few of the depictions of the clergy with prostitutes to explain the
different satires of this subject that are in the series.
124 Hughes, Goya, 191.
125 Lizarralde and Scannone, Goya: en la colección, 69.
105
In Ya van desplumados, the friars are identified by their robes and the rosaries that
are placed around their waists. The way in which they are dressed and the way in which
they are positioned behind the prostitutes watching over their backs is similar to other
prints in the series in which the Celestinas, or mother figures who guided the prostitutes,
are present as the women prepare to go out at night. One such case of this is in plate 31,
Ruega por ella (She prays for her, figure 45) in which, according to the commentaries,
the Celestina is praying for “good luck” to be granted to her Maja so that she will not be
stopped by surgeons or by magistrates when she is out.126 The Celestina is clothed in
much the same way as the monks in Ya van desplumados, and it is possible that the
praying figure that art historians refer to as an old woman could actually be another monk
that has been disguised through the text and commentaries.127
One reason that Goya mixed images of clerics with that of prostitutes is that for
centuries, brothels had been run from monasteries and parishes within Spain. Most of
these moral problems occurred with the lower-ranking clergy members since they were
composed of many individuals who entered the religious profession because they were
from poor families, and this was the easiest way for them to become educated and to
better their social standing.128 While the sexual misconduct that resulted from this
126 Bihalji-Merin, Francisco Goya Caprichos, 15.
127 To my knowledge no one has addressed how the celestina appears in the same attire as the
monks throughout the print series. This is true also for Plate 17 Bien Tirada Está (figure 11) in
which a very similar situation to that of plate 31 is presented with another celestina that is even
more reminiscent of the monks in the print series.
128 In Marcelin Defourneaux’s Daily Life in Spain in the Golden Age, (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1971), it is explained how Spain received the most applicants and new members
of religious professions than any other country due to the potential to climb the social and
political ladders of the time. Because of the great numbers of people entering the clergy for their
106
situation was widespread, one of the most common abuses was the use of prostitutes for
the personal gain, either sexual or monetary, of the clergy. Throughout Spain clerics,
especially those who traveled from town to town, used women parishioners as prostitutes
because they were not paid as much money as permanent resident priests. It was a
practice of some priests and monks to withhold from their parishioners a “purified” soul
after the confession of sins until the completion of sexual penitence, which meant
becoming a prostitute in a brothel or a sexual slave to the priest himself.129
Just as we see depicted in Ya van desplumados and Ruega por ella, it was the
practice of monks, priests, and other members of the clergy to be in the company of
women who would wander the night and to use them to fulfill either their own sexual
fantasies or fill their empty pockets. Because of this, it would make sense that they
would literally be watching their backs or praying for their safe return because if their
prostitute did not return safely and successfully, they would be missing their sexual
partner or their source of income. In Plate 21, ¡Qual la descañonan! (They are plucking
her!, Figure 46) a prostitute has been caught by what the celestina in Reuga por ella was
praying for her to avoid in her nightly activities and for what the friars in Ya van
desplumados were watching out. The three lion-men figures have caught, plucked, and
have begun devouring the woman-bird. Just as the commentary specifically referred to
the celestina praying for the young apprentice not to run into a magistrate, the figure
own personal gain, many of them did not follow the rules of the church and thus created many
moralistic problems among the clergy. Further information can be found in chapter six, 106-127.
129 Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional, 8-10.
107
standing in the back is just that. She has not only fallen victim to the monsters of the
night, but also to the justice system, both of which are eating her up.
Another consequence of being caught is presented in plate 34, Las rinde el sueño
(They are overcome by sleep, Figure 46), in which clerics are presented in an interior
scene that recalls Goya’s painting, Yard with Lunatics (Figure 48), and is most likely an
interior of a prison rather than a mental hospital with monks and a prostitute who is
seated on top.130 The Prado commentary claims “What else do they do but sleep, the
friars and the nuns, after they get drunk and devastated in their convents?”131 While it is
uncertain that there are both monks and nuns in the print, what can be seen in the print is
that the one cleric who faces the viewer in the foreground (Figure 49) appears to be a nun
rather than a monk because it seems that there are breasts on the figure. Since the
commentaries are purposefully misleading, it is possible that all three clerics in the print
are nuns rather than monks. Even if they are male members of the clergy, there are many
historical reasons for such an image to have been imagined by Goya.
Not only were the members of the clergy engaging in indecent behavior with
prostitutes, but they were also doing so with nuns. While the image does not depict the
figures engaging in any sort of sexual activities, it is odd that the members of a religious
profession would be placed in the same area as a prostitute, thus suggesting that they
“belong” together. Marcelin Defourneaux writes, “In 1665 a priest called Barrionuevo
records: ‘In Cuéllar, a Franciscan monk kidnapped a very pretty nun of twenty from the
130 Lizarralde and Scannone, Goya: en la colección, 84
131 “¿Que han de hacer sino dormir los frailes y monjas, después de borachos y estragados allá
en sus conventos?” quoted from Ibid.
108
convent of St Clare; and in Seville another brother-both a Carmelite and a good preacherhaving difficulty with his prelate who had him put in prison, escaped and took refuge in
the Sierra Morena.”132 While in some cases the monks were either kidnapping or raping
nuns, there were many other instances in which the nuns were more than willing to
participate in such behaviors.
The convents of Calatrava and Saint James “were notorious for the easy, and even
showy, way of life of the nuns,”133and it was common for the nuns to be courted by men.
This courting process compelled men to find any reason to visit the nun of their desires,
to peek in the convent looking for their lady, and to write them poetry that would then be
smuggled into the convent.134 Due to all of the complaints with regard to the sexual
relations of monks and nuns, the government of Philip the IV drafted a ban on all sexual
intercourse between male and female members of the clergy. It was never published,
however, and therefore not enforced.135 If all of the clerics in the print are indeed nuns,
it could be that they have been arrested and imprisoned due to their sexual exploits either
in or out of their convents.
Male members of the clergy were not only engaging in sexual relationships with
nuns and prostitutes, many of whom who had been forced into prostitution by the clerics
themselves, but they were also on the prowl for other willing women who they came in
contact with. When they did not force them into prostitution, they would often keep them
132 Defourneaux’s Daily Life, 112.
133 Ibid., 110.
134 Ibid., 110-111.
135 Ibid., 111-112.
109
as concubines. Plate 58, Tragala Perro, (Swallow it Dog, figure 50) is one that formally
does not seem to represent women being taken advantage of by priests, but it is has been
well argued by Nigel Glendinning that the meaning of the print was influenced by a
specific event that Goya then re-imagined as a more general scene.136 By examining
commentaries from France that are not as well known or publicized,137 Glendinning
presented the possibility of the print being “a quarrel between a monk and a soldier over
the latter’s wife or mistress, in which the former gets the best of it.”138 The
commentaries that he looked at could not be conclusively attributed to Goya’s intentions
since they were written in France by a collector of Goya’s prints not long after the
circulation of the prints. However, well-known publications of Spanish poems based on
the possible event tell the same story as the French commentaries and most likely
influenced Goya as well as the commentaries
The account of the fight between the monk and the soldier explains many of the
formal elements of the print. The introduction to the poems claims:
These Décimas were written about an event-possibly true possibly notwhich is supposed to have taken place in Seville. An Infantry Officer
went one day into the house of a lady he was courting and found a Monk
visiting her who (as the Décimas tells us) belonged to the Order of Mercy.
In order to get the better of the Monk, the soldier told the maid of the
house to give him a purge. The Monk, in the most restrained manner
136Glendinning, “The Monk and the Soldier”, 115-120.
137 I have already mentioned the three main commentaries that are typically associated with the
print series, however, there are many others located all over that were created and circulated with
the print series. While the Prado, Biblioteca Nacional and the Ayala manuscripts are frequently
reproduced and thought to be have been produced closest to Goya’s direction, Glendinning in this
case makes a great argument that the other commentaries should not be ignored since in many
cases they are more direct in the meaning of the prints than the other three.
138 Glendinning, “The Monk and the Soldier”, 17.
110
possible, protested the lawful cause of his visit and the villainous and
insulting nature of the soldier’s design which he simply could not permit.
But all was to no avail. So the Monk drew a pistol and aiming it at the
Officer, made him take his trousers down, and had the maid give him three
purges instead of the one with which he himself had been threatened.
Then he went away as calmly as may be.139
The story recalls the print which clearly depicts a monk with a large syringe that
he is using to threaten the soldier with. It is possible that the woman in the background
with the horns is a reference to the woman who is being fought over by the two. What
Goya has changed about the poem is in the print, the monk is the one doing the purging,
not the woman, and many other figures have been added. Glendinning proposed that this
is because, similar to other prints in Los Caprichos, Goya takes a specific event or story
and transforms it into a general narrative that can account for many more of the clerical
misconducts taking place. The enlarged syringe, being a phallic object, could possibly
suggest that this is a scene in which a rape is about to occur. Another detail that alludes
to this possibility is the large bird above the figures that is depicted with a very long and
extended phallic nose. The syringe, the bird, and the gathering of figures restraining the
soldier against his will therefore allude to the nightmarish situation in which the soldier
will be taken advantage of by the overpowering priest.
One such general complaint that had been made throughout Spain and Europe for
centuries was in regard to the practice of members of the clergy keeping concubines and
therefore clearly breaking their vows of celibacy. No real consequences or condemnation
occurred unless there were severe infractions of law or church doctrine. However, the
ignoring of sexual misconduct had to change for, as Haliczer writes: “the manifest need
139 Quoted from Ibid., 118.
111
to counter Protestant rejection of clerical celibacy forced the Council of Trent to issue a
strong condemnation of concubinary priests and to reaffirm all the old canons penalizing
them and their illegitimate children.”140 The problem with the newly enforced doctrine
that punished priests for keeping concubines and having illegitimate children was the
long history of priests being allowed to have these relationships. Also, since the church
still allowed higher ranking clerics to continue to have affairs, low ranking priests and
monks were angered and ignored the doctrine. Haliczer notes: “[M]any priests in the
diocese were so blatant about ignoring the celibacy rule that they openly celebrated mass
with their ‘family’ in church and even attended their children’s weddings.”141
Some of the most horrifying images in Los Caprichos that deal with the sexual
misconduct of the clergy are those that make reference to the abuses of children. Mucho
hay que chupar (There is much to suck, figure 51) makes reference to the use of children
as victims of the clergy. Just as the clergy abused their women parishioners, they also
engaged in lewd activities with children. Robert Hughes comments: “They praised
chastity but groped boys.”142 While most of the writings on this print claim that the
figures seated by the basket of children are old women brujas, Elizabeth Lizarralde points
out that these witches are dressed in the habits of monks, rather than women’s
clothing.143 While the image does not present a sexually explicit scene, the title makes
clear reference that the children are being used, and being sucked dry.
140Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional, 152.
141 Ibid., 153.
142 Hughes, Goya, 193.
143 Lizarralde and Scannone, Goya: en la colección, 95.
112
This plate is similar to Sopla (Blow, figure 52) in which the title also refers to the
sexual abuse of children within Spain. However, in Sopla, the image is sexually explicit
as is noted by the figure of a man performing oral sex on a child (Figure 53). In Sopla,
the title directly references the abuses that are taking place in the print. In Mucho hay
que chupar, both the title and the commentary reference the sexual abuse that is not
presented overtly in the print. The Prado commentary states, “Those who reach 80 years
old suck small ones, the ones that are not over 18 suck adults…”144 While the children
in the basket have been frequently referred to as the corpses of children who were victims
of abortions,145 which could be due to the other two commentaries referring to abortion,
it seems as if this is yet another instance in which the meaning of the print is left
ambiguous and with more than one meaning.
Just as the title of Que Pico de Oro and the commentary lead to the correct belief
that the print is one about mindless plagiarizing priests, it is also one that harshly
criticizes the sexual infidelities of clerics who are supposed to remain celibate. Mucho
hay que chupar is also a print that takes on more than one meaning, as do most of the
other prints in the series. While in some cases the sexual misconduct of the clergy is
evident immediately, in others it is only through a closer look at details or through the
study of literature and historical events that the true meaning is revealed. As Robert
Hughes stated: “The clergy of course do not escape Goya’s lash… They were as bad as
any modern Catholic priests. They praised chastity but groped boys; they praised
144“Los que llegan á 80, chupan chiquillos; los que no pasan de 18 chupan á los grandes..“
Quoted in Ibid., 95.
145 See Bihalji-Merin, Francisco Goya Caprichos, 25.
113
moderation but gorged and swilled like pigs; they pretended to have access to divine
wisdom but imposed the basest superstitions on the faithful to keep them obedient; they
preached rubbish from the pulpit and brutally supported the Inquisition.”146 The
Inquisition in many ways turned a blind eye when it came to prosecuting clerics who
were violating their vows of celibacy and harming their parishioners.147 Indeed, the
hypocrisies of the clerics were plentiful for centuries before and during Goya’s life and
he presented them critically and often in a disguised manner. However, he may not have
disguised the different layers of meaning solely because of the threat of the Inquisition.
We will look at Goya’s engagement with the Inquisition in Los Caprichos in the next
section.
Memories and Fears of the Inquisitional Clergy
The Inquisition, similar to the sexual misconduct of the clergy, fueled Goya’s
anti-clericalism. Goya scholars commonly examine the artist’s involvement with the
Inquisition based on several different incidences. The most frequently discussed works
of art dealing with the Inquisition center around the middle of the second decade of the
nineteenth century, close to when Goya encountered the Inquisition first hand.148
However, more than fifteen years before painting Auto de fe de la Inquisición (Inquisition
146 Hughes, Goya, 193.
147 Defourneaux, Daily Life, 109.
148 Goya appeared before the Inquisition in 1815, allegedly for painting the Naked Maja. For
more information see Tomlinson, “Goya and the Censors”. His painting, Inquisition Scene, was
most likely painted in 1816 and the dates attributed to the many sketches of subjects based on the
Inquisition dated many times by different authors ranging between 1810 and 1825.
114
scene figure 54), Goya began his commentary on the injustices of the Inquisition with
several prints in Los Caprichos. With regard to the Inquisition and Los Caprichos, rather
than look at the prints that specifically reference the institution, art historians focus
instead on the ideas regarding censorship and how Goya may have stopped the sale of the
prints in order to escape the wrath of the Inquisition. In this section, I will specifically
investigate the role of the Inquisition in Spain at the time that Goya created the prints and
seek to demonstrate how the limited role that the institution played in Spanish society in
the late eighteenth century does not support the claims for an inquisitional threat against
the prints. I will also examine the prints closely in order to clarify Goya’s critique of the
Inquisition and show how they fit into a broader historical context of what had occurred
historically before Goya etched the plates. I will demonstrate that Goya was concerned
with the memory of the abuses rather than with the contemporary problems with the
institution.
Several scholars have argued that the reason why Goya pulled the prints from sale
only days after they were released was due to an inquisitional threat.149 This position is
related to a letter Goya penned with regard to the reissuing of Los Caprichos in France.
The letter states: “What you suggest regarding Los Caprichos cannot happen, since I gave
the plates to His Majesty’s chalcography, and still I was questioned by the
Inquisition…”150 While at first it seems likely that the sale was halted early for these
reasons, recent scholarship has begun to argue otherwise. In Janis Tomlinson’s essay
149 For further information consult Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, Sayre,
Changing Image, 61, and José Gudiol, Goya, 1746-1828. Volume 1 (Barcelona; Ediciones
Poligrafa, 1971), 113.
150 Goya quoted in Schulz, Goya’s Caprichos, 109.
115
“Goya and the Censors” she rightfully argues that there is no evidence to suggest that
Goya’s reason for discontinuing the sale of the prints was due to pressure from the
Inquisition and former scholarship has been quick to jump to that conclusion.151
Tomlinson points out that the letter was not written until 1825 and also that Goya was not
brought before the Inquisition until 1815. She also explains that if Goya was troubled by
the Inquisition, it was after he gave the prints to the royal collection, as evinced in the
letter.152
Jesusa Vega also argues that it was not the inquisition that provided Goya with a
threat to remove his prints from sale, but rather the political climate in Madrid at the time
they were published. She explains how in examining the prints and their preparatory
sketches, Goya made significant changes to the images he printed which would be
available for the public to buy. Furthermore, Goya chose not to print his plates with the
Royal Press as they would have been subjected to examination by the office which could
have in turn led to retaliation against Goya for the prints politically charged subject
matter.153 While Tomlinson examines the role of censorship during the conception of
Los Caprichos, and Vega discusses the possibility of Goya making political rather than
religious enemies, there is a great deal more that can be said about the state of the
Inquisition and the institution of censorship that could further support the idea that Goya
was not threatened in 1799 as had been previously argued.
151 Tomlinson, “Goya and the Censors, 125-147.
152 Ibid., 128-129.
153Vega. “De la imaginación” 113-131.
116
The Inquisition was established throughout Europe by the Catholic church to
guard against heresy and protect the church doctrine. The institution used harsh
interrogation, torture, and capital punishment to enforce the laws of Catholicism upon the
people of Europe, and did so publicly to teach a lesson to all citizens about the
consequences of disobedience. In Spain, the institution took a much stronger hold than in
many other European nations and at one point the Inquisition had enough power to strike
fear into all citizens. Authors and artists were subjected to the harsh laws of censorship
by the Inquisition in the golden age of Spain, and it was a major concern for artists to
follow the guidelines. Virgilio Pinto comments, “in the sixteenth century censorship
became an act of systematic control. Various circumstances contributed to this important
transformation: the restructuring and centralization of power in the state as well as in the
church, the religious conflicts generated by the Protestant rebellion, and the great
development experienced with the invention of the printing press.”154 As Spain was
waging a religious war in their country and colonies, censorship became an effective way
of controlling the ideas that were circulated and was an important tool of the Inquisition
for centuries.
However, at the time when Goya was etching Los Caprichos, the Inquisition was
much weaker than it had been in the centuries before. The main reason for this was due
to the many restrictions imposed upon the Inquisition as well as the Catholic church in
Spain by the Bourbon monarchs. Helen Rawlings in her recent book on the Inquisition
comments: “In 1767 Charles III expelled the Jesuits from Spain and in the following year
154 Virgilio Pinto, “Censorship: A system of control and an Instrument of Action”, in Angela
Alcalá, The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind. (New York : Columbia University
Press, 1987), 303.
117
issued a royal edict urging inquisitors to concern themselves with matters of faith while
the Crown assumed control over censorship.”155 While the Inquisition still attempted to
control censorship, this edict was one of the first issued by the Bourbon monarchs that
began to limit the Inquisition’s role within the practice of censorship. One of the ways in
which the Bourbons further limited the Inquisition’s power over censorship was through
a royal decree in 1786 which allowed for Catholic authors to defend their works rather
than have them be automatically prohibited by the censors. What is furthermore
interesting about this decree is that it also stated that the Inquisition was no longer able to
establish new edicts concerning censorship without first being approved by the Royal
Council.156
In 1790, closer in time to the publication of Los Caprichos, the last index of
banned books within Spain was produced, indicating a radical decrease in the importance
of church censorship.157 The Bourbon monarchs not only changed the role of the
Inquisition with regard to censorship, but also altered the materials that could be targeted
and censored, especially in the late eighteenth century due to the political climate in
France. The last index of banned books was not concerned with the heresies that were
primarily targeted by the Inquisition of the Hapsburgs but essentially targeted material
related to the French Revolution which was considered a direct threat to the Spanish
monarchy.158 It did not target material like that in Los Caprichos and the institution was
155 Helen Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition (Walden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 19.
156 Pinto, “Censorship”, 307.
157 Ibid., 315.
158 Ibid., and Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition, 138-139.
118
so weak that an edict issued by the inquisitor-general on May 7, 1782 discusses how the
Spanish were printing and reading materials that were on the banned lists of books
because the fear of the institution with regard to censorship was “nearly extinct.”159
Not only did the Bourbons limit the role of the Inquisition with regard to
censorship, but the institution itself had also been greatly changed by the time that Goya
etched Los Caprichos. Rather than function as a great, largely autonomous force in
Spanish society as it had under the Hapsburgs, the Inquisition under the Bourbons
became a tool for the monarchy. Rawlings comments: “Philip V (1700-46) did not seek
to abolish the Inquisition but rather to bring it under his direct control.”160 One of the
reasons why they were able to do so was not only due to the changing political structure
in Spain, but also due to weaknesses within the papacy at Rome. Historian William
Callahan writes: “The Church was linked to Rome by doctrinal ties, but the increasingly
weak papacies of Benedict XIV (1740-1758), Clement XIII (1758-1769), Clement XIV
(1769-1774) and Pius VI (1775-1799) were incapable of exercising decisive influence
over the administration of the Spanish Church. This was above all a royal Church,
molded by the Bourbons to suit their policies.”161
Since by the end of the eighteenth century the Inquisition had lost a great deal of
the power that it once had, it does not seem likely that Goya would have been concerned
with the threat of the institution censoring his prints or putting him on trial. Additionally,
159 Herr, Eighteenth-Century Revolution, 208.
160 Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition, 19.
161 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 3.
119
since the Inquisition and censorship had come under the control of the royal government,
it seems likely that Goya, as a highly esteemed court painter, would have been familiar
with what would and would not have been deemed appropriate material for him to depict.
While during the Inquisition of the Hapsburgs the harsh criticisms of the clergy that Goya
presented in Los Caprichos would have more than likely been censored and repressed, it
was not material that was specifically targeted by the institution at the end of the
eighteenth century. Rather than focusing on heresy, the Inquisition of the eighteenth
century turned toward prosecuting cases based on corrupt morals.162 Just as the
Inquisition persecuted the corruption of morals in Spanish society, Los Caprichos also
exposed these problems within Spain and the Catholic clergy. Goya’s prints depicted the
moral delinquency of the clergy and other institutions in Spain, however, they did not fall
into the category that was under the institution’s watch.
Even though the Inquisition had lost its prominent position of control over
Spanish society while the Bourbons were in power, it still was ingrained in the memory
of the people and was still functioning when Goya etched the plates. Three prints in Los
Caprichos have imagery relating to the Inquisition. Two of the three are accounts of
different processes during an auto de fe, and the last comments on the higher-ranking
clerics and their abuse of power as well as some of the abuses of the Catholic faith on the
parishioners. What is surprising about these three prints with regard to the art historical
literature is that, like the prints dealing with the sexual infidelities of the clergy, they are
also largely ignored or only very briefly studied. Yet in many of these cases scholars do
162 In the late eighteenth century ninety percent of the cases that went to trial before the
Inquisition were those dealing with moral issues instead of heresy as was the primary target of the
institution previously. Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition, 19.
120
address the later album drawings and the painting Goya completed which were directly
related to the Inquisition.
Most of the scholarship dealing with Goya and the Inquisition does not investigate
extensively the prints from Los Caprichos, but rather examines his later painting,
Inquisition Scene of 1816, and his album drawings from the early nineteenth century.
Janis Tomlinson’s scholarship does not examine the prints dealing with the Inquisition,
yet she does examine the painting and the album drawings to underscore the importance
of the Inquisition in Goya’s life.163 Similarly, Vibeke Vibolt Knudsen’s edited volume,
Goya’s Realism, has two chapters that discuss images of the Inquisition and focus on the
album drawings, yet neither of them mention the prints from Los Caprichos.164 Robert
Hughes’s chapter on Los Caprichos only devotes one paragraph to two of the three
images on the Inquisition.165 When the prints dealing with the Inquisition are discussed
in the Goya scholarship it is generally done so very briefly and in many cases without a
clear understanding of the role of the Inquisition during Goya’s time.
One such print that is commonly overlooked by scholars is Devota Profesion
(Figure 55, Devout Profession) in which Goya not only references the Inquisition, but
specifically recalls the historical problems with censorship. The print depicts two
bishops being held up by a large bird of prey holding a bible open for their student, the
figure seated on the shoulder of the satyr, to read. From the counter-reformation until the
163 See Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, and Goya in the Twilight.
164 Knudsen, “Goya’s Realism” and Reva Wolf’s “Goya: Image, Reality and History” in Vibeke
Vibolt Knudsen, Goya’s Realism (Copenhagen: Statens Museum for Kunst, 2000).
165 Hughes, Goya, 196-198.
121
late eighteenth century, the Inquisition banned the use and publication of translated bibles
within Spain, and it is believed that the print is about this ban.166
A closer examination of the image reveals that the bishops are depicted wearing
miters associated with the Inquisition tribunals, and are also holding open the bible, not
with their hands, but with instruments of torture, tenazas, which were typically used by
the Inquisition to tear the flesh from bodies.167 The inclusion of these instruments
suggests that the implementation of torture by the Inquisition was well-known and feared
by the public in Spain. It also suggests that the Inquisition was guarding the Catholic
faith and the bible with such force that the punishments of such transgressions could have
resulted in the use of tenazas. Within the evolution of this image, from the original
sketches to the final print, Goya is harshly criticizing the clergy, the institution of the
Inquisition and part of the Catholic faith.
The original three drawings for the print, Witches about to Fly, Dream of a Novice
Witch and Dream. Of Witches (Figures 56-58) suggest a more harsh critique of the
Inquisition than the final print, and also shed light on the meaning of the print. One of
the major differences between the final print and the original drawing is the way in which
the bishops are positioned above their apprentice, especially in the two Suenos drawings
which aside from being mirror images of each other are almost identical. As commented
by Eleanor Sayre, “They are carried through the air on the back of a great serpent, which
is vomiting death, which is symbolized by three skulls laying on the ground. Satan
166 It was only in the early 1790’s that after many pleas to church officials, translated bibles were
finally allowed to be used by the public in Spain. Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit,
132-133.
167 Ibid.
122
assumed the form of a serpent in order to bring about the expulsion of Adam and Eve
from Paradise, and by logical extension this creature came to embody Heresy.”168
While Goya changed the serpent to a bird in the print, the tail of a serpent is
evident as it peeks out just behind the robe of the bishop on the right (Figure 59).
Therefore, while Goya changed the image, he still associates the corrupt hierarchy in the
Spanish Catholic church and the Inquisition with Satan and heresy. By placing the
bishops on top of the serpent, Goya implies that the practices of the Inquisition were
supported by the devil and were anything but holy. Also, by composing the image in the
way in which he did, with the bishops soaring above the other figures, Goya was making
reference to the tradition in religious painting in which a heavenly figure such as an angel
or saint makes contact with humans on earth.169 It is possible that in so doing Goya was
commenting upon how in the Catholic faith the clergy acts as an intermediary between
humans and God, while at the same time he is also making reference to the clergy having
control over the interpretation of the bible to the masses since translations were not
available.
The censorship of printed bibles was not in the distant past when Goya produced
these three images, but the use of torture had been reformed much earlier in an attempt to
refine the Inquisition. In the 1760s, reforms were being made to the Inquisition at the
request of Charles III and it was noted by the royal attorneys to the institution that it was
the right of the king “to watch over the use which the Inquisition makes of its
jurisdiction, to enlighten it, to reform its abuses, to impose limitations on it and even
168 Ibid., 132.
169 Ibid., 130.
123
suppress it if this should be demanded by necessity and public utility.”170 Through this
and Charles III’s appointment of Felipe Bertrán to the position of Inquisitor General,
liberal reforms were made to the Inquisition,171 thereby the use of torture was altered
and the institution used less barbarism than it had in previous centuries.
The other two images dealing with the Inquisition in Los Caprichos also
concentrate on past problems of the institution, not ones that were taking place
contemporaneously to the etching of the plates. Aquellos polbos (Those specks of dust,
figure 60) and No hubo remedio (There was no remedy, figure 61) are plates 23 and 24
respectively in the series and both depict two very different scenes of portions of the auto
de fe. Autos de fe were ceremonies in which the accused were formally tried, convicted,
sentenced and punished by the Inquisition. Typically an auto de fe was held on a feast
day, and it would be announced well in advance so that the public would bear witness to
the event and therefore gain a moral lesson that would encourage them not to break the
Inquisitional laws. In Aquellos Polbos, Goya depicts a victim of the Inquisition sitting on
a stage while an official of the Inquisition is formally reading the case. What is
interesting about this print is how similar it is to Goya’s later painting, Inquisition Scene;
the primary focus of each is on the victims being tried before the audience of clerics in a
church. While a great deal of scholarship has been focused on the painting and how it
represents a different phase of the Inquisition after Spain was no longer under the control
of Napoleonic France, it is obvious that Aquellos Polbos is a much earlier version of the
painting in print form.
170 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 33.
171 Ibid., 33-34.
124
Aquellos Polbos represents a particular portion of an auto de fe called autillos
particulares. As stated by Helen Rawlings: “The auto de fe was a part-religious, partjudicial ceremony that taught a lesson to all those present, the faithful and the nonfaithful, of what the consequences of non-submission might be before the tribunal of faith
on earth and its counterpart, the divine court on high.”172 Due to this, autos de fe were
conducted in many different sessions in order to reach different audiences for different
purposes. While an auto publico general was one that took place for masses of people to
see and learn from, autillos particulares were typically held in a church for a smaller
private audience for the trial of minor offenses.173
Edith Helman and Eleanor Sayre have both rightfully suggested that the title,
Aquellos Polbos, suggests that the person on trial is a bruja as the word Polvos, meaning
powders, refers to magical powders that were sold to women by brujas.174 While the
literary evidence for this is strong, the image does not correspond to what was historically
occurring within the Inquisition at the time. Since this image is one of a witch being put
on trial, the formal charge would be heresy, which was not a minor offense, but a major
one. Therefore, the trial would not have been an autillos particulares, but rather the
accused would have most likely been tried before a large public audience to convey a
message, not just to the audience of clerics in the print, but to the Spanish people.
No hubo remedio is similar in that respect since the image depicts a woman being
sentenced to death during a time when capital punishment was rarely exercised by the
172 Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition, 40.
173 Ibid., 37.
174 Sayre, Changing Image, 85 and Helman, Transmundo de Goya, 120-123.
125
Inquisition, especially during Goya’s life and career. The print depicts a woman being
paraded on the back of a donkey through the crowded streets with judicial officials,
priests, and citizens participating in the spectacle. Those condemned to death were
typically punished this way in order to reach a wider public. Rawlings writes that those
given capital punishment by the Inquisition during an auto de fe “were taken away on the
backs of donkeys by the civil authorities to the quemadero (the site for burnings, on the
outskirts of the city), to meet their death that same evening.”175
It is unlikely that Goya would have ever seen such an event since the death
penalty was almost never used by the Inquisition, especially in the eighteenth century.
Even before the Inquisition was reformed by the monarchy, only one percent of cases
tried before the Inquisition resulted in the death of the accused.176 Furthermore, the
number of cases being tried before the Inquisition dropped dramatically by the late
eighteenth century, causing autos de fe to be rarely held. Callahan points out: “the
Inquisition of Toledo… heard an average of 200 cases a year during the middle of the
sixteenth century, 30 a year during the early seventeenth century and only 3 or 4 a year
by the end of the eighteenth.”177 Due to this, and the reformations being made to the
Inquisition, the death penalty was only enforced in four non-sequential years during the
entire eighteenth century.178 The last person to be sentenced to death in the eighteenth
175 Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition, 39.
176 This is based on a study of Inquisition cases between the years 1560 and 1700. Callahan,
Church, Politics, and Society, 31-32.
177 Ibid., 32.
178 The Inquisition only sentenced people to death in the years 1714, 1725, 1763 and 1781 in the
eighteenth century. Ibid., 32-33.
126
century was Delores of Seville in 1781,179 almost two decades prior to the conception
and publication of Los Caprichos.
Because of the rarity of capital punishment enforced by the Inquisition, it is
highly unlikely that Goya would have experienced an auto de fe that would have ended in
the burning of the person on trial, just as Goya would not have been invited to an autillo
particular with an audience of clerics. While Goya was inspired by the historical events
of the Inquisition and his images express his clear sentiments of anger toward the
institution due to its many abuses of power, they were images he imagined, not ones that
accurately depict the religious climate of Spain while he was etching the plates. He has
chosen to depict the Inquisition as an institution of terror and barbarism, rather than the
more enlightened and weak one that it had become in his life time, therefore preserving
the memory of the horrific abuses of the clergy and the Inquisition.
These images also seem to foreshadow the Inquisition that would later have more
power and be more barbaric under the reign of Ferdinand VII as Goya depicted in
Inquisition Scene not long after he was questioned by the Holy Office. When Goya
etched Los Caprichos there was already the beginning a power struggle for the throne
taking place between the liberal monarch Carlos IV and his conservative son, Ferdinand
VII and Goya may have been worried about how the Inquisition could return to its former
brutality when the monarchy would change hands. It is possible that Goya did so not
only out of his contempt for the Inquisition, but also to serve a moral lesson of his own;
one that suggested what could possibly happen when religious institutions were not
guided by reason, but rather through a hypocritical tradition of repression.
179 Ibid., and Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition, 136.
127
Greed and Overindulgence
In addition to the depiction of the excessive sexual misconducts of the Catholic
Clergy that can be found in Los Caprichos we also find a critique of the greed and
overindulgence of clergy members. Goya criticizes the monetary greed of the clergy,
satirizes their excessive drinking and, in his last print, calls for an end of the nightmare
that has occurred with the clergy and within Spain. These criticisms, like those of the
prints already discussed in this chapter, reflect problems that were historically prevalent
in Spain with regard to the Catholic Clergy. There are also examples within Spanish
literature that echo these themes of anticlericalism. What is furthermore interesting about
the critiques and the prints that depict the Spanish clergy more interested in wealth than
performing their religious duty is that these themes will be echoed throughout Goya’s
later works that we will discuss in later chapters. This section will examine how the
wealth of the Catholic Church and the abuse of this wealth by the clergy which led to
their overindulgence in worldly possessions and pleasures were criticized by Goya in Los
Caprichos and how these prints echoed the same complaints and satires of his
contemporaries. I will also examine how the last print of the series could be interpreted
as Goya’s call for the clergy and Spain to wake up from the nightmare that has occurred
in his country in the waning years of the Enlightenment.
In Spain and throughout other parts of Europe in the eighteenth century people
were increasingly unhappy with the distribution of land ownership and with wealth. A
national census taken in 1797 showed that the Catholic clergy accounted for 1.4 percent
128
of the population.180 Historian William Callahan argues that this number was consistent
for the entire eighteenth century as the percentage of clergy to the general public had
little variation.181 While this is a small fraction of the population within Spain, the
Spanish Church had considerably more wealth than the majority of the Spanish people. It
is estimated that in the eighteenth century the Catholic Church owned fifteen percent of
the land in Spain.182 The church had accumulated wealth through their holdings of land
and material possessions for centuries. However, almost all of the rest of Spain’s
population, from the poor to the royalty, suffered from a loss of wealth, especially in the
eighteenth century. As historian Richard Herr points out:
“The disparity between the poverty of the mass of population and the
riches of the church in income, lands, and precious objects was
particularly striking in Old and New Castile… Gaspar Melchor de
Jovellanos, one of the younger and most capable of Carlos III’s officials,
could lament a general decline of Spanish wealth in recent centuries,
during which he pointed out the church prospered.”183
What is particularly important with regard to this is that Goya knew Jovellanos
well since they were both in the same intellectual circles and Goya painted his portrait
while they were both employed by the king. Goya’s works have been known to be
180 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 8. Callahan actually states that they were 1.5
percent of the population, however this is a slight math error as he states that there were 148,409
members of the clergy in a population of 10.5 million which is actually 1.4 percent rather than
1.5.
181 Ibid.
182 Ibid., 39.
183 Herr. Eighteenth-Century Revolution, 30-31.
129
influenced by Jovellanos184 and it is possible that the prints in Los Caprichos dealing
with the greed and wealth of the Catholic clergy could be some of them.
Plate 30, Porque esconderlos? (Why Hide Them?, figure 62) depicts an older
cleric holding on to two money bags with his back turned to a group of people as if he is
trying to hide his wealth from them. The group behind him, however, are grinning and
laughing at his futile attempt. As the title suggests, there is no point to his trying to hide
his money since everyone already knows that he has the money bags. The Prado
Manuscript on this print states “The answer is easy, He won’t spend it, he doesn’t spend
it, he can’t spend it. Although he is over eighty and has barely another month to live, he
is afraid that he might have no more left if he lives longer. Such are the mistakes of
greed.”185 The difference in wealth between the Catholic Church and the rest of Spain
was very obvious; it seems as if Goya’s print is commenting upon how the Church not
only has more money than Spanish society, but also about their greed since the cleric is
depicted guarding his money, rather than sharing it with the people behind him.
In examining the print more closely we notice that the cleric is wearing a
zucchetto which is the skull cap reserved for high-ranking members of the Catholic
clergy such as bishops, cardinals, and the pope. While the Prado commentary does not
specifically say the man holding the money is a cleric, the Ayala Manuscript calls him a
“miserly bishop” and the Biblioteca Nacional Manuscript calls him a “miserly cleric.”186
Knowing that he is a bishop or other higher-ranking member of the Catholic clergy
184 Edith Helman, Jovellanos y Goya (Madrid: Taurus, 1970).
185 Quoted in Huxley, Complete Etchings, 20.
186 Helman, Transmundo de Goya, 219.
130
makes sense with regard to the complaints about the greed of not just the church, but of
clerics since they were the clerics with the most money in Spain. The wealth of the
bishops and cardinals in Spain was obvious to everyone. Even foreigners traveling in
Spain wrote about the wealth of the church and how it compared to the poverty of others
within Spain.
In the 1780s an English Anglican minister, Joseph Townsend, visited Spain and in
his memoirs recalled his observations of bishops he visited. In his discussion of the
archbishop of Grenada he noted that he was generous in his charitable contributions to
the poor who would beg for alms outside his gates. However, he also noted that the
archbishop lived “in some degree of splendor.” and specifically made mention of the size
of his dwellings and his meals being luxurious.187 Similar to Townsend the German
traveler Frederick Augustus Fisher wrote the following about the state of churches in
comparison to secular buildings in Spain: “The houses are of mud and half ruined, the
roofs, which let in the light, loaded with stones in order to resist the wind, but the
churches, chapels, and monasteries [are] massive and magnificent.”188 Just as foreigners
were quick to observe the differences in wealth between the Church and the majority of
the Spanish, Goya certainly noticed and used Porque Esconderlos? to illustrate the greed
among the high ranking clergy.
Just as there was a huge difference in the distribution of wealth between the
Catholic Church and the working classes of Spain, there was also a great discrepancy of
wealth between the bishops and cardinals as opposed to the rural parish priests. Many
187 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 13.
188 Quoted in Herr, Eighteenth-Century Revolution, 30.
131
city parishes did well and the archdioceses were well supplied with money. In the case of
the parishes governed by the archdiocese of Toledo, William Callahan points out “in
contrast the poorest parishes were in isolated rural districts in the Montes de Toledo,
Extremadura, and La Mancha. These ecclesiastical authorities believed that 55 percent of
the archdiocese’s parishes lacked the minimum income (5,000 reales) judged necessary
for modest sustenance of parochial clergy.”189 Due to this the least experienced and
worst priests would typically be the ones in rural locations while the higher-educated and
more qualified priests would work in the wealthier parishes within the city. “Eighteenthcentury clerics believed that the quality of the clergy was one of the gravest problems
facing the Church.”190
Since the rural priests were lacking sufficient funds in order to live a comfortable
life, they turned to other ways to make money, many of which greatly abused their
parishioners as we already observed in the first section of this chapter on the sexual
corruption of the Spanish clergy. Due to both the ignorance of the poorly trained parish
priests and their need to earn extra money to survive, many superstitious practices of the
religion were found throughout Spain. The higher-ranking members of the church, the
Inquisition, and the king of Spain were against the frauds being committed by the clerics
and their accomplices.191 An example of this was when a “young woman, known as the
beata of Cuenca, with the help of several priests and monks, had the local citizens
believing her flesh had been converted into the body and blood of Christ and was carried
189 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 16.
190 Ibid., 15.
191 Herr, Eighteenth-Century Revolution, 32-33.
132
in procession surrounded by tapers and burning incense.”192 Goya depicted these frauds
in his art as well and we have already seen this within this chapter. Lo que puede un
sastre! (What a tailor can do!) depicts exactly that, a superstitious fraud manufactured by
the clergy.
The complaints about the parish priests did not end since their faults were
extended into many different areas that were condemned by the Catholic Church: “The
lower clergy remained on the whole notorious for its ignorance and lax morals…”193
Besides their sexual corruption and the frauds that they committed, the clergy was also
guilty of overindulging in earthly delights such as eating and drinking. As we saw in the
first section of this chapter, gluttony was mentioned as one of the clerical abuses in one
of the first prints of the series, Estan calientes (They are hot). A similar overindulgence
can be found in the second to the last print of the series, Nadie nos ha visto (No one has
seen us, figure 63). Robert Hughes comments “Monks preach abstinence and are
gluttons in secret: such is the message of Caprichos 79, Nadie nos ha visto... with its
wine-sodden friars carousing in a cellar.”194 Just as Estan calientes in the preparatory
drawing makes reference to the monks devouring their flock or consuming flesh literally
as a play on communion that becomes the body of Christ, it is possible that Nadie nos ha
visto is making reference to clerics drinking communal wine. With both of these, not
only are the clerics going against their preaching of moderation of food and drink, but
they are also possibly violating one of the most important sacraments of the Church.
192 Ibid., 32.
193 Ibid., 33.
194 Hughes, Goya, 195.
133
The transgressions and abuses of the Catholic Clergy in Spain inspired criticisms
from both Spaniards and foreign visitors. While in Goya’s early works based on
religious themes he had a tendency to diverge from the conventions of religious painting
and at times chose to paint unusual subjects, Los Caprichos goes beyond that and offers a
harsh critique of the harm the clergy was doing to the people of Spain. It has been argued
by some that Los Caprichos represents what they were called when Goya was initially
sketching them- sueños, or dreams. The title of plate 43, El Sueño De La Razón Produce
Monstros, also seems to suggest that the prints have a dream-like quality. When applying
this to the prints that satirize and critique the clergy, it can be said that they are not
normal dreams, but rather nightmares that have produced monsters. The last print in the
series, Ya es hora (It is time, figure 64), depicts several sleepy clerics waking up. They
are stretching, yawning, and are in the process of leaving the dream state to come back to
reality. With all of the horrible injustices that the clergy committed against the Spanish
people as depicted in Los Caprichos, this last print no longer is criticizing their abuses,
but is rather asking them to wake up from the nightmare they have caused in Spain.
Goya is literally saying it is time for the wrongdoings of the clerics to end.
134
Figure 33. Lo que puede un sastre!
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
135
Figure 34. Estan calientes
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
136
Figure 35. Caricatura alegre
Source: Alfonso Sanchez Perez and Eleanor Sayre, Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment,
(Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Press, 1989).
137
Figure 36. De unos hombres q.e nos comian
Source: Alfonso Sanchez Perez and Eleanor Sayre, Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment,
(Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Press, 1989).
138
Figure 37. Que pico de oro
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
139
Figure 38. Detail of Que pico de oro
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
140
Figure 39. Dos Mujeres y un Hombre
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado website http://www.museodelprado.es
141
Figure 40. El Si Pronuncian y lo Mano Alargan Al Primero que Llega
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
142
Figure 41. El Sueño De La Razon Produce Monstros
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
143
Figure 42. Ya van desplumados
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
144
Figure 43. Todos Caerán
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
145
Figure 44. Detail of Todos Caerán
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
146
Figure 45. Ruega por ella
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
147
Figure 46. ¡Qual la descañonan!
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
148
Figure 47. Las rinde el sueño
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
149
Figure 48. Yard with Lunatics
Source: Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, (London: Phaidon
Press, 1999).
150
Figure 49. Detail of Las rinde el sueño
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
151
Figure 50. Tragala Perro
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
152
Figure 51. Mucho hay que chupar
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
153
Figure 52. Sopla
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
154
Figure 53. Detail of Sopla
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
155
Figure 54. Auto de fe de la Inquisición
Source: Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, (London: Phaidon
Press, 1999).
156
Figure 55. Devota Profesion
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
157
Figure 56. Witches about to Fly
Source: Alfonso Sanchez Perez and Eleanor Sayre, Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment,
(Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Press, 1989).
158
Figure 57. Dream of a Novice Witch
Source: Alfonso Sanchez Perez and Eleanor Sayre, Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment,
(Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Press, 1989).
159
Figure 58. Dream. of Witches
Source: Alfonso Sanchez Perez and Eleanor Sayre, Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment,
(Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Press, 1989).
160
Figure 59. Detail of Devota Profesion
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
161
Figure 60. Aquellos polbos
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
162
Figure 61. No hubo remedio
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
163
Figure 62. Porque esconderlos?
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
164
Figure 63. Nadie nos ha visto
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
165
Figure 64. Ya es hora
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
166
CHAPTER IV
GOYA’S ANTICLERICAL IMAGES OF VIOLENCE AND WAR
Less than a decade after Goya etched Los Caprichos, Napoleon would invade
Spain, King Carlos IV would no longer be in power, and Spain would be in turmoil.
From 1799 until the end of the Guerra de Indendencia Española, Spain would witness
several dramatic shifts of political and religious power. Most notably the monarchy
would change several hands: Carlos IV abdicated the throne to his son Fernando VII,
who was then stripped of power by Napoleon’s invasion, thereby instating José I,
Napoleon’s brother, as king of Spain. Finally at the end of the War of Independence,
Fernando VII was reinstated as the monarch of Spain. With each of these monarchs we
see changes in policies and new relationships between church and state.
Because Carlos IV was a relatively weak king and left much of the control of the
government to his ministers, significant tensions developed between the king and his son
as well as with the monarchy and the people of Spain. Carlos IV kept in power the high
ranking ministers of his father’s government such as the Conde de Floridablanca and
promoted other key ministers such as Manuel Godoy. This meant that while the king
may have been less interested in government than in his collection of clocks, the
monarchy and government within Spain would try to follow a similar path towards
enlightenment and the liberal reforms that had been instituted under Carlos III.195
However, the old system faltered and Spain, the monarchy and the government began to
be driven into crisis from 1790 until Napoleon invaded in 1808 when the nation would
face a war for independence.
195 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 74.
167
Carlos IV’s government caused a schism within the Spanish Catholic Church. In
order to obtain better control of the Church, he and his ministers, following his father’s
liberal reforms, placed their chosen clerics into high ranking seats of power, including
cardinals and Inquisition officials. In so doing, there were two consequences: part of the
church became aligned with the Spanish monarchy and government and followed all of
the reforms and new taxations, while the other side was strongly opposed to the liberal
reforms as well as the high taxations placed upon the church, the result of debts from war
and the extravagant living style of the monarchy and court.196
From 1799 when Goya printed Los Caprichos until 1808 when Napoleon’s troops
invaded Spain, tensions were developing not only between Carlos IV and the Church, but
also between the monarch and his son Fernando VII which would foreshadow the
abdication. Goya’s La Familia de Carlos IV (Figure 65) from 1800 could possibly depict
the power struggle between Carlos IV and Fernando VII. While in the past it has been
argued that the portrait was unflattering towards the royal family and that they were so
stupid they did not realize that Goya was mocking them, more recent scholarship
suggests that this is not the case, and that the portrait rather was very naturalistic and
examined the psychology of each of the family members.197
196 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 74-85.
197 Edward J. Olzewski traces the criticisms of this painting and best explains how in the art
historical literature written in English has been quick to jump to the conclusions that Goya was
harshly criticizing and making fun of the royal family. He then goes on to explain that this is
most likely not the case and the art historical literature in Spanish and French do not support these
claims. He also makes a strong case for Goya having no intention to upset his patrons, the
monarchs. For more information see Edward J. Olzewski, “Exorcising Goya’s ‘The Family of
Charles IV’” in Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 20, no. 40 (1999) 169-185. Also see Ciofalo. SelfPortraits, 46-56.
168
What can be examined further in this painting is specifically the relationship
between the reigning monarch Carlos IV and his son, the future monarch, Fernando VII.
Edward Olszewski explains how Carlos IV can be read as physically and psychologically
distant from most of his children, with only his youngest son linking him to his wife, the
queen. He also points out that Carlos IV and Fernando VII who are both away from the
center of the image, are pointing in the same direction and when walking will meet in the
center.198 However, when looking at the position of the feet of Fernando VII, it is
unclear that he is going to be walking towards the center of the room as depicted on the
canvas. Examining Fernando’s feet more closely in relation to the rest of the painting it
becomes evident that Goya may have been alluding to the conflict between father and son
and the power struggle that would soon take place between the two.
Carlos is painted in raking light and is in a position that directs the viewer’s
attention to him as they look at the painting. The gazes and position of the other
members of the royal family lead in his direction. He is also placed between the two
large paintings in the background, therefore making him stand out against the blank wall
which is lighter than the rest of the background and which highlights him in the painting.
While Carlos is off-center, he is the focus of attention. Fernando, on the other hand, is on
the far left side of the painting, dressed in blue and cast in a large shadow. Goya stands
behind him in the same shadow, painting a large canvas and looking out to the viewers as
do the majority of the royal family in the painting.
If we compare the position of the feet of both Fernando and Carlos, we see that it
is possible that Goya was making reference to the tensions between the two—and to
198 Ibid., Ciofalo.
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Fernando’s ambitions to be king. Carlos appears as if he has taken a step out towards us
and is therefore the figure closest to us, the viewers, which further emphasizes his
importance. However, when we compare the feet of Carlos to those of Fernando, we see
that the Prince has actually stepped out in front of his father. While Fernando is depicted
smaller and in a less significant place within the painting, it seems as if Goya is trying to
tell us that Fernando, who is in the dark shadow, is waiting to step out and overtake his
father’s throne.
From the time that Goya painted the royal portrait until the beginning of the war,
tensions were high in Spain due to the French Revolution and Napoleon’s reign in
France. These tensions can be seen in Goya’s works leading up to the War of
Independence. Most notably for this study is his Maragato Series, in which Goya depicts
the violent struggle between a friar and a bandit. Later, Goya witnessed some of the most
horrible events during the War of Independence. He then used his memory of these
events, accounts of historical events, and his imagination to produce images relating to
the war such as his print series Los Desastres de Guerra. This chapter will first examine
the Maragato series and explain how the event which occurred only two years prior to the
Napoleonic invasion depicts violent anticlericalism. It will then shift focus to the prints
from the Disasters of War199 that depict the clergy during times of war as well as address
199 Goya’s Disasters of War can be divided into three distinct sections dealing with different
time periods in Spanish history around the War of Independence. The first deals with the war
against Napoleonic France, the second about the famine and hunger that occurred in Spain and
the last portion is known as the Caprichos Enfaticos and comments upon the reinstated monarchy
of Fernando VII. This chapter is primarily focused on times of war and therefore will only be
addressing the images from the first section of prints depicting scenes of war. The Caprichos
Enfaticos will then be discussed in the next chapter where I will be discussing the reorganization
of Church and State under the reign of Fernando VII after the war ended.
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Goya’s two most well-known works depicting the war, El Dos de Mayo and El Tres De
Mayo.
Goya’s Maragato Series
Before Napoleon’s troops invaded Portugal in 1807 and later Spain in 1808, Spain
was faced with problems of violence inside of the country as well as fears of an invasion
from their French allies. One of the most common instances of violence that was taking
place in Spain and had been a problem for centuries was banditry. Not far outside of
Toledo in 1806, a friar was collecting alms for the poor and was taken by surprise when
an escaped bandit forced him into a home with his other captives. It was then to the
bandit’s surprise when the friar took away his gun, and shot him in the leg. As was
typical for this time in Spain, this historical event was romanticized into songs, prints,
and literature that glorified the heroic deeds of the friar and vilified the bandit. In the
same year, Francisco de Goya painted six small panel paintings, each depicting a
different moment in the story of the struggle between the friar and the bandit.
Goya’s six paintings representing the capture of Pedro Piñero, the bandit known
as El Maragato, by Friar Pedro de Zaldivia have been regarded as one of the rare cases in
which Goya treated the Catholic clergy in a positive way. However, upon further
examination of the series it becomes evident that this is not the case, and that these
paintings instead reveal the anticlericalism depicted in Goya’s art throughout his career.
Goya pays close attention to the literary tradition and historical accounts of burglary in
Spain.
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Similar to many of Goya’s other works, the subject of the six Maragato paintings
not only references a specific event that took place, but also can be attributed to a
historical problem that had been occurring in Spain for centuries. Historian José Santo
Torres extensively discusses how banditry in Spain had been recorded to the control of
Spain by the Roman empire. Throughout Spain, banditry developed due to unique social
and geographic circumstances in each region.200 Generally, bandits and brigands were
categorized into two distinct categories that had direct bearing on how they were
portrayed to the public in broadsheets, songs, and literature.
All banditry was outlawed by the Spanish government, however, some bandits
were often romanticized, causing them to be accepted by the public in Spain while others
were vilified. The first category elevates the status of the bandit to that of a positive
social profession in Spain. Typically these bandits do not physically attack and kill
travelers and would resort to violence only in self-defense. The reason for their robbery
was also not for the gain of personal wealth, but rather for the collective good of their
community since they would target the rich and give money to the poor. Typically these
bandits are compared to the legend of Robin de los Bosques or Robin Hood and were
cherished and romanticized by the people of Spain. The other category of bandits were
denigrated throughout Spain and were considered to be some of the lowest criminals in
the country. These robbers typically were violent and stole for their own personal gain,
200 José Santos Torres discusses the general causes of banditry in his book’s introduction. As
each of his chapters explores the history of banditry in a different region in Spain, he examines
the specific causes of banditry in each region at the beginning of each chapter explaining the
sociological and geographic differences and how they contributed to the problems. For more
information see José Santos Torres, El bandolerismo en España: una historia fuera de la ley.
Madrid : Temas de Hoy, 1995.
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not for the good of their fellow citizens.201 It is this second type of bandit that Goya
chose to paint several times throughout his career.
Bandits in Spain were a part of the country’s popular culture, and accounts of
travelers who encountered them were made into poems, stories, songs, and broadsheets
that were widely distributed.202 Therefore, there are many accounts in which people
being robbed knew who their robbers were from the broadsheets that were circulated
about them. While most instances of bandits in Spanish literature are based on actual
people, one of the most famous fictional accounts of banditry in Spain is found in
Cervantes’ Don Quixote.203 In the encounter between Don Quixote and the bandit
Roque Guinart, Cervantes turns what typically occurred in such encounters upside down.
Rather than Don Quixote being the one in awe of the famous bandit who is about to rob
him with his brigade of over forty men, it is the bandit who is taken aback by whom he is
meeting. Cervantes writes:
Roque Guinart presently perceived, that Don Quixote’s infirmity had in it
more of madness than valour; and, though he had sometimes heard him
spoken of, he never took what was published of him for truth, nor could he
persuade himself, that such a humour could reign in the heart of man: so
that he was extremely glad he had met with him, to be convinced near at
hand of the truth of what he heard at a distance…204
201 Ibid., p 24-6.
202 Historian Ruth Pike, whose article will be discussed further in this essay, explains how
bandits in Spain were popularized in the culture through these means in her article, “Popular Art
Forms as Sources for Goya’s Series on the Bandit Maragato.” The Journal of Popular Culture.
Vol. 21, issue 1. 1987. 19-26.
203 The encounter between Don Quixote and the bandit, Roque Guinart, is in part 2 chapters 6061.
204 Quoted from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, translated by Charles Jarvis. Don Quixote de la
Mancha. Oxford University Press, 1998. p. 859.
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As pointed out by John Ciofalo, Goya “was obsessed by Cervantes’ tale of Don
Quijote” and in 1780 unsuccessfully competed for the commission of illustrating a new
edition of the book.205 Since Goya was very familiar with Don Quixote and created
several drawings based on the story (Figure 66), he would have known about the
encounter with Cervantes’ fictional generous bandit.
It was more common within the genre of literature pertaining to Spanish banditry
for the stories to be based on a real bandit, and many of these stories come from the
region of Andalucía. As explained by historians José Santos Torres, Constancio
Vernaldo de Quiros and Luis Ardila in their studies, the region of Andalucía was
particularly prone to brigands due in part to its distinct culture and also because of the
geographical conditions of the Sierra Morena range. 206 While banditry was also a
problem along the roadways in other regions throughout Spain, it was in Andalucía where
banditry was most common and also where the most famous bandits in Spanish history
and literature came from. The most famous bandit in Spanish literature was José María,
also known as El Tempranillo.
While the legend of José María arose after Goya’s exile and death, he is the
quintessential Romantic bandit figure that comes from Spain, which fits into the Spanish
205 John J. Ciofalo “Goya’s Enlightenment Protagonist- A Quixotic Dreamer of Reason” in
Eighteenth-Century Studies 30.4. 1997. p. 472.
206 José Santos Torres’ study on the history of Spanish banditry explains how when Spain was a
subject of the Roman Empire, there were significant problems with banditry in the territory of
Andalucía. His Study as well as that of Bernaldo de Quiros and Ardila’s further explain the long
history and tradition of banditry in Andalucía For more information on banditry in this region see
Santos Torres, El bandolerismo en España, 31-154. and Constancio Bernaldo de Quiros and Luis
Ardila, El Bandolerismo Andaluz (Madrid: Ediciones Turner, 1973).
174
literary tradition. El Tempranillo was a bandit most active in the Andalucía region in the
third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century and was the model bandit for the time.
His success as a bandit was unprecedented for his time due to his kindness and his
remarkable charm that worked wonders on retrieving jewelry from the ladies traveling
through his territory. Rather than intimidate travelers or murder them in order to steal
their possessions, José María and his brigade would instead take bribes from people to
ensure them a safe passage to the next town through the mountains. These accounts of
him were not only very popular in Spain, but also were widely circulated in Britain
through several travel accounts. Because of these stories, we find cases in which British
tourists visiting Spain in the nineteenth century would specifically attempt to be held up
by brigands like those of José María as part of their experience in the country. 207
Just as Roque Guinart and José María were examples of generous bandits in
Spanish literature, there were more commonly violent and dangerous bandits who stole
for their own personal gain. They were not romanticized but rather denigrated through
the same mediums as the generous bandits. Prior to his El Maragato series, Goya painted
this type of bandit several times. The Duke and Duchess of Osuna had commissioned
from Goya a series of seven paintings depicting the countryside. They were presented
with several picturesque landscapes as expected as well as the more sinister country
scene Highwaymen Attacking a Coach (Figure 67), which depicts the horrors of banditry
in Spain. Goya’s bill for the painting to the Osunas was dated May 12, 1787 and the
painting is described as “Some thieves have attacked a carriage, and after having
overpowered and killed the drivers and a war official who had stood up to them, they are
207 For more on José María see Bernaldo and Ardila, El Bandolerismo Andaluz, 100-134.
175
in the act of tying up a woman and a man.”208 The picturesque landscape of the forest in
the background is drastically contrasted with the violent scene in the foreground. The
carriage passengers are kneeling on the ground before two of the bandits, gesturing for
the bandits to let them live. Behind them are the bodies of the soldier and one of the
drivers, dead in pools of their own blood. The second driver of the carriage is fighting
for his life as he is bleeding heavily. One of the bandits is wrestling with him on the
ground and is about to stab him again with his bloody knife, further emphasizing the
brutality of the scene.
Attack on a Coach (Figure 68) from 1793 is another painting in which Goya has
depicted the perils of traveling through Spain. In this painting, Goya has replaced the
picturesque background of the previous painting with the desolate mountainous backdrop
of the Andalucía region.209 The foreground is similar to that of the painting made for the
Duke and Duchess for the ground is littered with the bloody bodies of the drivers and
riders of the stage coach. A bandit is again stabbing one of the victims to death while
another bandit aims his gun at the last passenger, who kneels while holding his hands up
in prayer as he knows he is about to die.
Similar to the bandits in the paintings, El Maragato was denigrated throughout
literature, song, and broadsheets for his selfish banditry. As Eleanor Sherman Font points
out in her article “Goya’s Source for the Maragato Series,” the six paintings by Goya
allude to the printed materials that were spread throughout Spain relating to the capture of
Maragato. Sherman Font brings to light the possibility that Goya’s six painting were
208 Quoted in Alfonso Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, p. 24.
209 Ibid., p. 46.
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based on the information circulated in the pamphlet, Accurate News of all events of Pedro
Piñero, aka El Maragato, who escaped from prison until he was injured and arrested by
Father Fray Pedro de Zaldivia, of the Religious Order of Saint Peter of Alcántara.
Sherman Font’s article is the most substantial work to date on these paintings, and all
subsequent art historians reference her article when writing about the paintings. It is
therefore important to explain what she has written, in order to then fill in the gaps in
research on the series. 210
One of the major arguments that she makes in her article is that along with the
Noticia, the other influence on Goya’s paintings are the many broadsheets with images
depicting the event that circulated through Spain. The article also explains that the
Noticia is advertised as the most accurate account of the capture of El Maragato
circulated and that it has used the testimony of the friar. The Noticia as well as some of
the prints were advertised in the Dario de Madrid,211 which is the same publication
where Goya advertised the sale of Los Caprichos,212 thus it is likely that Goya would
have been made aware of the Noticia and some of the prints through this source.
Sherman Font also points out that another way in which the prints were sold, and the
stories of bandits told, was through blind vendors on the street who would memorize
poetry and songs about the prints they were selling and would chant them on the streets in
210 Eleanor Sherman Font. “Goya’s Source for the Maragato Series,” Gazette des Beaux Arts, 52
(July-December, 1951). p. 289-304.
211 Ibid., 290.
212 The advertisement of the prints is discussed in Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 140.
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Spain.213 The songs and poetry performed by the street vendors were not only a way for
people to receive news, but were also a form of advertisement through mass
entertainment. The stories that were circulated in the prints, and the Noticia were similar
to the street performances, they were over dramatized and cannot be considered to be as
truthful as they were publicized to be.
The Noticia text recalls the entire story from when the friar came across the home
which El Maragato was robbing to the end of the story, where, after his capture, the
bandit is sentenced to death, eventually hung, drawn and quartered, and finally with his
dismembered body parts triumphantly displayed along roads throughout the countryside.
The broadsheets narrated the story through the use of image and text to glorify the friar.
Sherman Font addresses the broadsheets as prints that over time have more details added
to them and also portray several different points in time within one sheet.214 One of the
early prints (Figure 69) that was circulated depicts the scene divided into three distinct
sections, each of which portrays a different moment in the story. Shortly after the
circulation of this print, a set of two companion piece prints (Figures 70 and 71) were
circulated together that more clearly depict the story. In the first print, the scene is
broken up into two distinct moments in the narrative. The first moment, on the left,
illustrates the friar and the bandit wrestling on the ground for the gun. On the right side
of the image the friar is then depicted shooting the bandit in the leg while El Maragato is
running away. In the second print, the scene shifts viewpoints and the friar is depicted as
213 Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source”, 290.
214 Ibid., 293-302.
178
not only triumphant over the wounded bandit, but also as a heroic figure that has stopped
the people from beating the bandit with sticks as written about in the Noticia.
The later prints that were circulated on the subject matter changed as they tried to
include more details into the prints. One of them (Figure 72), depicts two rows of images
in the shapes of ovals. In the center of each row are the portraits of El Maragato, on top,
and Friar Pedro, on bottom. Each of the scenes is accompanied by text that explains what
is taking place in each. It begins with a scene of El Maragato, here labeled by his real
name, Piñero, robbing a stage coach in the countryside. In the second image, it explains
that while some bandits receive death for their crimes such as the figure in the oval is
about to be hung, El Maragato first received the good fortune of being sent to prison.
After the portrait of El Maragato the story continues with the bandit escaping from prison
by jumping over a tall wall. The next image begins telling the story as Goya did, with the
bandit pointing the gun at the friar. Continuing on to the bottom row in the print, the friar
is able to take away the gun as he hands shoes to the bandit. He then turns the gun on the
bandit in the second oval in the bottom when El Maragato begins to run away. The scene
after Friar Pedro’s portrait depicts the bandit on the ground after the friar has shot him
and the print ends with the last oval depicting El Maragato being carried away to Madrid
for trial.
While these images do have a lot in common with the depictions in the paintings
that Goya produced, Sherman Font does not account for many of the changes that occur
between the prints and the paintings. She is also quick to jump to the conclusion that
because these prints are propaganda against El Maragato and glorify the friar, that the
179
paintings do the same.215 One of the reasons why she does so is based on the order in
which the paintings are currently hung in the Art Institute.
The way in which the paintings are currently ordered in the Art Institute of
Chicago is explained by Sherman Font and others as the correct chronology of the
story.216 There have been questions raised about this order and I also do not believe the
order is correct. It is important, however, to examine how they are hung and how
Sherman Font has categorized each of them, since her essay is so important to the
literature on these paintings. If we examine the paintings with regard to Sherman Font’s
arguments on how they reflect the text of the Noticia, and at the same time pay close
attention to the formal aspects of each painting, several discrepancies can be noted
between Goya’s series and the influential printed materials. Furthermore, in examining
archival documents that recall the actual events as related to the court by eyewitnesses, it
will become evident that the order of the paintings and past interpretations need to be
revised.
The first painting in the series, El Maragato Threatens Friar Pedro de Zaldivia
with His Gun (Figure 73), has been explained as the part of the story discussed in the
Noticia in which the Friar has arrived to beg for alms at a house where El Maragato has
already captured the guard and his family as well as the keeper and a shepherd. El
Maragato then threatens Friar Pedro and brings him into the room with the others
victims.217 In the painting, Goya has painted figures in the background who are looking
215 Ibid., 294-5.
216 Ibid., 303.
217 Ibid., 294-5.
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in on the scene from a separate room where Friar Pedro is about to join them.
Particularly problematic about this painting with regard to the rest in the series is that the
Friar looks much different than he does in the other paintings. In this painting he is
depicted as significantly overweight, while in the other five paintings Goya depicts him
as slim. Because of this change in the representation of the Friar, the order and titles of
the paintings have been questioned by other art historians as will be further discussed
later in this chapter.218
Friar Pedro Offers Shoes to El Maragato and Prepares to Push Aside His Gun
(Figure 74), the second painting in the series, depicts the moment when El Maragato
asked for a pair of shoes from the guard, but instead is being handed a pair of shoes by
the Friar from his saddlebags. According to the Noticia, the friar was divinely inspired to
do so in order to attempt to get the gun away from the bandit.219 In this painting, the
setting is similar to that of the first painting, although the people in the doorway have
disappeared and the room has been changed a bit to include what appears to be a
fireplace. A detail in this painting, as well as the rest in the series that is emphasized by
this moment in the story, is the worn shoes that El Maragato is wearing causing him to
ask for new ones. It is also obvious in this painting that, when compared to the first
painting, the size and appearance of Friar Pedro has significantly changed.
218 I will address the problems pertaining to the order of these paintings after I finish discussing
each of the paintings and what they portray. The order and title of the first painting as hung in the
Art Institute of Chicago was questioned specifically due to the physical characteristics of the Friar
by an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as discussed by Ronald Hilton in his
pamphlet Maragato Y El Ocaso Del Bandolerismo Español. New York: Hispanic Institute, 1946.
219 Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source”, 295.
181
The third painting, Friar Pedro Wrests the Gun from El Maragato (Figure 75),
depicts the struggle between the monk and the bandit over the gun. The friar realized that
giving over the shoes in his bag would give him a chance to take away the gun.
According to Sherman Font, El Maragato tried to seize possession of the gun back from
Friar Pedro, but realized that he was weaker than the monk. El Maragato then let go of
the gun and ran outside where his horse was waiting with two other guns attached to its
saddle in order to fight back against the monk.220 In this painting the interior scene has
yet again changed. Rather than appearing as if they are struggling in the home where the
prior two paintings took place, the background looks as if the two are inside the stable.
The arched doorway replaces the door of the room in which the people were locked, and
behind El Maragato there appears to be a saddle sitting on a railing. While this is not
specifically mentioned as the setting for the painting by Sherman Font, she does mention
that earlier in the story, before the monk arrived, the Noticia reported that El Maragato
ordered the guard to go to the stable and saddle him a new horse since the one he had
stolen and rode in on was only half broken.221 While this change in setting is strange, it
could possibly refer to the earlier part in the story because this is also the scene in which
the horse first comes into the paintings.
The fourth painting in the series, Friar Pedro Clubs El Maragato with the Butt of
the Gun (Figure 76), is particularly problematic. Sherman Font argues that while in the
Noticia the horse outside is struck in the head by the gun, “in his panel no. 4, Goya
220 Ibid., 295-6.
221 Ibid., 293.
182
departs from the story by showing a fallen bandit clubbed by a monk.”222 This argument
contradicts Sherman Font’s point that Goya carefully followed the Noticia as the main
source of information on these paintings. Historian Ruth Pike suggests another reason for
this painting. In her article “Popular Art Forms as Sources for Goya’s Series on the
Bandit El Maragato,” she claims that in the court documents related to the trial of the
bandit, this scene actually did happen while it is left out by the Noticia.223 While this
claim would greatly improve what is known about these paintings, Pike’s article is poorly
organized and her citations for the archival documents are so vague that they are
untrustworthy.224 Furthermore, in examining the documents as well as others in the
archives, it becomes obvious that her claims are not true, and this will be discussed later
in this section. She also argues that Goya knew the representative of the king in the court
case of El Maragato and that is how he was familiar with the details left out of the
popular literature. Pike’s evidence for this is that the representative to the king for the
trial, José Antonio Caballero, lived a few blocks down the street from Goya, and that
Goya painted portraits of Caballero and his wife.225 What she does not mention is that
222 Ibid., 296.
223 Ruth Pike. “Popular Art Forms as sources for Goya’s Series on the Bandit El Maragato” The
Journal of Popular Culture. Vol 21, iss. 1. 1987. p. 25.
224 Pikes sources for her new contributions to these paintings come from the many documents
held in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid and while she cites specific documents that she
conducted research on, her paraphrasing of what is in the documents is so vague that it is
impossible to tell what is in the documents and what she is formulating on her own. She also
does not quote directly from them and does not effectively prove that what she claims is in the
documents is actually in them. She also criticizes Sherman Font for her supposed misquoting
from the Noticia, however Pike is guilty of misinterpreting Sherman Font’s article by
generalizing the arguments presented in it.
225 Pike, “Popular Art Forms”, 24.
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the portraits of the couple were painted by Goya over a year after he completed the
Maragato series,226 therefore it cannot be assumed that Goya knew him prior to painting
the series. Whether Goya knew more details about the court case or not, the scene
depicts a change in the narrative from the friar being held up by the bandit, to the friar
violently beating the bandit with his own weapon.
Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off (Figure 77), is the fifth
painting in the series and is the most violent of the images. Sherman Font explains how
after the bandit was disarmed by the friar, he began to run for his horse where there were
two more guns. During his flight, the friar shot the bandit in the right leg to wound him,
but not kill him.227 What is particularly interesting about this painting is that at first
glance it seems to accurately depict what was written about in the Noticia, however upon
further examination it becomes clear that Goya significantly changed several of the
important details. First of all, the shot being fired into his leg is not into the bandit’s right
side as expressed in the Noticia, but El Maragato’s left thigh. Furthermore, the horse in
the background which the bandit was supposedly running towards to get one of his
reserve guns to fight back against the friar is depicted without any guns attached to the
saddle. While in some of the prints the horse is depicted losing the guns as it takes off in
flight, Goya’s painting of the scene is void of any extra guns that the bandit may have
been trying to retrieve. Furthermore, when we examine the position of the bandit’s feet,
we see that he is not running outside to get a gun to fight back, but is planted firmly in
226 The date of these paintings can be found in Pierre Gassier, Juliet Wilson and François
Lachenal. Goya: Life and Work. (Köln: Evergreen, 1994), 201.
227 Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source”, 296.
184
one place since his hands are raised in a gesture that seems to suggest that he has given
up. This, in combination with the omission of the extra guns, reveals that El Maragato is
defenseless against the wrath of the monk.
In the last image of the series, Friar Pedro Binds El Maragato with a Rope
(Figure 78), Goya concludes the images by painting the bandit and the monk closely
connecting with each other as the monk ties up his captive bandit. As the Noticia recalls
the story, it is at this moment when El Maragato stated to the friar: “Ah Father! Who
knew when I threatened you with my gun and made you come into the house with your
head and eyes downcast, that you were playing a role of betrayal?” The Friar then
responds “Oh friend, on the exterior I may appear very humble, but on the interior I am
full of the wrath of god.”228 After the monk was successful in binding the bandit’s
hands, the other people who were held captive in the house with the monk came running
up to beat El Maragato with sticks. The friar, however, would not allow for this to
happen and it is in his protection of the wounded bandit that Friar Pedro noticed how
much blood El Maragato was losing and decided to untie his victim.229 What is
significantly left out of Goya’s depiction is the scene in which the friar stops the people
from the house from beating the wounded bandit. Rather than depicting the friar as a
protector of the bandit whom he just shot, Goya depicts him as kneeling close to the
seated bandit, making eye contact with him and carefully tying up his hands. While the
gaze between the bandit and the friar can possibly be the beginning of when the friar
228 Both the friar and the bandit are quoted by Sherman Font and others to discuss this painting.
These quotes were specifically translated by myself from the Noticia copy found in Archivo
Historico Nacional, Libros Consejos 1396, year 1806, folio 994.
229 Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source”, 296.
185
realizes how badly wounded the bandit is and therefore becomes a compassionate monk,
Goya still chose to depict him as a captor rather than freeing or protecting him. In doing
so he purposefully omits the moments in which the friar helps the man he injured to
instead focus on the bloody aftermath of the shot that wounded the bandit’s leg.
Even if we carefully examine these paintings in the current order that they are
hung in the Art Institute, it begins to become clear that Friar Pedro is depicted by Goya
not as a heroic victor as has been argued in the past, but rather that he is the violent cause
of suffering, much like the bandits themselves. The order of the paintings, however, been
questioned in the past. Ronald Hilton in his pamphlet entitled Maragato Y El Ocaso Del
Bandolerismo Español, explains how when the paintings were on display in an exhibition
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1928, the order of the first two paintings was
switched.230 Since Hilton authored this pamphlet prior to Sherman Font’s article, he and
other art historians assumed that the change in appearance of the friar from the first
painting to the second one was not a formalistic change by Goya, but rather was a
representation of two different friars at the scene. Due to this, the titles changed along
with the order to describe the friar as either the thin friar or the fat friar.231
I also believe that the paintings are hung in the incorrect order, but instead of
switching the order of the first two paintings as Hilton suggested, I think that the fourth
and the fifth panels are in each other place. When looking very carefully at the fallen
bandit (Figure 79) in the fourth painting it becomes evident that his leg is already gushing
with blood from the same area that is being shot in the fifth painting. This suggests that
230 Hilton, Maragato Y El Ocaso, 7-8.
231 Ibid.
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the fourth painting does not depict the friar trying to stop the bandit by hitting him with
the gun before having to shoot him, but rather depicts a scene in which the brutality of the
friar is further emphasized. When reordered so that the clubbing takes place after the
shooting of El Maragato, the meaning of the narrative as a whole changes dramatically.
In the new fourth painting a bandit who has no gun and is not fleeing from the
scene is shot at close range by the friar, who has tricked him and taken away his weapon.
This is followed by Friar Pedro showing no compassion to the wounded man, since the
monk beats him while he is rendered even more helpless on the ground. In the painting,
Goya depicts the bandit in a position that is between sitting and lying down. El Maragato
is also not trying to get up and escape the friar, but rather grabs onto his cassock in a
gesture as if he is pleading with the friar not to hit him. The friar, however, looks directly
at the bandit’s head as he is about to hit him with the butt of the rifle. Therefore, Friar
Pedro has not used shooting the bandit as a last resort to capture him after he first tried to
hit him with the gun, but rather he has shot the man who is not fleeing, and then further
battered him while he was wounded and unable to get up and run away.
What is furthermore interesting about this scene is yet again the question of where
Goya obtained the idea for it. The only arguments to date for the inspiration for the scene
have been Sherman Font claiming it was based on the friar hitting the horse, as presented
in some of the broadsheets, and Ruth Pike arguing that the scene was discussed in the
archival documents for the court case. Pike claims that Pedro de Zaldivia’s testimony he
stated that he hit the bandit over the head with the gun. This would be a tremendous
breakthrough in understanding the narrative and would reveal where Goya obtained his
information about the story of El Maragato. However, it is not true.
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When I examined the same archival documents that Ruth Pike quoted and cited in
her work on the Maragato series, as well as all of the documents relating to El Maragato
within the archives, it became evident that her statements were false.232 Historian
Manuel Revuelta González in his article, “El Fraile y el Bandido: Trasfondo historico de
unos cuadros de Goya” contributes to the scholarship on the series of paintings by
transcribing the document and stating where the text relates to each of the paintings. For
the fifth painting he quotes the following:
pero como tenía este temible facineroso Hombre otras dos escopetas en el
Cavallo que se llevaba rovado, fuese hacia ellas, hubiérase apoderado de
éstas como lo prometió, y echo víctima de su ensangrentado furor, al que
suplica, si este no se hubiera valido de auientar el Cavallo con la Escopeta
que ia tenía en su poder; viéndose pues ya este malévolo sin poder lograr
sus inicuas intenciones, echó a huir con la más veloz carrera; en estas
circunstancias, y viendo malogrado el lance de su prisión, que tanto interés
tenía y tiene el público, y mirando por otra parte la amenaza que contra la
vida de el suplicante prorrumpió lleno de cólera, no pudo menos, después
de gritarle para que se entregase, al ver que insistía en su fuga, de disparar
la Escopeta que le havía quitado, pero siempre con un caval ánimo de no
Erirle gravemente como se demuestra por la parte erida, e ignorando que
dicha arma estubiese cargada con vala…233
In reading the testimony, we see that Pedro de Zaldivia never acknowledges
hitting El Maragato with the butt of the rifle. The notes from the court hearing never
mention it either. None of the archival documents relating to El Maragato mention
232 Pike’s article examines some of the documents in the National archives relating to Pedro
Piñero’s case. Most importantly she looks at the one that is of Friar Pedro de Zaldivia’s
testimony in order to make her claims that all of the paintings in the series can be accounted for
through this testimony. Archivo Historico Nacional, Consejos Leg. 9344, no 34 is now the
correct reference to the file as opposed to Pike and others reference of Archivo Historico
Nacional, Consejos Leg. 9344,no 16 due to the old cataloguing system which has recently been
updated.
233 Quoted in Manuel Revuelta González, “El Fraile y el Bandido: Trasfondo historico de unos
cuadros de Goya” in Archivo Iberoamericano, Vol. 37 no. 146, (1977) p. 180.
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anything about this particular episode.234 Therefore, the scene in which the Friar beats
his defenseless and injured captor was one that was completely invented by Goya in order
to denigrate him. Also, Goya chose not to depict Pedro de Zalvedia protecting the bandit
from the people who wanted to harm him, but instead painted the friar attacking the
robber.
Thus, the Maragato Series is not an isolated example of this depiction of a heroic
friar, but rather parallels and echoes the anticlericalism of Los Caprichos in which Goya
purposefully chose to represent the most unflattering abuses of the clergy rather than cast
them in positive light. Los Caprichos and the preparatory drawings for the prints account
for many of Goya’s anticlerical images that were produced before and after the Maragato
paintings. We see in subsequent sections and chapters that Goya continued to produce
images of anticlericalism throughout his career. Therefore, a departure from the harsh
critiques of the clergy that has been proposed by art historians for the Maragago series
would be extremely uncharacteristic of the artist.235 Since the paintings were not used
for the same purpose as the printed broadsheets depicting the capture of the bandit, were
not commissioned by a patron of Goya, and were only in the artist’s personal collection
until his wife’s death in 1812 and the inventory of his house was taken,236 the typical
political and patronage reasons for Goya to glorify the clergy or religious ideas in general
234 In examining all of the court records with regard to the Maragato case of 1806 in the
Archivos Historicos Nacional, none of the documents make reference to the friar hitting the
bandit over the head with the rifle.
235 As noted earlier Sherman Font argued that the paintings idealized the role of the friar in them
which is then restated by most art historians who briefly discuss these images.
236 Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source”, 302-3 and Gassier, Wilson, and Lachenal. Goya: Life and
Work, 201.
189
are missing. Instead, these paintings fit formally and thematically into his other anticlerical images.
In addition, many depictions of banditry in Spain which emphasize the brutality
of the attackers differ greatly from the Maragato series due to the emphasis on the friar’s
brutality. Rather than represent the bandit as the one in control of the situation and
violently murdering his Goya paints a monk who is violently brutalizing the bandit. El
Maragato was not a bandit who was idealized and romanticized in Spanish culture, but
was one of the bandits who was hated by the people. In the fifth painting of the series
where El Maragato is being shot, the hand gesture of the bandit recalls that of the
frightened riders of the stage coaches in his painting for the Duke and Duchess of Osuna.
It is now the bandit who is asking not to be harmed, but instead he is being horribly
wounded by a monk, a religious man who is full of the wrath of God, not the compassion
of Christ. Similar to the way in which Cervantes presents his reader with a reversal of
roles when Don Quixote met the bandit, Goya presents us with a reversal of what is to be
expected when a friar and a bandit meet. Rather than glorify the friar for his heroism, he
has denigrated him, and shown him as the attacker, akin to the bandits throughout the
countryside in Spain.
The Clergy in Times of War
Goya’s depictions of the clergy in Los Desastres de La Guerra are incredibly
complex. Goya was not always critical of the clergy in The Disasters of War. He
recognized the complexity of members of the Catholic clergy who were mortal humans.
They, like all people, could be capable of horrible injustices against humanity. At the
190
same time, Goya also was a very religious man and while he observed the abuses of
power and depicted them, he also acknowledged the clergy as being capable of great acts.
He also witnessed some of the greatest atrocities during the Spanish War of
Independence in which the clergy acted as both the murderers and the murdered. The
war had a great impact on the Spanish Catholic Church. Many ecclesiastics strongly
opposed Napoleon’s forces, while others did not mind the change of regime, and others
ran out of cowardice. Goya’s prints from the series as well as his depictions in history
painting represent these many roles that were played by the clergy during times of war.
In this section we will see that Goya again chooses scenes from war that were
unflattering to the Catholic Clergy. Rather than glorify them as other artists did during
the war for propagandistic purposes, Goya depicted the clergy as cowardly and not
heroic, as both victims and victimizers.
Goya’s Desastres de la Guerra were never published during his lifetime and aside
from a few trial proof prints, what is known to be his first edition of prints was published
posthumously in 1863 by the Royal Chalcography at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes
de San Fernando in Madrid. This is particularly problematic for our understanding of the
series for several reasons. One of the questions is whether of not all of the plates
associated with the Desastres de la Guerra were intended to be a part of the series, or if
they were instead meant to comprise more than one series of prints.237 One indication of
this is Goya’s original title or description of the prints that he sent to his friend, Céan
Bermúndez of “Fatales consequencias de la sangrienta guerra en España con Buonaparte.
237 For more information see Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, and Sayre.
Changing Image.
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Y otros caprichos enfáticos.” This was later changed by the Chalcography in their
release of the prints for sale to the now common title of Los Desastres de la Guerra.238
The disasters are typically discussed by art historians as being a series with three distinct
parts. The first forty-seven plates depict scenes from the Spanish War of Independence,
plates forty-eight through sixty four are of the famine of 1811-1812 that took place in
Madrid, and the remaining prints titled by Goya Caprichos enfáticos, represent the
corrupt regime of Fernando VII after he was reinstated into power at the end of the war.
For this section I will be concerned only with the prints from the first part of Los
Desastres de la Guerra, the ones that depict the war, and I will revisit the print series in
my next chapter to discuss the Caprichos enfáticos since these prints depict problems
associated with two different and distinct time periods in Spanish history.
Plate 14 of Los Desastres de Guerra, entitled Duro es el paso (The way is hard
figure 80) is the first scene in which Goya depicts a cleric. The scene is of a man being
taken up a ladder to be hung. He is in the center of the composition, clothed in white
with his hands bound, and three other figures are helping him up the ladder to meet his
death. Similar to many of the prints in the Disasters of War, it is unclear if the man about
to be hung was French or Spanish, therefore making it ambiguous. Jesusa Vega has
explained that historically both the Spanish and the French were using hanging as a way
of executing their victims. The print most likely refers to two edicts issued in 1809
which condemned those on the opposing side to be hanged within twenty four hours if
238 An explanation of the original title and the first printing can be found in Tomlinson,
Francisco Goya, 191. The history of the printings of the Disasters of War can also be found in
Tómas Harris, Goya, engravings and lithographs (Oxford: Cassirer, 1964).
192
they were captured.239 To the left-hand side of the ladder are two swinging figures who
have met their deaths by being hung which forms a diagonal that intersects at the top of
another diagonal formed by the ladder. On the right hand side of the group ascending the
ladder we see a monk.
At first glance the print seems to have little to do with religious art. José Manuel
Matilla believes that the scene recalls the tradition of religious painting and points out
that the Spanish War of Independence was not one just about the battle between Spanish
and French troops, but also one that was a religious war. He also specifically argues that
the print recalls “the language of hands” in religious works where the man about to be
hung is in a gesture associated with submission or acceptance of his fate while the monk
is extending his hand in a gesture of benediction.240 If we accept this the print therefore
is one in which a monk is overseeing the hanging of the man and offering him a final
blessing before his death. However, when examining the print closer, it is possible that
this is not what Goya was trying to represent.
Jesusa Vega argues that the print is one that is not kind to the monk present in the
scene. Rather, she discusses the specific way in which Goya has depicted his facial
features as a caricature. Furthermore, she argues that while he is pointing up to heaven
his gaze is not directed at the man about to be executed, whom he should be blessing but
rather out at the viewer of the print.241 Examining the print more closely we see that the
239 Jesusa Vega in Bozal, Garrido and Vega. Estudios, 112.
240 José Manuel Matilla explains how “el lenguaje de las manos” can be read to coincide with
religious painting with the man about to be hung and the monk in Mena Marquéz, Goya en
Tiempos, 300.
241 Jesusa Vega in Bozal, Garrido and Vega. Estudios, 112.
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hand gesture that Matilla states is one of benediction also become problematic. A
traditional gesture of benediction is similar to that of the monk in Duro es el paso;
however, if the intention was benediction, the gesture is incorrect. The traditional gesture
of benediction calls for the first two fingers to be pointed upwards towards heaven, yet in
the print the monk is only extending his index finger. While this seems to be a minor
detail, Goya was deaf and relied heavily on sign language to communicate therefore he
paid very close attention to hands and gestures. It is also evident that Goya knew this
tradition since the hand gesture of benediction is present in several of his early religious
paintings, such as his Last Supper and Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes (Figures 30 and
81) from Santa Cueva in Cádiz where he painted it correctly.
Considering the gaze and caricature that Vega discusses as well as the fact that
Goya has presented us with a monk making a basic hand gesture in the Catholic faith
incorrectly, the print seems to be one that is criticizing the clergy. The criticism can be
read several ways. Goya may be criticizing the way in which the cleric is interacting
with the execution of a victim of the war. Rather than showing mercy towards the figure
and assisting him in his death, Goya has depicted the monk not blessing him correctly
and not even interacting with the condemned man. His purposeful depiction of the wrong
hand gesture suggests that Goya is criticizing the clergy for being uneducated and stupid
as he had in the prints of Los Caprichos.
Progressing further into the series of prints, Goya’s treatment of the Catholic
clergy changes in order to represent the many different ways in which the clerics were a
part of the War of Independence. In plate 38, Bárbaros! (Figure 82) Goya is again
depicting a scene of execution, which he produced throughout the series. In this case he
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is depicting the monk being executed instead of being a figure participating in the
execution of a civilian. The monk is tied to a tree on the left hand side of the image. His
shaved head and clothing indicate his profession, which Goya further emphasizes through
the placement of the rope around his waist that ties him to the tree being placed in the
same location as the rope that ties his habit. On the right side of the print, Goya depicts
two French soldiers taking aim at his back as they prepare to execute him. Below them
and in the relative center of the print are more French soldiers looking on at the scene.
In this case, rather than being highly critical of the clergy, Goya is more
sympathetic to the plight of the cleric who is about to be shot. Napoleon’s brother Joseph
was made Emperor of Spain and crowned José I and while he was similar to the Bourbon
Monarchs in the way he tried to use the Catholic Church in Spain to enforce his policies,
he and the newly established French controlled government of Spain were openly hostile
towards the Spanish Catholic Church.242 Due to the new restructurings of the Church in
Spain and also due in part to the French overthrowing the government of Fernando VII,
many clerics fought back against the French, which caused the Spanish War of
Independence to be also a holy war. Many clerics had to flee their churches and
monasteries due to the invading French. Bishops became organizers of resistance, and
priests and monks continued to practice even while disbanded in smaller communities
away from the Napoleonic troops. Clerics at times also joined the Spanish citizens in the
uprisings against the French and fought in battle next to their flocks.243
242 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 85-91.
243 Ibid. A much more thorough examination of the role of clerics during the Spanish War of
Independence has been produced in two new studies have been produced to examine both their
liturgical war as well as their partaking in physical battles. Please see Jacobo Sanz Hermida
195
This method of execution by the French was common and the print is similar to
that of an earlier one in the series. In plate 15, Y no hai remedio244 (And it cannot be
fixed figure 83) Goya is also commenting on the horrible executions that took place
during the war. In this print, however, the figure about to be executed is in the center tied
to a post and blindfolded. The executioners are cropped out of the scene and only the tips
of their guns are shown on the far right-hand side of the print. In the background more
victims are depicted about to be executed by soldiers wearing French uniforms, and we
are able to see a row of soldiers taking aim at the men tied to posts like the one that is in
the foreground. At the feet of the man about to be shot is the execution victim who was
tied to the post before him with his head bloody from the gunshots and the ground
pooling with his blood.
Goya’s depiction of the monk as a victim of execution has changed from this
earlier print of execution. The monk has been turned around and faces the tree rather
than his executioners, therefore making him more anonymous than the figure in Y no hai
remedio, who also has his face covered by the blindfold and shadow and is
indistinguishable. Goya has moved the monk to the side of the print rather than placing
him in the center. The executioners are depicted in a way in which their faces are
partially shown, therefore making them not anonymous as in the other execution scenes
that were depicted in the series. Jesusa Vega comments that the scene is one that depicts
Monjas en Guera 1808-1814: Testimonios de Mujeres Desde el Claustro (Madrid: Editorial
Castalia, 2009) and Enrique Martínez Ruis and Margarita Gil, La Iglesia Española Contra
Napoleon: La Guerra ideológica. (Madrid: Actas, 2010).
244 The title for this print is supposed to be read in succession to the one before, Duro es el paso
(the way is hard). Both prints comment on the practice of execution during the war.
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the clergy as being represented in a sympathetic way since the monk is meeting his death
for standing up against the French. She also argues that it is possible that Goya is
depicting a historical event when prisoners were forced to march from an uprising to their
encampment, and when many of them were unable to keep up with the group, they were
all executed.245
While Goya was depicting the monk as a victim of the French, he also makes one
very important omission in the print. The monk’s face is hidden as he is turned toward
the tree. This is a reversal of the previous scenes of execution by firing squad where the
victim is depicted facing us directly and the soldiers killing them are the ones depicted as
anonymous. It is possible that doing so Goya wanted to create a scene in which he is
commenting not just on the death of a monk, but on the religious war that the clergy was
waging on the Napoleonic troops. Rather than being quelled in a way in which the
victims become known, the institution rather is being shot down.
Plates 42 and 43 of Los Desastres de la Guerra represent a very different role that
the clergy played during the Spanish War of Independence. Napoleon’s brother Joseph
became king of Spain and at first attempted to use the Spanish Catholic Church as his
pawn, like that of the Bourbon monarchy. However, this proved to be impossible since
his reign was at times met with fierce opposition by the church. Due to this, José I’s
government started to impose some of the harshest penalties on the clergy and the church
in Spanish History. The new king did not hide his contempt for the church and dissolved
the monasteries and convents which caused monks and priests to be without homes.
With advancing troops sent to enforce the new laws of the French government in Spain,
245 Jesusa Vega in Bozal, Garrido and Vega. Estudios 181.
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clerics were forced to flee.246 Plate 42, Todo va Revuelto (Figure 84) depicts clerics of
different statuses fleeing from some unknown source. They are clustered in a group in
the center of the print and are clearly unorganized and in a hurry to get away. Eleanor
Sayre points out that the print has to do with the disbanding of the monasteries in Spain
and that the clerics are shown fleeing from their invaders, while Jesusa Vega argues that
specifically the print deals with the abolition of the Inquisition.247
Whether or not the print is about the Inquisition or just the closure of monasteries,
Goya has chosen to depict the monks as running away just as he does in Plate 43,
Tambien estos (Figure 85). Since the two prints are adjacent, their meanings and titles
are inter-related. In Tambien estos, Goya again presents us with a scene in which the
clergy are running away. In this image, however, Goya adds to his critique of the clergy
as he reveals that in their running away the monks are lifting up their cassocks, therefore
showing what they are wearing underneath. Traditionally monks were not supposed to be
wearing clothing other than that provided by the church since they were supposed to be
distinguished by how they dressed. Upon careful examination, it becomes evident that
this is not the case. The monk to the left of the monk in the center foreground is lifting
up his cassock enough to see his pants underneath. Rather than being men purely of the
cloth, this monk is depicted as wearing the britches of a layman,248 therefore showing
him as not only fleeing the monastery but also as possibly fleeing clerical life.
246 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 89.
247 Sayre, Changing Image and Jesusa Vega in Bozal, Garrido and Vega. Estudios 195.
248 Many scholars have been quick to point out the clothing of a civilian under that of the
monk’s habit. For more information see Sayre, Changing Image, Jesusa Vega in Bozal, Garrido
and Vega. Estudios and José Manuel Matilla in Mena Marquéz, Goya en Tiempos de la Guerra.
198
Both prints represent the clergy fleeing in terror from an unknown yet assumed
French force. While fleeing did occur within Spain at this time, especially with regard to
the clergy, it was rare to find an image of this. Rather, other artists chose to depict the
clergy as being fighters in the Holy War against the French. As I discussed with the
previous print, Barbaros! the clergy met Napoleonic troops with harsh opposition due to
the repressive regime of José I. Goya here chooses not to depict a heroic dead monk or
the victimization of the clergy. Instead of depicting them as fighting against the forces
that wanted to completely disband them and do away with their way of life, he depicts
them as cowardly and fleeing. He further satirizes this cowardice through his use of
caricature in their faces, much like that which we saw in, Duro es el paso. Goya adds to
the critiques and caricature in both Todo va Revuelto and Tambien Estos since he depicts
the clergy as confused and disorderly.
Plates 46 and 47 represent another problem that occurred with the Spanish clergy
during the War of Independence. As is typical in times of war, Napoleonic soldiers
engaged in the process of pillage and looting throughout Spain from the time in which
they entered the country. One of the most common targets has always been churches and
monasteries due to their wealth. French troops also felt it was within their rights to attack
or murder anyone who got in their way during this process, which caused many clerics to
be attacked by the French troops.249 In Plate 46, Esto es Malo (This is Bad, Figure 86)
Goya depicts a scene in which French soldiers are in the process of violently attacking a
monk. A soldier is depicted in the center of the image plunging a sword into the body of
a monk who has collapsed to the ground and screams out in pain. Behind him are other
249 Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 302.
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French figures watching the scene, both of which look out toward the viewer, not at the
scene that is taking place.
Directly next to the monk being stabbed on the ground is another figure of a monk
who has also most likely been stabbed and lies lifeless on the ground. Goya presents us
with a scene in which the act of killing a monk is taking place but the surroundings are
particularly ambiguous. The background is not clearly defined and while it is possible
that this is taking place in a church it is not certain. Furthermore, it greatly differs from
the next print in the series that depicts the injury of a monk, because one very important
detail has been left out of the print that is very obvious in plate 47, namely the inclusion
of the loot that the French are taking.
Plate 47, Asi Succedio (This is how it happened Figure 87) depicts another scene
in which the French troops are attacking a member of the cloth. In this scene, the cleric is
in the foreground and is collapsing to the ground after being stabbed, much like the one
that we saw in the previous print. He clutches his hands together and his body is in the
same pose as that of the figure of the man about to be hanged in Duro es el paso. Just as
the figure in Duro es el paso is about to be executed during a war, showing the brutality
and inhumanity present in war, the monk in this print is also the victim of harsh and
unrelenting violence. The foreground is then physically broken up from the background
by a railing typically associated with receiving communion, and the French soldiers stand
behind the railing. This separation could therefore represent the monk as being in the
area closest to the altar and therefore closest to the most sacred part of the church while
the French soldiers are being depicted where the laymen would be, in a role that is
anything but holy.
200
The soldiers are clustered in the center of the print and heading towards the
exterior of the church depicted as a light archway in the far background. They are
carrying with them a wide array of loot from the church. In examining what the figures
are carrying, the most obvious object in their stash is that of the processional cross used
for mass-it is engraved to be completely bright in contrast to the dark background and
clothing of the French. The lightness of the cross echoes the lightness of the clothing that
the monk wears, which indicates that just like Jesus, the monk has become a martyr for
his religion. Among the rest of the loot are candle stick holders that can be seen
extending behind the neck of the French soldier closest to the picture plane and on the left
side of the print. The French are also stealing a statue, most likely of the Virgin; it is
being carried on the back of the French soldier in the front of the group on the right-hand
side of the composition. For the most part the French soldiers are depicted as
anonymous—their backs are turned to us as they retreat from the church with their booty.
The head of one soldier, however, just barely peeks out above the hunched back of the
dying monk and below the bar of the processional cross.
Both of these prints are representations of the horrible atrocities that occurred to
the clergy during the Spanish War of Independence. Goya here, again as in Barbaros! is
not depicting anticlericalism, but rather his sympathies for the clerics who were victims
of the violence and abuse of the French. Jesusa Vega argues that these prints have many
historical precedents which could have inspired Goya.250 One could have been the
French sacking of Cuenca, which was described as one of the worst attacks against the
clerics and citizens in Spain. The account states “The darkness made the din and forcing
250 Jesusa Vega in Bozal, Garrido and Vega. Estudios, 208 and 210.
201
of doors, destruction of houses, monasteries, pious houses, and churches more
frightening: they robbed all the treasuries monstrances, including the magnificent one in
the cathedral: they carried off the sacred vessels, scattering the consecrated hosts on the
floor, destroying the ornaments and images: they killed several persons, among them an
old and venerable prebendary.”251 Goya’s depictions of the monks in this way
emphasizes that they too were victims in the war, like the laymen within the print series
rather than representing them as divine. He would continue this representation in one of
his most famous paintings, El Tres de Mayo.
After the restoration of Fernado VII, Goya was commissioned to paint two
complementary paintings that would represent the Spanish uprisings that took place on
the Second of May, 1808 and the executions that then took place on the outskirts of
Madrid in retaliation against the Spanish. Goya’s El Dos de Mayo(Figure 88) and El Tres
de Mayo (Figure 89), like his Desastres de la Guerra, represent the horrible inhumanity
that occurs during times of war. Since Goya had painted images of many of the French
invaders who had taken over the government during the Spanish War of Independence,
his loyalties to Spain were put into question and it is believed that the commission of
these two monumental history paintings was in part a way for Goya to prove his
allegiance to the Spanish.252 El dos de Mayo is Goya’s representation of the uprisings in
the Plaza del Sol on the the date in the title. A rumor spread throughout Madrid that the
251 Quoted in Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 202.
252 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 179.
202
last of the Spanish royal family was being taken from the city which led to uprisings all
over the city because the citizens believed this would be the end to their monarchy.253
In the past, scholars have been quick to assume that Goya saw this scene in the
Plaza del Sol and painted it from the memory of watching the uprisings from the balcony
of his house. However, new scholarship from Gérard Dufour suggests that this is
incorrect. Dufour examined the layout of the streets at the time of the war with regard to
Goya’s address to determine what Goya may or may not have seen. Dufour's research
into the history of Madrid's streets demonstrates that the arguments that Goya witnessed
the rebellion on the 2nd of May in the Plaza del Sol from his balcony to be incorrect. For
one, Goya did not live in the residence close to Sol as argued by others in the past.
Rather his son did and furthermore the building was not in the plaza but or a side street
leading to the plaza that would have had a very limited view of the plaza, not the one
Goya depicted in the painting and the sketch.254 This, therefore, is similar to the many
depictions of different scenes within Los Desastres de la Guerra in which either Goya or
others claimed to have seen the event take place. Through records of where Goya was
during the historical events it becomes evident that he was not present in most instances
and invented scenes based on other accounts.
Goya depicts a moment in which the Spanish are attacking the French and
Mameluke soldiers hired by the French within the Plaza del Sol, the center point of
Spain. The scene depicts the pure chaos of the event as soldiers and civilians battle each
253 Ibid.
254 Gérard Dufour, Goya: Durante la Guerra de la Independencia, (Madrid: Cátedra, 2008.)
203
other. While Goya’s paintings were to represent Spanish patriotism as they were
propagandistic commissions for the state, it is obvious that in El dos de mayo Goya is
commenting on the brutality of both sides within the war. Rather than the heroism of
battle as was common in the history of art, Goya depicts a bloody uprising in which both
sides are massacring each other without clearly showing a heroic side.
This is greatly contrasted in his El Tres de Mayo where Goya glorifies the Spanish
rebels who are about to be executed. Similar to the depictions of execution by firing
squad in Los Desastres de la Guerra, Goya depicts the Spanish about to be the victims of
the brutality of the French. On the left-hand side Goya has depicted a line of Spanish
civilians by the hills of Principe Pio, which was at the time just outside of Madrid, who
are about to be killed by firing squad. In front of them on the ground are the dead bodies
of their fellow countrymen who have already been executed, which is emphasized by the
bloody aftermath of the gunshots. Behind those figures is a long line of more Spaniards
who will also be executed in the same method thereby emphasizing the enormity of the
killings. The French in contrast are on the right hand side of the canvas in a line and are
faceless. The Spanish, however, have their faces turned in a way that we can see their
expressions of horror as they are about to be killed.
The most prominent figure is in the center with his hands held out in a gesture
recalling that of the Crucified Christ. He kneels before his executioners and would be
much larger than the rest of the figures if he was to stand. By alluding to Christ, Goya
makes him a martyr of the Spanish people. To further emphasize this Goya depicts him
with his hands displaying the same nail wounds that Christ suffered when he was nailed
to the cross. The colors of his clothes are also the same as the lantern within the painting
204
therefore referring to Christ as being the light within the Church. It is very possible that
this composition was borrowed from a print that was circulated about the third of May in
which several monks are about to be executed.255 The print clearly depicts the central
monk in a Christ-like gesture that evokes the crucifixion and it is thought that Goya was
inspired by these depictions for his painting.
In contrast to this depiction, Goya presents us with a monk closer to the picture
plane. The monk is depicted in a grey habit with his head shaved, and he is also awaiting
his execution. However, rather than depicting him as the heroic figure in a Christ-like
manner as he did the Spaniard, Goya depicts him hunched over, clenching his hands as if
in prayer, but not looking up at his attackers, as are the other figures are or up to heaven
as he ponders the afterlife. Instead, he looks down at the ground at the dead victims who
lie in a pool of blood which is where he is about to end up as well. His gesture and body
language are not heroic like the central figure in the painting, but are similar to the figure
closest to the foreground in the print Assassination of Five Valencian Monks (Figure 90),
which was circulated in Madrid after the war and had an obvious influence on Goya’s
Tres De Mayo.256
The print, like the painting, presents us with the Spanish as martyrs. Four monks
are kneeling on the left side of the print with the central monk extending his arms out in a
Christ-like gesture while rows of French soldiers are depicted on the right hand side
taking aim. The four monks kneeling and about to be executed have angels swooping in
from above with halos and palm leaves to emphasize their martyrdom. The print also
255Tomlinson. Francisco Goya, 191.
256 Ibid.
205
includes a fifth monk who has already been shot and is lying dead in the foreground of
the print with a bullet hole in his head.
The figure kneeling to the left of the monk in the print is similar to the monk in
Goya’s painting since both are kneeling with their head bowed down in a similar gesture.
However, the print makes clear in the facial expression of the monk that he has accepted
his martyrdom, and recalls the tradition of religious painting with praying saints. Goya’s
monk is different. Not only is his head bowed down, but his entire body is bent at an
angle changing his pose slightly. His face is also not one of a meditative saint but rather
someone who does not want to die as he is looking at the bloody aftermath of those who
were shot before him. His facial expression and body language do not convey deep
meditative prayer but rather fear and possibly cowardice, which makes him a fallible
human rather than a martyred saint. He is not the Christ-like martyr, but just another
victim of the War. In background of the painting a church steeple can be seen, one that
was famous in Madrid at the time. However, the church is in the dark shadow of night
and is barely visible. It is therefore not the church or the clergy that will come to the
salvation of Spain, but rather the Spanish citizens themselves as they up-rise and sacrifice
themselves for the war against the French.
206
Figure 65. La Familia de Carlos IV
Source: Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, (London: Phaidon
Press, 1999).
207
Figure 66. Drawings based on Don Quixote
Source: John J. Ciofalo, The Self-Portraits of Francisco Goya, (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2001).
208
Figure 67. Highwaymen Attacking a Coach
Source: Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, (London: Phaidon
Press, 1999).
209
Figure 68. Attack on a Coach
Source: Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, (London: Phaidon
Press, 1999).
210
Figure 69. Early print depicting El Maragato
Source: Eleanor Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source for the Maragato Series,” Gazette des
Beaux Arts, 52 (July-December, 1951).
211
Figure 70. Companion print for the story of El Maragato
Source: Eleanor Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source for the Maragato Series,” Gazette des
Beaux Arts, 52 (July-December, 1951).
212
Figure 71. Companion print for the story of El Maragato
Source: Eleanor Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source for the Maragato Series,” Gazette des
Beaux Arts, 52 (July-December, 1951).
213
Figure 72. Later print depicting the story of El Maragato
Source: Eleanor Sherman Font, “Goya’s Source for the Maragato Series,” Gazette des
Beaux Arts, 52 (July-December, 1951).
214
Figure 73. El Maragato Threatens Friar Pedro de Zaldivia with His Gun
Source: Photo the author
215
Figure 74. Friar Pedro Offers Shoes to El Maragato and Prepares to Push Aside His
Gun
Source: Photo the author
216
Figure 75. Friar Pedro Wrests the Gun from El Maragato
Source: Photo the author
217
Figure 76. Friar Pedro Clubs El Maragato with the Butt of the Gun
Source: Photo the author
218
Figure 77. Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off
Source: Photo the author
219
Figure 78. Friar Pedro Binds El Maragato with a Rope
Source: Photo the author
220
Figure 79. Detail of Friar Pedro Clubs El Maragato with the Butt of the Gun
Source: Photo the author
221
Figure 80. Duro es el paso
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
222
Figure 81. Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes
Source: José Louis Morales y Martín, Goya, Pintor Religioso, (Zaragoza: Departamento
de Cultura y Educación, 1990).
223
Figure 82. Bárbaros!
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
224
Figure 83 Y no hai remedio
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
225
Figure 84. Todo va Revuelto
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
226
Figure 85. Tambien estos
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
227
Figure 86. Esto es Malo
Source: photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
228
Figure 87. Asi Succedio
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
229
Figure 88. El Dos de Mayo
Source: Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, (London: Phaidon
Press, 1999).
230
Figure 89. El Tres de Mayo
Source: Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, (London: Phaidon
Press, 1999).
231
Figure 90. Assassination of Five Valencian Monks
Source: Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, (London: Phaidon
Press, 1999).
232
CHAPTER V
ANTICLERICALISM IN THE REINSTATEMENT OF FERNANDO VII
Goya and other liberals throughout Spain did not greet the reinstatement of
Fernando VII with enthusiasm considering that he was a more conservative monarch who
had very different viewpoints from that of his father and grandfather, who were both
championed as liberal enlightenment monarchs. As we have seen earlier in this
dissertation, there were many instances in which Goya could have been referring to the
inevitable ascension of Fernando VII to the Crown. Goya’s Family of Carlos IV depicts a
possible power struggle that was already starting to take place between father and son
over who would be the monarch of Spain. With his Los Caprichos he depicted the
Inquisition in a way that seems to have foreshadowed what would happen if Fernando
VII took over the monarchy and therefore gained control over the policies that govern the
Holy Office. While the Church championed Fernando when he was restored as the
monarch of Spain, thinking that he would return the church to the former glory it once
had since he was a conservative monarch in line with the traditional teachings of the
church, the liberals dreaded his reinstatement.
During the Spanish War of Independence, the liberal Cortes de Cadíz met in order
to try to rule Spain separately from the French government that had taken over the crown
in Madrid. The Cortes elected individuals to represent the country and set about to
establish a new representative government for the Spanish people. In so doing, many
members of the clergy were elected to the Cortes where they were to be representatives
of their people and their church. While at first many of them were enthusiastic about this
newly established government in the south of Spain and away from Napoleonic rule, the
vast majority of the representatives who would bring about a new liberal constitution
233
wanted to impose strict rules about the governance of the Church in Spain. While some
of the enlightened and liberal clerics embraced these reforms, most of the clergy met
them with fierce opposition. They were then forced to accept the new government and
the new laws because they were at times threatened to do so by the rest of the ruling
group in Cadíz.257
While the liberal constitution that was established by the Cortes de Cadíz is now
part of the model for the current constitution in Spain, it was not received well by the
Spanish Catholic Church at the time it was issued. Therefore, similarly to when
Fernando first ascended to the throne directly prior to the Spanish War of Independence,
the overall sentiment of the clerics throughout Spain was one of relief when Fernando VII
reentered Madrid and was reinstated as the monarch in charge of the Spanish
Government. The opposite was true for liberals such as Goya.
Fernando’s government would abolish the constitution established in Cadiz and
would return to many of the conservative practices that were more typical of the
Hapsbergs than those of his Bourbon father and grandfather. Fernando realigned the
Crown with the Church and reinstated the Inquisition. In so doing he brought about a
dark period within Spanish History. Under his rule enlightened thinkers would be
persecuted. This included Goya, who was questioned by the Inquisition, and many of
those in the elite enlightened circles went into either forced or self-imposed exile to
escape the policies of the new monarch. Goya would stay in Madrid for part of this time,
but before long he would also go into exile in France. In the last years of the War of
Independence, when it became evident that Fernando would be restored as the monarch
257 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 91-102.
234
in Spain and also in the first few years after the restoration took place, Goya chose to
depict many prints, drawings, and paintings that reflected the monarchy of Fernando VII
and his new alliance with the Spanish Catholic Church. In this chapter we will
specifically see that Goya severely critiques the corruption of both the monarch and the
Church in their alliance as well as revisits the Inquisition when it was reinstated by
Fernando VII. The images Goya produced on this theme are disturbing and represent the
fears of what would and did happen with the ascension of the conservative monarch to
the throne in Madrid.
Caprichos Enfáticos
FernandoVII, like his predecessors wanted to bring the Church under his control
to serve his purposes,258 however his attempts to control the church were strikingly
different. Fernando VII’s political views were quite different than that of the
enlightened Bourbons and he returned Spain to a conservative nation that was similar to
when the Hapsburgs reigned. “The conservative Church welcomed the restoration of
Ferdinand VII to absolute power. As in 1814 the king hastened to satisfy the Church by
annulling liberal ecclesiastical legislation, allowing the regulars to reoccupy their houses,
and appointing his ex-confessor, Victor Sáex, a clerical ultra of the first order, to an
258 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 111.
235
influential ministry.”259 A new alliance between the conservative Catholic Church and
the conservative Bourbon favored their dual pact against liberalism.260
When it was announced that Fernando would assume the throne and restore the
monarchy, the Church was overjoyed-they thought he would be the savior of their
religion and Spain. William Callahan points out that upon Restoration, “A Carmelite
friar declared: “Oh! Sweet Ferdinand! . . . Our beloved Ferdinand! . . . We owe
everything to Ferdinand . . . Long live the King for the greater brilliance and splendor of
the Catholic religion.” ”261 Due to Fernando’s changes, the clergy were able to return to
power with more influence in Spain than they had been granted for decades.
The closer ties between Church and State can be seen in the prints depicting
anticlericalism at the end of the Disasters of War series that recall the critiques of Los
Caprichos. The third section of prints in the Disasters of War is known as the Caprichos
Enfáticos. Goya criticized not only the conservative traditions that were reinstated by the
monarchy and the Church, but also openly mocked the new alliance of Church and state.
As stated by José Manuel Matilla, “La interpretación de los Caprichos Enfáticos apunta a
los diferentes aspectos de la represión y vuelta al absolutismo que suposo el regreso a
259 Ibid., 136.
260 This alliance between the Church and State was strongest in the early years of Fernando’s
reign and during the conception of the Disasters of War. This would however change in the
1820’s and while Fernando was still heavily connected to the Church, he began to exploit it and
bring it further under his control for political and monetary gain. For more information see
Chapter 4 of Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 110- 144.
261 Ibid., 110-111.
236
España de Fernando VII…”262 Fernando VII’s reign brought back many of the
conservative traditions of the Church that were lost during the reign of Napoleon’s
brother in Spain.263 One such practice was that of intense religious pageantry that took
place on important feast days. The celebration of these feast days was made possible
after Fernando gave power back to clerics and allowed them all to return to their
monasteries, churches and cathedrals that they were taken away from under the control of
the French.264
The print Extraña Devocion! (Strange Devotion, Figure 91) from the Caprichos
Enfáticos of Los Desastres de la Guerra exemplifies this return to the conservative
traditions of the past brought about by the restoration of the Church by the authority of
Fernando. The print depicts a scene in which the body of a preserved saint is being
carried through the streets on the back of a donkey and observers, both citizens and
clergy, are kneeling down before the corpse on parade. Goya here is satirizing the
devotion to objects calling into question the ideas of idol worship which is also
something Goya will return to in his last works. He does so not only with his depictions
of the people and especially the clerics mindlessly bowing before the figure, but satirizes
the tradition by choosing to place the saint on the back of a jackass, which recalls many
of his prints from Los Caprichos that satirize the errors of Spanish Society. In this case
the error Goya is depicting is one of religious fervor, which is similar to the more tame
262 “The interpretation of the Caprichos Enfáticos points out different aspects of repression and
the return of absolutism that was caused by the return of Fernando VII to Spain.” José Manuel
Matilla in Mena Marquéz, Goya en Tiempos de la Guerra, 341.
263 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 110-1117.
264 Ibid. P 112.
237
version that can still be seen in Spain during the Santa Semana and major feast days of
the patron saints of cities when the streets are crowded with parades of the faithful
carrying large sculptures of the saints to prove their devotion.
It is possible that Goya was making reference to an actual procession that took
place in 1809 when the uncorrupted body of Mariana de Jesús was moved.265 Jesusa
Vega explains that the body was moved during times of war due to the disbanding of
monasteries by Napoleonic troops and moving the body was a way to preserve it during
the occupation. However, Goya emphasizes interaction of the uncorrupt body and the
crowd. Rather than depict a typical procession scene where the observers watch while
the relic is carried through the streets, Goya further emphasizes the idea of idol worship
and satirizes this practice with unenlightened Spaniards by depicting the people bowing
down towards the saint’s body in a gesture of worship.
Esta no lo es Menos (This is not the Least, figure 92) which is also from the
Caprichos Enfáticos, is similar to that of Extraña Devocion in respect to Goya ridiculing
religious pageantry taking place in Spain. The print depicts figures of the aristocracy and
clergy on parade carrying a statue of a female saint on their backs. As Robert Hughes
points out, the group of men are connected by a rope tied around each of their necks,266
which literally and symbolically links them in this parade. Shortly after the restoration of
the monarchy and the restoration of the clergy, pageantry of this sort was staged all
throughout Spain as a means of communicating to the masses. While the devout were
265 Jesusa Vega in Bozal, Garrido and Vega. Estudios, 276 and 278 and Pérez Sánchez and
Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 343.
266 Hughes, Goya, 301.
238
parading with effigies of saints for feast days, this print may also allude to a different
type of pageantry that was also taking place, since it is not common for the clergy to
carry the figures of the saints. Rather Goya may have been referring to the many parades
that were taking place to demonstrate the restoring of religion and the clergy to their
homes. One such event took place when the archbishop of Santiago returned to his post
in 1814 after the Cortes de Cádiz forced him into exile during the liberal constitution.
Callahan comments “he arrived in a solemn procession including two groups dressed in
sinister garb, chained, and carrying placards labeled “Impiety and Heresy,” “Iniquity and
Persecution.” ”267
In Que Locura (Figure 93) Goya is depicting a monk who is defecating while he
is also holding a spoon in his hand indicating that he has been eating as well. Behind the
monk are religious objects as well as a chamber pot, adding to the satire of the scene that
depicts the monk as uncivilized. It has been pointed out that the spoon in the monk’s
hand also refers to a saying in Spain that was commonly used in anticlerical literature.
“Comer la sopa boba” was an expression used to say that the monk was eating the soup
for the poor.268 This, in combination with the title, gives us a sense of the monk’s folly
and helps us to understand the absurdity of the image. It also seems to harken back to the
depictions of the gluttonous monks in Estan Calientes which Goya printed in Los
Caprichos.
No saben el camino (They do not know the way, figure 94) depicts friars with
nobles and two priests in cassocks walking tied to various lay people along a rough
267 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 112.
268 Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 346.
239
terrain. Upon examining the figures closely, the front figure is groping in the air as he
leads the way. Goya here is referring to the common biblical proverb of the blind leading
the blind. It has been suggested that specifically the figures are led by their own internal
blindness to the truth, and that the print may be one that refers to the Constitution of
Cadiz. One of Goya’s friends, the satirical author José Gallardo Blanco, wrote about the
clergy who were against the constitution as ones who “see without opening their
eyes.”269 Goya is once again criticizing the clergy with regards to their opposition of the
liberal reforms made within Spain, while also referring to the constitution being dissolved
by Fernando VII.
Goya continues his assault on the connections between church and state with his
print Contra el bien general (Figure 95) in which “a clerical scribe with bat wings for
ears and long-nailed hands and feet-which give away his avaricious nature- sits writing.
We may conclude that the Cleric is home in the world for his feet rest on a globe. The
seventeenth-century chair is suitable to a person fixated on the past.”270 Just as
Fernando VII returned to a past conservate that were associated with the Old Regime,
many clerics also called for this return to the past.271 Goya here is expressing the newly
formed alliance between church and state and through his title is referring to how it is
harmful to everyone else.
One such plate directly connects the corrupt monarchy of Fernando to the
Catholic Church in the Caprichos Enfáticos has both historical and literary ties. Esto es
269 Quoted in Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 352.
270 Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 353.
271 Ibid.
240
lo peor! (This is the worst of all!, Figure 96) is an etching in which Goya attacks the
clergy as well as the restored monarchy. In this print, the central figure is a seated shewolf that is writing on a large sheet of paper as a monk kneels before it. As Janis
Tomlinson points out, the wolf is writing words from the poem The Talking Animals by
Giambattista Casti, an Italian poet. The wolf is signing the sheet with Casti’s name as the
writing above the signature reads “ ‘Mísera humanidad la culpa es tuya’ ‘Miserable
humanity the blame is yours’”.272 Tomlinson further explains that “The specific passage
concludes a stanza that condemns both the sacrifice of human lives at the order of the
ruler as well as the civilization that condones it.”273 The stanza reads: “But so long as
there are people in the world who can sacrifice thousands of victims and spill other men’s
blood just how, and when, and in what quantity they please, without running any risk
themselves, enslaved humanity, do not complain of their barbarity, for the blame is
yours.”274
The she-wolf in the print is a reference to the central figure in the poem of the
corrupt queen that takes over the throne after her husband’s death because her son is too
young to rule. The poem was applied by liberals to the Reinstatement in Spain due to the
parallels between the poem and contemporaneous Spain with regard to the corrupt
monarchical figure and the historic ties of Church and state within Spain.275
Specifically, the print is making reference to the corrupt reign of Fernando VII, who took
272 Quoted from Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 200.
273 Ibid.
274 Ibid., p 200-1.
275 Ibid., p. 201.
241
over after his father’s abdication, and his new strong ties to the Church. If the she-wolf
can be thought of as a representation of Fernando, we see he is handing over the sheet of
paper to the monk, thereby solidifying the alliance between Church and State. The print
therefore is about the abuse of both the monarchy and the clergy. Goya is suggesting that
Spain’s return to a society of conservatism and repression should be blamed on the new
ties between Fernando and the Church.
Similar to the attacks of the clerics in Esto Es lo Peor, the print that seems to sum
up Goya’s contempt towards the ties between church and state is plate 77, Que se rompe
la cuerda (May the rope break, figure 97) as we can see in both the print and the
preparatory drawing. Que se rompe la cuerda depicts a high ranking member of the
clergy walking a frayed tightrope above a large group of people who have gathered to
watch the fall of the cleric. The print depicts a large crowd gathering below a tight rope
on which a cardinal or bishop is teetering on one foot and possibly going to fall. Adding
to the precariousness of the cleric’s performance is the condition of the rope. As pointed
out by one of the people in the crowd, the cord that is supporting the weight of the church
is frayed and could very easily break. The crowd gathering below therefore is not only
watching a make-shift tight rope act, but also doing so out of morbid curiosity as the
impending fall and death is imminent. As Robert Hughes points out, Goya depicts the
cleric as “like an incompetent circus funambulist, just above the heads of a derisive and
hostile crowd.”276 Similar to the way in which Goya in Los Caprichos depicted the
clergy placing victims of the Inquisition on display for entertainment during their trials,
he has chosen to turn the tables and display the church as being on display for the
276 Hughes, Goya, 302.
242
entertainment of the people. Both, which however, serve the purpose of depicting
anticlerical sentiments, and the cleric is not depicted as a victim of abuse but rather as a
symbol of an alliance that should be broken.
What is particularly interesting with regard to this print is that in the preliminary
drawing for the plate (Figure 98), Goya depicts the cleric not as an ordinary member of
the clergy, but one that is wearing the papal tiara.277 The drawing goes further than the
print by making a direct attack on the papacy. Both the print and the drawing are based
on a well-known saying in Spanish, “la cuerda se rompe siempre por lo más flojo”.278
The drawing then gives us a clue to Goya’s feelings towards the ties between the Church
in Rome and the Spanish monarchy.
The lack of a connection between the Pope and the Borbónes in Los Caprichos
was most likely due to the fact that the link between the two were constantly being
weakened by the enlightened monarchs. Historian William Callahan writes: “The Church
was linked to Rome by doctrinal ties, but the increasingly weak papacies of Benedict
XIV (1740-1758), Clement XIII (1758-1769), Clement XIV (1769-1774) and Pius VI
(1775-1799) were incapable of exercising decisive influence over the administration of
the Spanish Church. This was above all a royal Church, modeled by the Bourbons to suit
their policies.”279 This, however, was different during the reign of Fernando VII, and in
his new policies he publicly acknowledged his ties to the Pope and Rome. Because
277 Janis Tomlinson points this out in her discussion of the print. Tomlinson, Francisco Goya,
199.
278 “The rope that is most weak will always break” Jose Manuel Matilla in Mena Marquéz, Goya
en Tiempos de la Guerra, 344.
279 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 3.
243
anticlericalism was on the rise in Spain during his reign, several decrees were made to
emphasize the importance of the Church and State. One decree from 1821 stated the
following: “Anyone who conspires. . . to establish any other religion in. . . the Spains or
that the Spanish Nation should abandon its profession of the Catholic, Roman and
Apostolic Religion will be persecuted as a traitor and will suffer the death penalty.”280
These strict laws enforcing Catholicism in Spain show how important the monarch and
government believed the ties between Church and State were. While this decree was
made in 1821, after Goya etched the plates of the Desastres de la Guerra, it was in
response to the rising sentiments of anticlericalism and expressed with the will of the
monarch and the church that had been in place since Fernando was restored. Goya would
have been well aware of these laws, since he was a court painter and knew the ministers
in charge of releasing and enforcing such decrees. It is possible that this is why he
changed the print to depict a cleric rather than the Pope as being the subject on the tight
rope.
The second to the last plate of the series expresses the consequences of the liaison
between the Church and State. Murió la Verdad (Truth has Died, figure 99) is an
ominous scene of clerics attending to the funeral of a woman representing Truth. When
examining the print and considering the title, it becomes evident that the image places the
blame on both the clerics and Fernando. The print depicts the allegorical figure of Truth
being buried. In the scene she is being watched over by many figures, many of whom are
members of the Catholic clergy ranking from monks to bishops. The bishop presiding
over her burial is giving her the last rites before she is interred; the other clerics are
280 Quoted in Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 132.
244
distracted by her bare breasts rather than realizing the loss they and all of Spain are
suffering. As pointed out by Robert Hughes “The only mourner who genuinely weeps is
Justice on the right, with her now useless scales.”281
When considering the print in relation to the history of the Church and the
restoration of the monarchy, it is likely that Goya here again is commenting on the
horrible injustices that have occurred in Spain before, during, and after the war due to the
Catholic clergy and the abuses of the institution on the people. When Fernando restored
the Inquisition he set the progressive steps that had been taken against the oppressive
Church back to a time period that was more like that of the Hapsburgs than that of the
enlightened Bourbons, as mentioned earlier. The king’s new allegiance with the Church
caused Goya and his circle of liberal thinkers to believe that Truth in Spain had died.
José Manuel Matilla comments “La critica a la Iglesia es evidente, y apuntamos un
interpretación en clave política referida a la restauración de sus privilegios tras la
abolición de la constitución de 1812 con el decreto de 4 de mayo de 1814.”282 The
restoration of Fernando and the abolition of the constitution caused Spain to be plunged
into a period of darkness with truth, reason, and justice being buried in favor of religious
fervor and absolutism. While Goya criticized and satirized the Catholic clergy before in
his works, it was due to this historic union of Church and State that he not only satirized
the practices of the clergy, but placed the blame of the new errors of Spanish society on
the clergy and the monarch in his Caprichos Enfáticos. Goya would continue to criticize
281Hughes, Goya, 303.
282 José Manuel Matilla in Mena Marquéz, Goya en Tiempos de la Guerra, 348
245
this new alliance between church and state through the early years of the reinstatement of
Fernando VII, especially with regard to the horrors that would occur with the Inquisition.
The Inquisition Revisited
When Spain was under control of Napoleonic troops and José I of France, the
Inquisition had been disbanded. Fernando VII reinstated the Inquisition with his new
alliance with the Spanish Catholic Church. William Callahan comments upon the new
roles of the Church that looked to return to a version of Spain that would be similar to the
Old Regime and how Fernando VII used the church for his own purposes: “The king,
realizing that his survival partially depended on the support of the Church, quickly
abrogated the ecclesiastic legislation of the Cortes of Cádiz… A decree of July 21, 1814
ordered the restoration of the Inquisition; another on May 29, 1815, authorized the
reestablishment of the Jesuits.”283 The church therefore under Fernando VII had new
power that it had not had for a long time and set in motion a newly reinvigorated
Inquisition in Spain.
Just as Goya condemned the Inquisition in his Los Caprichos, he produced many
drawings as well as paintings that condemned the new practices of the Church within
Spain. In 1815 Goya was questioned before the Inquisition due to his Maja paintings,
and while he was able most likely to escape any harsh interrogation or punishment from
the institution, the experience none the less had a lasting impact on his life that would
cause him to severely critique the Inquisition, especially in his private album drawings.
In this section I will be examining the paintings relating to the new role the Catholic
Church played in Spain as well as a selection of some drawings from his Album C, also
283 Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 112.
246
known as the Inquisition Album, in order to examine Goya’s critiques of the Spanish
Inquisition after Fernando VII was reinstated as the Monarch in Spain.
Goya’s Inquisition Scene of 1816284 has already been discussed briefly in the
context of Los Caprichos and the different types of Auto de fes that were used by the
institution. However, a more careful examination of this painting is important to better
understand what Goya was depicting at this time when the Holy Office was once again a
major force within Spanish society. Manuela Mena argues that the newly reinstated
Fernando VII and his restoring the Institution inspired this painting.285
It is also possible that the painting was influenced by the work of Juan Antonio
Llorente who had been the secretary to the Inquisition, but went into self-imposed exile
in France after Fernando VII was reinstated. Llorente wrote The History of the
Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII in
France, and in it he explains how under the Bourbons such as Carlos III and Carlos IV,
the institution was reformed according to enlightenment ideals which caused it to be,
according to him, one that was in service of the people of Spain and not one that used
barbarism. He then goes on to explain how under the regime of Fernando VII, the
Inquisition changed dramatically and the new monarch imposed several severe laws
284 The dates of both this painting as well as the Album C drawings are disputed among art
historians in the literature on these works. For the painting, some believe that it was created
between 1810 and 1812 while others argue that it was finished in 1816. Considering that Goya
was questioned before the inquisition in 1815 and it was not until 1814 that Fernando VII was
reinstated on the throne and the institution did not start taking a strong hold in Spain until after
the monarchy was restored, it seems highly likely that the painting was completed in 1816 rather
than earlier on. The dates of the drawings also range in dates from 1808-1814. It seems here
again that the drawings would have been completed later in order to reflect the changes within
Spain rather than during the War of Independence.
285 Manuela Mena Marquéz in Mena Marquéz, Goya en Tiempos de la Guerra, 386. Mena
explains how José I outlawed the Inquisition in Spain between 1808 and 1814 and the Cortes de
Cádiz also supported the disolvement of the institution. She goes onto explain that it was the new
cruelty that the Institution exhibited in Spain which was a mixture of religious and political
retaliation that inspired Goya.
247
which would therefore lead the Inquisition to be one of a more disturbing nature.286 It
was due to the repressive regime that Llorente went into exile in France. It seems telling
that a former secretary of the Inquisition would find the newly reinstated monarch to be
too repressive and to cause the Inquisition to make changes that he felt were too
excessive. Goya knew Llorente since they were in the same court circles under the
monarchy of Carlos IV, and Goya painted his portrait prior to his exile to France. It is
therefore possible that Goya would have understood more about the Inquisition and its
history because of his ties to Llorente.
The painting was also part of a series of paintings that Goya completed all within
the same few years. One of the paintings in this group is Procesión de disciplinantes
(Figure 100). Janis Tomlinson notes that the two paintings resemble each other in the
fact that the penitents in the Procesión de disciplinantes and the victims in Auto de fe de
la Inquisición seem to reflect one another through their conical hats and bent over body
positions.287 Manuela Mena offers us information that suggests that Goya yet again is
dealing with a historic problem within the Spanish Catholic Church. Like the Bourbons
before him, Fernando VII’s government issued edicts condemning and prohibiting
flagellation in the processions of Semana Santa.
What is even more important the two paintings have in common is critical
imagery regarding the practice of religion within Spain. Goya in Auto de fe de la
Inquisición depicts Goya’s critiques of new religious fervor of the Inquisition. He
presents a scene in which victims are being tried for crimes in a medieval setting before a
group of clerics. The medieval architecture is not only an indication of Goya’s thoughts
286 Juan Antonio Llorente. The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its
Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII. (London: William Clowes, 1827). The original
version of which was published in France in 1817 under the title Histoire critique de l'Inquisition
espagnole.
287 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 299.
248
about the outdated and repressive nature of the Inquisition, but also reflect the same
architectural structure that he painted in another one of the paintings associated with the
series. The Casa de Locos (Figure 101), which depicts a group of the insane within the
madhouse. This theme was also one that Goya revisited throughout his career. When
looking at the architecture in both his depiction of the madhouse and that of the Auto de
Fe it becomes evident that they both represent the same style of medieval architectural
interiors. Goya therefore may be equating the madhouse with that of the Inquisition.
Goya also may have looked to the tradition of painting the Auto de fe when
preparing for this painting. Auto de fe precidio de Santo Domingo de Guzman (Figure
102) done by Pedro Berruguete from 1493-99, presents us with a very different image of
an Auto de Fe. The painting is divided into two different areas. The top half of the
painting is composed of Saint Dominic and the Inquisitional officials seated under a
covered raised platform which would have been set up in a public square for the masses
of people to see. The bottom half deals with the trials that are occurring, the accused and
the consequences of being found guilty. We know this is not an accurate depiction of
what would have happened at an Auto de fe because the scene clearly depicts two victims
of the trials being burned at the stake on the lower right hand corner. This would not
have occurred since victims were paraded to the outskirts of the city and burned there.
Berruguete’s painting focuses on the figure of Santo Domingo, the founder of the
Dominican order which was closely associated with the Inquisition. It is a painting that is
not openly critical of the Inquisition of its time. While it also depicts victims of the
Inquisition as being tried, it is not doing so in a way that is considered to be critical of the
church. Rather it is presenting us with an image of what was considered to be typical of
an Inquisition, or at least what the Church wanted viewers to think was typical of an Auto
de Fe so that it would serve as a warning about the punishments of transgressions from
the faith.
249
While not composed in the same format and layout as the paintings in the series
depicting the madhouse, the Auto de Fe, and the procession, Goya also painted another
work of religious nature that should be viewed in relation to the other paintings in the
series. His El entierro de la sardina while not specifically about the Inquisition, is a type
of a religious painting that is different from what we are typically presented with in
religious subjects. Janis Tomlinson states that “Its subject was then described as the
Burial of the Sardine (Figure 103), a mock funeral which by 1839, was celebrated by the
lower classes in Madrid to mark the end of Carnival. It is not clear whether this
celebration even existed in Goya’s Madrid and so it cannot be taken for granted as the
subject of his painting.”288 Tomlinson then goes on to explain that rather it is possible
that it is just a scene of a masquerade through the streets of Madrid.289 Manuela Mena
adds to this by explaining that Goya could have been commenting upon how the
celebration of Carnival was prohibited, as had been established by the Hapsburg king
Charles V, and it was only in the later portion of the eighteenth century in Spain when it
began to be celebrated.290 Tomlinson explains that the preparatory drawing for the
painting depicts monks as the figures dancing around in a circle while the banner depicts
a bishop’s miter, the papal tiara, and a scepter with the word “Mortus” written above it.
Considering both images, especially the preparatory sketch, with regard to the
purpose of religious activity it can be argued that Goya in fact is depicting the Burial of
the Sardine. While some changes have occurred in the celebration of this festival from
Goya’s time to today, the overall concept of the festival remains the same. It is a satirical
religious festival which in a way mocks all of the other religious processions on feast
288 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 233.
289 Ibid.
290 Manuela Mena in Mena Marquéz, Goya en Tiempos de la Guerra, 389-391.
250
days. The point of the celebration is to mark the end of Carnival and the beginning of
Lent while throwing one last party. It is, in a way, a satirical religious version of Mardi
Gras. Carnival is represented by the Sardine that is paraded through the streets in a mock
coffin which is either buried or burned at the end of the night. The funerary procession is
one that is more similar to that of a religious feast day rather than an actual funeral.
The people who celebrate the mock burial are religious, but they are also
engaging in a parody of the processions and part of the religious faith. Similar to
activities during Holy Week, when confraternities can be seen in the processions carrying
religious sculptures and wearing the costumes of penitentes, a confraternity will parade
with the sardine and oversees the ceremony. Today in Madrid, this begins at Goya’s
resting place, San Antonio de la Florida, and the procession goes all the way to the park,
Casa de Campo, where the Sardine in its coffin is burned on a large bonfire. The festival
is one that is sponsored by the church even though it mocks its tradition with the
confraternity, but also through the inclusion of people dressed up like monks and priests
that accompany the parade as participants and women who dress up as mourners with the
confraternity to wail and lament the death of the Sardine. Goya’s preparatory sketch
therefore could be representing this tradition of costumes being used as a part of the
festival.
Around the same time that Goya painted the Auto de fe, he was also drawing
many images related to the Inquisition as well as to the new relations of Church and State
under Fernando VII. Goya’s Album C, the Inquisition Album, is different from his other
albums because it was not a bound volume that he drew in. Instead Album C is composed
of loose leaf paper that was put together and changed sequence several times. The album
251
is also the longest one of Goya’s albums.291 Many of the Inquisition themed drawings
depict two themes—trials and torture.
Haber nacido en otra parte (For having been born in another part, figure 104) is
Goya’s first depiction of a victim of an Inquisitional trial in the album and represents the
Inquisition’s abusive judicial process. The woman who has been convicted has flames
painted on her outfit therefore signifying that she will be burned alive for her
transgressions. Flames are also starting to creep up onto the raised platform on which she
stands holding her head in shame and disbelief. The title and the punishment do not
match each other. It was not an offense to be punished by death if you were a foreigner
in Spain, therefore the drawing and the text do not match the exact political and religious
climate in Spain at this time.292 This therefore suggests that Goya once again is not
following the exact history of the Inquisition, or of religion in Spain, but is instead
choosing to represent the institution as one that was more barbarous than in actuality.
This is similar yet again to his depictions of the Inquisition found in Los Caprichos.
Por no tener piernas (For not having legs, figure 105) is similar to For having
been born in another part in respect to Goya’s images of tribunal abuse. Like the first
drawing on the judiciary aspects of the Inquisition this drawing uses a title to indicate a
crime that the Inquisition would not have punished and it also looks back to themes
similar to those in Los Caprichos. Goya’s long written inscription on the page reads “I
knew this cripple who had no feet, and they say that he was asking alms of the priest
when he was leaving Zaragoza and when he arrived on the Calle de Alcala [in Madrid] he
found him begging.”293 While Goya’s title alludes to the man being on trial for his
291 Juliet Wilson-Bareau. Goya: drawings from his private albums (London: Haward Gallery,
2001), 79.
292 Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 220.
293 Quoted in Ibid., 224.
252
physical disability, something that would have never been punished by the Inquisition,
the longer inscription he wrote on the drawing instead suggests that the man was on trial
for witchcraft.294
Goya’s drawing depicts a man on a stool or table seated before an auto de fe
similar to what we have seen in the past within Los Caprichos and also in his Inquisition
Scene that he painted around the same time as the drawings. His head is bent slightly
creating a strong diagonal through the inclusion of the conical hat known as a coroza on
his head proceeding to the lighter whites of his clothing. Goya shades most of the
background with only semi-circles to represent the heads of those watching the
proceeding. The right hand side of the background is completely blackened causing a
contrast between the ambiguous setting and the man on trial. Emphasizing the man’s
disability, Goya has drawing his crutches lying on the floor in front of him. The man on
trial not only is bowing his head down, but holds his hands up as if in a gesture of prayer.
The contrasts of shadow in the background and the light on the figure seems to indicate
that Goya is emphasizing the innocence of the man on trial.
Goya also tries to add credibility to the scene by saying he knew him in the longer
inscription, however, similar to his Disasters of War, this most likely is not the case as
again, the crime of having no legs was not one punishable by the Inquisition. The longer
inscription also contradicts the title for the punishable offense since it indicates that the
man with no legs was on trial for witchcraft: he has gone from Zaragoza to Madrid faster
than the priest who saw him begging, therefore he would have had to use magic to get
there. Witchcraft was rarely being tried before the Inquisition in Goya’s lifetime.295
294 Ibid.
295 Ibid., 222-6.
253
In contrast to Goya’s historical revision within his drawings and prints of the
Inquisition that have already been discussed, Goya did at times make reference to a
historical case that did occur within his life and career. Por traer cañutos de Diablos de
Bayona (For carrying diabolical tales from Bayonne, figure 106) was drawn as page 86
in Album C and could relate to the previously mentioned drawing, For having no legs
which was page 90. The title refers to a historical case brought before the Inquisition in
Goya’s life A man known as “Piernas” (“legs”) was put on trial in Zaragoza after he
entered Spain and was caught distributing pamphlets of a seditious nature from Bayonne,
France.296 As his name indicated he had a physical problem with his legs therefore
Goya could be relating the two drawings due to the disability of the historical figure and
that of his invented victim of the Inquisition. Piernas was tried before the Inquisition in
the 1790s, closer to the time when Goya was etching Los Caprichos. He was known not
only for his physical disabilities but he was also illiterate.297 His illiteracy complicates
the trial and Goya’s image—his trial and questioning were based on pamphlets that he
distributed yet could not read.
Similar to his drawing For having been born in another part, Goya chose to
depict scenes of torture that many times had a title for a crime that did not fit with the
punishment being received. Por Casarse con quien quiso (For marrying who she
wanted, figure 107) is another image in which an inquisitional punishment does not fit
the crime. The drawing is extremely dark and it is hard to make out what is happening at
first glance since the only portion of the drawing exhibiting light and clarity is that of the
woman’s tortured and agonized face. Upon closer inspection of the drawing a group of
monks surrounds the woman and are torturing her. The device that is being used is a
296 Ibid., 226.
297 Ibid.
254
specific rack used for torture in different tribunals. However, even with the reinstated
monarchy of Fernando VII and the newly empowered Inquisition, the use of torture by
the institution within Spain was still less barbaric than what is being represented in the
drawing. Furthermore, it was not a crime punishable by the Inquisition to marry someone
you wanted to, therefore this scene would not have occurred.298
Que Crueldad (What Cruelty, figure 108) depicts the brutal torture of a victim of
the Inquisition. The drawing depicts a man who has been tortured by the Inquisition
through the use of tying different parts of his body with rope and pulling them in
opposing directions. Most dramatic are the ways in which the arms are pulled to the left
side of the image while his head is being pulled to the right. This contorts the torso into
an unnatural position that is further emphasized by a look of pure anguish on his face.
Above him is a crucifix which signifies that the jurisdiction at hand here is that of the
Inquisition, not a civil court.299 Janis Tomlinson also points out that the way in which
his body is contorted is echoed in the form of the cross above him, therefore making him
into a figure associated with martyrdom.300
At the end of Album C Goya returns to anticlerical themes that were similar to the
ones presented within Los Caprichos, in which he satirizes the clergy and their abuses on
the Spanish people. An example of this is No sabias lo que lleabas a questas? ( You
don’t know what you are carrying?, figure 109), part of a series of drawings in the album
that are critical of monks and the disbanded cloistered clergy.301 Jonathan Brown points
out that this grouping of images looks “at monks in particular, casting them in the role of
298 Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 226.
299 Ibid.
300 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya. 234.
301 Mena Marquéz, Goya en Tiempos de la Guerra, 398.
255
ignorant, gluttonous, lecherous parasites.”302 All of these comparisons were already
made in Goya’s Los Caprichos and, like the depictions of the Inquisition, Goya again
returns to the same complaints he had about fifteen years prior to drawing Album C. Will
you ever know what you are carrying? depicts a man struggling with a hoe to work on a
field. Adding to the task is an overweight monk sitting on his back. Goya here is
depicting the man doing backbreaking labor to work the fields while he is being hindered
by having to carry the cleric. The criticism here could point to the land ownership of the
Catholic Church in Spain and how peasants were forced to work the land for the church
(similar to Goya’s critiques of the Church’s wealth in Los Caprichos). The title and
image together convey the message that the lower-class laboring Spanish have to carry
and provide for the Church, and that the lazy monks are using the people to support them.
Goya may have chosen to depict the institution as one that focused on torture and
barbarism due not only to his disappointment with the reinstated monarch and his
conservative politics, but also in retaliation for the questioning to which he was submitted
to about the decency of his paintings. What is evident in looking at the drawings is that
Goya has chosen to depict the clergy of the Spanish Catholic Church as barbaric and
unenlightened. He has done so purposefully, and at times manipulated historical events
in order to further denigrate the clerics of Spain. This was not unique to his depictions
associated with the reinstatement but, as we have seen, had been done throughout his
career. It is also not a theme that will disappear from his art. Goya will represent the
clergy in this manner until he dies while in exile in Bordeaux.
302 Jonathan Brown and Susan Grace Galassi, Goya’s Last Works. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2006), 210.
256
Figure 91. Extraña Devocion!
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
257
Figure 92. Esta no lo es Menos
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
258
Figure 93. Que Locura
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
259
Figure 94. No saben el camino
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
260
Figure 95. Contra el bien general
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
261
Figure 96. Esto es lo peor!
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
262
Figure 97. Que se rompe la cuerda
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
263
Figure 98. Drawing for Que se rompe la cuerda
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
264
Figure 99. Murió la Verdad
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
265
Figure 100. Procesión de disciplinantes
Source: Real Academia de Bellas Artes website
http://www.realacademiabellasartessanfernando.com/es
266
Figure 101. Casa de Locos
Source: Real Academia de Bellas Artes website
http://www.realacademiabellasartessanfernando.com/es
267
Figure 102. Pedro Berruguete, Auto de fe precidio de Santo Domingo de Guzman I
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
268
Figure 103. El entierro de la sardina
Source: Real Academia de Bellas Artes website
http://www.realacademiabellasartessanfernando.com/es
269
Figure 104. Haber nacido en otra parte
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
270
Figure 105. Por no tener piernas
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
271
Figure 106. Por traer cañutos de Diablos de Bayona
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
272
Figure 107. Por Casarse con quien quiso
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
273
Figure 108. Que Crueldad
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
274
Figure 109. No sabias lo que lleabas a questas
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
275
CHAPTER VI
ANTICLERICALISM IN GOYA’S LAST WORKS
In this concluding chapter I would like to look briefly at the themes of
anticlericalism in Goya’s last works. As mentioned earlier, due to the repressive regime
of Fernando VII, many of Goya’s friends and the liberal enlightened thinkers of Spain
were disenchanted with the government after the reinstatement of the monarchy and went
into exile. An aging Goya would leave Spain for the last few years of his life. However,
before his exile in Bordeaux, France, he would buy the Quinta del Sordo in February of
1819.303 Thus, Goya moved to the outskirts of the city of Madrid and was removed in
part from the court. It is possible that he was trying to distance himself from the reign of
Fernando VII and therefore be less called upon by the court. This move would be
relatively minor, but would foreshadow his much more significant move to France where
he would join several of his friends and other Spanish liberals who were in Bordeaux in
order to escape the conservative Bourbon monarch.
In Goya’s last years both in Madrid and in Bordeaux he revisited many themes
that he had painted, drawn, and printed throughout his lifetime, one of which was the
abuses of the Catholic clergy. Even when Goya was in Bordeaux and away from the new
alliance of monarch and Church that had so angered him and those in his intellectual
circle, he was still depicting images of religious atrocities. While he was safe from the
Inquisitional tribunals that had questioned him years before in Spain, he would still depict
scenes that were reminiscent of the terror that the institution instilled in the Spanish under
the restored monarchy. This concluding chapter examines Goya’s late works that attack
303 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 239.
276
the Catholic clergy. I begin by examining anticlericalism in his Black Paintings, as well
as in his print series Los Desperates, also known as Los Proverbios, and end with an
examination of a few of the drawings he made not long before his death. Much of what
he depicted in these late works resonate with what we have already seen throughout this
study; overall they are very inventive and represent Goya’s long-felt hatred towards the
abuses of power within the Catholic Church.
Goya’s print series Los Disperates contains several instances in which the artist
has depicted the Catholic clergy. Plate 3, Disparate Ridiculo (Figure 110) depicts a
group of figures on a tree branch. It is thought that the figure on the right in the striped
clothing could possibly represent a Persian, while others represent aristocrats, specifically
the woman seated towards the left-hand side of the print with the muff on her hands, and
finally the central figure that Goya depicts as half human and half animal is dressed in
ecclesiastic robes. These figures would predate those of his Black Paintings, yet they
appear to be repeated in his Witches’ Sabbath, especially the woman with the muff on her
hands. 304 This particular print possibly represents Goya’s play on a Spanish phrase
much like many of the other prints from this series.305 The Spanish expression “andarse
por las ramas” (to walk along the branches) signifies someone or a group of people who
dwell on an insignificant detail while missing the broad and most important thing. It is
304 Sayre in Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 307.
305 The title of the series of prints is disputed in art historical literature. The original title of the
prints was Los Disperates, however, as it was discovered that many of these prints represent
Spanish sayings or proverbs, the title of the series became Los Proverbios.
277
also possible that the print is referring to familial lineages that can be traced through a
family tree.306
This would not be the first time that Goya would mock the idea of the idea of
familial heritage being one of the most important aspects in Spanish society. It was also
satirized in Los Caprichos in Hasta tu Abuelo(Figure 111) in which Goya presents us
with a donkey or jackass holding open a book and looking at portraits of his family who
all look the same. Hasta tu abuelo was a commentary on how the minister Godoy was
having his noble lineage questioned, and his critics were using this as a way to criticize
his high position in the court. Here again, Goya is commenting on lineage and its
meaning within Spanish culture. These members of a family tree are out on a limb
celebrating their family heritage. However, upon closer examination the tree branch is
dead and it seems as if the representation is therefore not one of a high-class family, but
rather one of a noble family that is no longer aristocratic or rather that this branch of the
family is now dead, or of any importance.307 This could have also been a touchy subject
with Goya considering that his father was a commoner while his mother had minor noble
ties.
Looking further into this idea of privileged families, Eleanor Sayre comments:
“Goya’s contemporaries said the true goblins of this world were clerics who took orders
so as to avoid working for a living, Goya implied, in the unearthly way this branch stays
up, that the privileges and pretensions of the nobility were sometimes disconnected from
306 Sayre in Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 308.
307 Ibid. discusses the idea of the branch as being a representation of a familial tree and how both
the image and the title satirize the idea of aristocratic heritage.
278
any quality, such as virtue, that would justify them.”308 Sayre also comments about how
the cleric’s hands are invisible which refers to other popular Spanish sayings about
having one’s hands tied as well as the idea of idleness and sexual license which was
specifically an attack on the clergy.309 This idea is one that we are very familiar with in
this study as the ideas of hands and the clergy and sexual corruption also came up in Los
Caprichos with prints such as Que Pico de Oro and Estan Calientes. Goya thus is
referring back to his earlier works in which he was critiquing many of the same things.
Therefore, even in his later life Goya still sees problems that have been reoccurring
throughout the history of Spain in the Catholic Clergy and he still chooses to depict them.
In this case with the print Goya is not only complaining about the problems of
sexual corruption within the clergy or with noble lineage being an important part of the
jobs and titles one would get within society, but also with the current government. Under
the government of Carlos III and IV, lineage was still an important part of getting a
public service job or admission to the universities, as is evinced in the satirization of the
criticisms of Godoy. This was later over-turned through the constitution of Cadiz and
suddenly jobs and opportunities were opened up to people regardless of noble birth.
However, under the reinstated monarchy of Fernando VII, nobility once again became an
important part of gaining status within society.310 Historically, nobles were promoted
through the ranks of the clergy in order to increase familial presence within the Catholic
308 Ibid., 308.
309 Ibid.
310 Ibid. and Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Hechos y figuras del siglo XVIII español (Madrid: Siglo
Veintiuno de España Editore, 1980) 283.
279
Church which was particularly true with the royal family, who would have family
members promoted to the highest seats of power such as bishops and cardinals within the
Church in Spain. Goya’s print therefore is highly critical of these practices since it is
trying to call for an end to the privileges of a few due to their birth.
Plate 4 from Los Disparates again recalls a theme that was present in Los
Caprichos that satirized the clergy. Bobalicón (Giant, figure 112) presents us with a
large dancing and grinning figure in the center of the print who stares at an idol being
held up by a person hiding behind it. The man holding the idol at first does not seem to
be associated with the clergy. However, upon examining the preparatory drawing for the
print it becomes evident that the initial image depicted a monk holding up the idol. In the
final print, the person holding up the idol still has the cape present that is associated with
the habit and cowl of the monk in the preparatory sketch, therefore making reference to
the first image.
This is similar to Goya’s Los Caprichos print Lo que puede un sastre discussed in
Chapter III, in which onlookers are worshiping a hollowed out tree that has been clothed
to look like a cleric. In the case of the Caprichos print, the large figure is that of the false
idol people are worshiping, while Goya has reversed this representation in the Disparates
print. The title also refers to a figure in Spanish culture that helps shed light on the
meaning of the image. Elenor Sayre points out that a Bobón is a carnival fool in Spanish
and that the castanets were used to accompany their dances. The Bobón personifies folly
dancing before and worshiping a false idol.311 This reminds us that when Los Caprichos
311 Sayre in Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 310.
280
was etched clerics and enlightenment thinkers were complaining about the worship of
holy objects and idols throughout Spain.
This practice had been long criticized in the tradition of the Catholic Church and
was even stated as a major problem within the church in the Council of Trent. León de
Arroyal, a contemporary of Goya comments “Los Pintores… han representado en sus
tablas estos titers espirituales, y el pueblo idolatra les ha tributado una supersticioso
adoración. La Iglesia ha trabajado de continuo en desterrar de los fieles la preocupación
de virtude particularde las imagines y los eclesiásticos no han cesado de estableceras.”312
This theme was something that was represented time and time again within Goya’s work.
It is not just found in Los Caprichos and Los Disperates, but it is also seen in his
Caprichos Enfaticos and in some of his paintings of religious fervor. What is interesting
about León de Arroyal’s criticism is that it echoes that of Goya’s. Goya was a very
religious Catholic who was very faithful, yet he saw the horrible injustices and abuses
that the clergy perpetuated on the Spanish people. León de Arroyal specifically refers to
this since he separates the church from the clerics in his commentary. With regard to this
specific print it is possible that the criticisms could also be extended to the uneducated
clergy since they were the ones most likely to be encouraging idol worship within their
parishes.
Disperate Claro (Evident folly, figure 113) depicts many figures in the
foreground who are under a canopy that is being raised by figures in the background.
312 Quoted in Ibid., “Painters… have represented these spiritual puppets on their canvases, and
the idolatrous public has rendered them a superstitious adoration. The Church has worked
unceasingly to banish from believers’ minds the notion of particular virtues associated with
images, and ecclesiastics have not ceased to ingrain it.”
281
Similar to the Caprichos Enfaticos, Goya here is commenting on the reinstated monarchy
of Fernando the VIII and his alliance with the church. The print depicts clerics and
aristocrats, were both in favor of Fernando VII’s return to power since it meant the return
of their privileges from the Old Regime. The Crown, the aristocracy and the Church
worked together to get rid of the constitution and the liberal reforms that had been made
in Spain. This print represents that direction. Clerics and aristocrats are present under a
dark canopy and are engaging in a transfiguration of a cleric into a monster. The dark
canopy represents Fernando and his reign which is supported by the clerics and the
aristocracy keeping them in the dark.313
Goya’s paintings on the walls of the Quinto del Sordo also depict anticlerical
imagery. The works were titled the Pinturas Negras or Black Paintings after his death
and these titles and their placement in the house remains problematic. They were cut
from the walls of the house in 1873 and transferred to canvas by the new owner of the
house, Baron Fréderic Emile d’Erlanger who then had displayed at the Paris Expsition
Universelle in 1878. However in their removal, several of the paintings were modified
because parts were cut of some of the frescoes, therefore cropping them from their
original forms into smaller images. Others were modified as in the case of Saturno
devorand a un hijo (Figure 114), in which paint was applied to the painting to cover up
the large erection Goya had depicted.314 The Pinturas Negras contain several images
that relate to the theme of anticlericalism that Goya chose to paint in the private setting of
his own home.
313 Pérez Sánchez and Sayre, Goya and the Spirit, 315.
314 Tomlinson, Francisco Goya, 239.
282
One of the largest of the Pinturas Negras is Witches Sabbath (Figure 115). The
main figure to the left of the composition is a dark he-goat which recalls many of Goya’s
other paintings such as the ones done for the Osuna’s country home. As Robert Hughes
points out, the figure of the he-goat is a symbol of the Devil within Spain at this time
period. What is particularly interesting about this painting is that when examining it
closely we note that the figure in white seated on the right-hand side of the he-goat is
possibly a nun.315 The figure, however, does not face out towards the viewer like the
rest of the human figures in the composition. Therefore, it is not clear if the woman is a
nun or not. However, the white cloak does resemble that of the Carmelite order. If she is
a nun, Goya has placed her next to the figure that is associated with the devil or
witchcraft. On the ground next to the woman in question, we see a series of bottles and
vials beside her, indicating her participation in witchcraft. The other human figures in the
composition look on with highly caricatural faces, many of which have expressions of
surprise and horror. The painting therefore is similar to Goya’s Los Caprichos, where
witches and members of the Catholic Church are equal to one another.
Promenade of the Holy Office (Figure 116) also depicts members of the Catholic
Clergy in a caricatural way. The title was assigned to the painting after Goya’s death, so
it cannot be assumed that this is a painting depicting the procession of the Inquisition.
However, the inclusion of many clerics, especially those in the forground indicate that
some sort of religious procession is taking place. There is also a large banner present
directly behind the clerics, but it is difficult to see what is depicted on it. If it was painted
315 Hughes, Goya, 385.
283
in greater detail we would be able to read it as either one associated with a religious
holiday or feast or of the Inquisition.
Regardless of the nature of the procession the clerical figures are mostly grouped
on the right hand side of the composition while others are scattered throughout the crowd
of people in the procession. The figure in the center of the group on the right is dressed
in the black and white habit associated with the Dominican order which could be the
reason why the title indicates that this can be a procession associated with the Inquisition.
Looking back to the earlier depictions of the Inquisition such as Goya’s Inquisition Scene
and Berruguete’s Auto de fe precidio de Santo Domingo de Guzman, we not that the
Dominicans played a pivotal role in the Institution and were thus closely associated with
it. Goya here represents the clerics as grotesque figures with their faces and bodies
manipulated to make them look like the satirized caricatures that we have seen in his
earlier works. Goya has therefore chosen to once again satirize the clerics of Spain. This
time, however, he has done so on a large scale in his own home rather than in paintings or
prints that would have been available for the public to see.
Goya painted miniatures on ivory while he was in exile in Bordeaux that are
similar in style to the black paintings. His Monk and Old Woman (Figure 117) depict the
caricatural faces of the two title figures in much the same way that he represented people
in Las Pinturas Negras. The figure of the monk specifically recalls Goya’s black
painting Two Old Men (Figure 118), especially through the gaping mouth. While the
figure of the monk may be opening his mouth wide as a sign of oration, the figure of the
woman has a terrified look on her face as she stares out to the viewer.
284
Even in his final years Goya continued to draw images related to anticlericalism.
While in Bordeaux Goya would at times refer back to the traditions of religion in Spain.
Semana Santa en tiempo pasado en España (Holy Week in a past time in Spain, figure
119) is one of Goya’s drawings that represents his looking back to the practice and
problems of religion in Spain. The drawing is similar to his painting of the Procession of
the Flagellants that he painted in 1816 with Inquisition scene.316 Goya is in Bordeaux is
removed from the practices of Semana Santa, but the memory of the festival remains and
he chooses to draw it. Rather than choosing to draw penitents who show their devotion
by carrying holy figures or others that are partaking in the event in a normal manner, he
again chooses to focus on the flagellants who flog themselves even though such activities
were outlawed by the Spanish government. This demonstrates that even while in exile,
Goya is still concerned with the abuses and misguidances of religion in Spain.
Man killing monk (Figure 120) from his Album H depicts a scene in which a
monk is lying on the ground and a man is stepping above him punching him to death.
Typically Goya did not depict violence against the clergy except for in his Disastres de la
Guerra series, in which he depicted many instances in which the Clergy were attacked as
we have seen. In this image we are presented with Goya’s sentiments at the end of his
life with regard to the monastic orders. Liberal thinkers such as Goya and his friends
were not friendly towards monastic life. As pointed out by Jonathan Brown, monks and
nuns in Spain were viewed by the liberals as being inherently bad for the common good
of the country since most of them were undereducated, caused many abuses throughout
316 Jonathan Brown in Brown and Galassi, Goya’s Last Works, 174-6.
285
the country and also were unable to support themselves, and therefore resorted to begging
for food.317
Goya’s depiction of this monk in particular is rather strange. He is lying on the
ground already lifeless while the figure standing above him is getting ready to punch him
repeatedly. Both the man attacking the monk and the monk have been caricatured as was
common in Goya’s works. However in examining the relation of the two figures the
monk seems to be already dead. He shows no sign of being beaten, yet and he lays there
lifeless. It is therefore possible that the man who is supposedly beating the monk to death
has chosen to beat an already dead monk.
Wolf and Man (Figure 121) presents us with a man coming across a wolf in man’s
clothing. More specifically the wolf is in a robe, most likely that of a monk. As was
common within Goya’s work, the wolf here is again symbolic of Goya’s ideas about with
the political and religious problems within Spain. As we saw in Goya’s Caprichos
Enfaticos from Los Desastres de la Guerra, Goya is once again commenting on the
government of Fernando VII. Goya’s critiques here are of the alliance between church
and state that he left behind for exile in France. Upon closer examination of the image,
the wolf is standing erect in the clerical robe while the man holds out his hand to beg for
alms. The man is also depicted in clothing that exposes his buttocks, therefore causing us
to wonder just who the animal is in the drawing.
Monk Guzzling from a Large Bowl (Figure 122) also represents a return to themes
of anticlericalism that Goya depicted many times while in Spain. With this one in
317 Jonathan Brown in Brown and Galassi, Goya’s Last Works, 210-212.
286
particular, Goya is once again referring to gluttony within the clergy. Goya here is
looking back to such prints that he produced in the past like Estan Calientes from Los
Caprichos as well as Que Locura from Los desastres de la Guerra. The drawing comes
from Goya’s Album H and therefore is one of the last drawings that he produced-he was
in his eighties and starting to succumb to illness and old age. It was around this time that
he stated, “All I have left is my will” in reference to his still wanting to make art even to
his dying day.318
Throughout his exile in Bordeaux in years in which his health was failing, Goya
still was creating as much art as he could and still continued to produce art that was
anticlerical. When Goya died he was buried in the habit of St. Francis as was the request
in his will. Goya was never against the Catholic faith. He studied religion, he embraced
Catholicism and he at times saw the great things that could be accomplished when people
acted according to true Christian teachings. However, Goya also lived during some of
the most tumultuous times within Spain which led to widespread corruption within all
aspects of daily life.
The clergy was not immune to corruption and while they preached Christ’s
teachings, many of them never acted in a Christ-like manner since they continually
perpetuated abuses on the Spanish people. Goya at times would render the saints with
complete compassion but at other times would harshly criticize the Spanish Catholic
clergy. Throughout his career and especially once he was established within the elite
circles in Madrid, Goya began to change the tradition of religious painting as we have
seen. These transformations can be traced through in his many depictions of
318 Goya quoted in Brown and Galassi, Goya’s Last Works, 172.
287
anticlericalism. However, rather than harshly attack the actual abuses of the clergy as
they were occurring in Spain at the time in which he depicted them, he would often
invent the events represented in his images. He did so as a means to to denigrate the
clergy even more severely. In so doing Goya emphasized his liberal sympathies and his
desire for a government that was run by reason and for the religious institution of the
Catholic Church to do the same.
288
Figure 110. Disparate Ridiculo
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
289
Figure 111. Hasta tu Abuelo
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
290
Figure 112. Bobalicón
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
291
Figure 113. Disperate claro
Source: Photo courtesy private collection in Madrid
292
Figure 114. Saturno devorando a un hijo
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
293
Figure 115. Witches Sabbath
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
294
Figure 116. Promenade of the Holy Office
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
295
Figure 117. Monk and old woman
Source: Jonathan Brown and Susan Grace Galassi, Goya’s Last Works, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2006).
296
Figure 118. Two old Men
Source: Museo Nacional del Prado Website http://www.museodelprado.es
297
Figure 119. Semana Santa en tiempo pasado en España
Source: Jonathan Brown and Susan Grace Galassi, Goya’s Last Works, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2006).
298
Figure 120. Man Killing Monk
Source: Jonathan Brown and Susan Grace Galassi, Goya’s Last Works, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2006).
299
Figure 121. Wolf and Man
Source: Jonathan Brown and Susan Grace Galassi, Goya’s Last Works, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2006).
300
Figure 122. Monk Guzzling from a large bowl
Source: Jonathan Brown and Susan Grace Galassi, Goya’s Last Works, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2006).
301
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