GOYA AND THE GROTESQUE: A STUDY OF THEMES OF WITCHCRAFT AND MONSTROUS BODIES

A THESIS IN Art History

Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS

by KRISTIN ANN ZIECH

B.A., Albion College, 2006

Kansas City, Missouri 2012

GOYA AND THE GROTESQUE: A STUDY OF THEMES OF WITCHCRAFT AND MONSTROUS BODIES Kristin Ann Ziech, Candidate for Master of Arts degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2012 ABSTRACT Francisco de Goya lived during the Enlightenment, an age associated with reason, when traditional superstitions became viewed as ridiculous beliefs of the ignorant poor. Goya adopted the theme of witchcraft into his artistic oeuvre from a desire to experiment with invention and fantasy. The Malleus maleficarum, 1487, which promoted stereotypes of witchcraft in order to eradicate witches, influenced the artistic iconography of witchcraft established in the Renaissance and further developed in the Baroque period. Goya revived the subject in the 1790s and incorporated a burlesque tone to expose and satirize the superstitions behind it. Goya ridiculed the vices of clerical institutions and mocked the former stereotypes of witches and their deviant acts. Goya also used grotesque figures in his Caprichos prints to satirize human folly, incorporating images of the monstrous body in men to implicate them. His late career would see a change in style in the Black Paintings, again using the theme of witchcraft in a darker, more pessimistic integration of humor. The monstrous male also appears in the Black Paintings, in the form of Saturn, using the grotesque as a means to represent melancholy and to explore the boundary between horror and humor.

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APPROVAL PAGE The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences have examined a thesis titled Goya and the Grotesque: A Study of Themes of Witchcraft and Monstrous Bodies, presented by Kristin A. Ziech, candidate for the Master of Arts degree, and certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance.

Supervisory Committee Frances Connelly, Ph.D., Committee Chair Department of Art History Brenda Bethman, Ph.D. Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Womens and Gender Studies Program Rochelle Ziskin, Ph.D. Department of Art History

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CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................ vii Chapter 1. AN INTRODUCTION TO GOYAS USE OF THE GROTESQUE ............................... 1 2. A HISTORY OF THE ICONOGRAPHY OF WITCHCRAFT ..................................... 16 3. SATIRE AND THE OSUNA PAINTINGS ................................................................... 34 4. THE MONSTROUS BODY ......................................................................................... 53 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 76 VITA ................................................................................................................................ 81

ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1.1. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5. Page Francisco de Goya, Burial of the Sardine ............................................................... 13 Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos, plate 69, Sopla ............................................... 18 Albrecht Drer, Witch Riding Backwards on a Goat ............................................. 26 Hans Baldung Grien, Witches Sabbath ................................................................. 28 Salvator Rosa, Witches at their Incantations ......................................................... 30 Francisco de Goya, The Family of the Duke of Osuna ........................................... 37 Francisco de Goya, Mara Josefa de la Soledad, Duquesa de Osuna ..................... 39 Francisco de Goya, Aquelarre (Witches Sabbath) ................................................ 45 Francisco de Goya, Escena de Brujas (The Spell) ................................................... 47 Francisco de Goya, Vuelo de brujos (Flight of Witches) ........................................ 50 Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos, plate 56, Subir y bajar ................................... 56 Francisco de Goya, Aquelarre (Witches Sabbath) ................................................ 61 Francisco de Goya, Saturno devorando a su hijo (Saturn Devouring His Son) ...... 64 Peter Paul Rubens, Saturn Devouring One of His Sons .......................................... 70 Francisco de Goya, An aprendo .......................................................................... 73

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CHAPTER 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO GOYAS USE OF THE GROTESQUE How can humor possibly be found in the image of a frightening old witch offering the rotting corpse of a tiny emaciated child in sacrifice to the Devil? What could be funny about the disgusting, distorted figure of a man rising to power through lust or a mob of ugly, repulsive hags gathering to conspire about evil deeds? How could a person find it amusing to look at the gruesome and violent picture of monstrous man cannibalizing his own child painted on the wall of his house every day? Such questions emerge as an initial reaction to viewing some of the darker, more unorthodox art by Spanish master Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Born in 1746, Goya lived at the peak of the Enlightenment in Madrid, and died in exile in Bordeaux in 1828. His advancement from relatively low nobility in Zaragoza to court painter to Carlos III depended in part on Goyas alliance with his brother -in-law, Francisco Bayeu, who worked on frescoes in Madrids Palacio Real and later as painter to the royal court. Goyas connections with his in-laws, along with his work on a series of narrative religious murals painted in the Aula Dei monastery outside of Zaragoza, won him the chance to join the Bayeu brothers in Madrid in 1775 to paint tapestry cartoons for the royal court. By 1777, Goya was named director of royal tapestry production, which solidified his position and brought the direct patronage of the Bourbon kings, as well as entry into other high ranking circles. Goyas artistic success was thus established, but his imagination somewhat unchallenged by the lighthearted and pleasing tone of the tapestry cartoons. A change in Goyas health brought about new artistic opportunity and works that arouse the kinds of questions raised above.

Goya became seriously ill in the early 1790s, and this nearly fatal sickness left him deaf for the rest of his life. His illness caused a hiatus from his artistic commissions and other duties, a time which he used to explore his imagination and move beyond the burden of patrons restrictions. This study of this paper begins at this point in Goyas life and career, when he transcended the cheerful colors and themes of the tapestry cartoons to explore subjects of fantasy and invention. One of Goyas favorite subjects to use as a vehicle for exploring fantasy and invention as well as satire was witchcraft. This paper will explore Goyas incorporation of grotesque figures in his art and his purpose for doing so. In part, Goya used the subject of witchcraft as an emblem of imagination. Such fantastical themes were popular in the Spanish Enlightenment because they turned old superstitions into entertaining fictional dramas and could be found in literature, poetry, and theatre. Goya adapted witchcraft to his art by emphasizing the distorted features of the characters and placing them in gruesome or frightening settings. Taking the iconography of witches rooted in misogynistic stereotypes in which the female body is a viewed as a deviant violation of the norm, Goya revived it with theatrical scenes of a humorous tone. His purpose was to critique the superstitions of witchcraft as lies promoted by corrupt institutions like the Catholic Inquisition. He wanted to expose hypocrisy, but also to ridicule those who believed the lies. Goya also used grotesque bodies in the male form, in which the distorted features were mostly emphasized in the head and face. Abject features such as the many that appear in his Caprichos prints were depicted by Goya as a means to indicate the culprit of folly. Late in his career, with the creation of the Black Paintings, Goya made stylistic changes to his art of a more private setting, with murals on the walls of his house in which he used grotesque figures to explore darker conditions such as madness and

melancholy. Through each of these artistic stages it remains evident that Goyas grotesque figures did not symbolize an artists deranged mind, but rather conveyed a profound, socially relevant rhetoric. Goya used the theme of witchcraft as a means to ridicule the societys vices. He evolved from an artist of polite society to one who took his inspiration from all aspects of the world around him, and his later body of work is unmatched for its unvarnished, even brutal truth.1 He drew from the traditional of images of sexually deviant women established in the prints of Albrecht Drer and Hans Baldung Grien during the German Renaissance, and the burlesque theatrics of Salvator Rosas Baroque witches and their magical surroundings. In her impressive studies chronicling the history of witchcraft in art, Linda C. Hults highlights each of these periods, indicating how such images were rooted in misogynistic trends of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Drer and Grien established the iconography of the witch after it was outlined by the Malleus maleficarum, 1487, a text promoted by the Catholic Church in which the problem of witchcraft was described, its stereotypes studied, and its culprits exposed. According to Hults, Drer and his pupil Grien viewed witchcraft as an opportunistic theme that showed the dark side of the human condition, as astonishing for its inventiveness as for its merciless portrayal of sex, sin, and death. 2 Hults outlines the place of the artist in society at the time of Drer and Grien, indicating that some in their profession had joined circles of socially prominent and well-educated people including humanists, aristocrats,

1 2

Janis A. Tomlinson, ed., Goya: Images of Women (London: Yale University Press, 2002), 22. Linda C. Hults, The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 75.

clerics, and other wealthy professionals. 3 These circles of men shared a deep-seated misogyny giving them amusement from the obscure humor found in images of witches.4 Hults concludes that artistic images of the witch in the Middle Ages and Renaissance emphasize sexually deviant acts of women as the primary evidence of their witchcraft, and this was done in a slightly burlesque tone for the amusement of high ranking circles of men. Hults explores more of the history of art and witchcraft in her book The Witch as Muse. She discusses another major artist that dealt with the theme; the Neapolitan Baroque painter, Salvator Rosa. Rosa built on the traditional physical characteristics of witches established by Drer and Grien, but merged them with the Italian tradition of the capriccio, inserting his inventiveness more audaciously. 5 For Hults, Rosas bizarre and elaborate scenes signify a move closer to the notion of the capriccio in which subject matter is secondary to the liberty of the artist or, perhaps more accurately, his liberty in the form of fantastic invention becomes the subject matter.6 This concept is essential to the understanding of Goyas witchcraft themes as well, because the notion of fantastic invention of the artist as the primary subject matter was of even greater importance in the eighteenth century. Artistic invention was Goyas initial reason for experimenting with the theme of witchcraft, after his severe illness caused his need for a hiatus from regular duties and commissioned works. In Hults studies of Goyas witchcraft images, she makes note of his use of traditional witchcraft iconography as a means of satire. According to Hults, Goyas interest in the subject comes from a skeptical and satirical outlook on superstition, immersed

Hults, Baldung and the Witches of Freiburg: The Evidence of Images, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18.2 (1987): 264. 4 Hults, Witches of Freiburg, 264. 5 Hults, Witch as Muse, 176. 6 Ibid., 202.

in his broader agenda of exposing the follies of Spanish society and humanity as a whole. 7 Moving into the modern era, many of the old superstitions were believed to be limited to the uneducated poor and thus became objects of satire. Hults also makes note of Goyas reinvigoration of the theme with plenty of dark humor, as well as horror, not for demons or witches but for those who believed in them. 8 Hults studies have provided valuable insights for this paper, especially when considering the development of witch images into Goyas era, when sexual deviance was less of a misogynistic target and witchcraft became a device through which human folly could be exposed. The grotesque characteristics of the theme of witchcraft are a major component of Goyas focus. From the early 1790s, Goya incorporated the grotesque in his art to incite reactions from his audience. The subject of witchcraft is a grotesque theme, and Goya enhanced it with the grotesque physical features of his characters. Goya did not discriminate among characters; the monstrous body can be found in many forms other than witches in Goyas art. The witchs body is deviant because it is the anti-mother, a post-menopausal cannibal of children, with insatiable lust but unable to procreate. The monstrous body can also be found in the forms of many male characters in Goyas works, often with distorted features in the face to signify their faults. This paper will explore these different grotesque characteristics that Goya portrayed in his figures to identify and expose those guilty of folly. Frances Connelly edited a volume on Modern Art and the Grotesque, defining the strands of the grotesque in art and how they evo lved over the centuries. Connellys properties of the grotesque can be seen in many of Goyas works, including the repulsive witch characters, the identity of the fool, and the monstrous male. As Connelly states, the grotesque

7 8

Hults, Witch as Muse, 216. Ibid., 217.

is characterized by what it does to boundaries, transgressing, merging, overflowing, destabilizing them.9 The grotesque defines something that is an aberration from the ideal or some type of convention, thus creating things that are misshapen, exaggerated, or ugly. 10 According to Connelly, these properties of unconventionality cause complex experiences or reactions, ranging from wonder and awe to ridicule and laughter, or even fear or disgust. 11 These properties also encompass the range of the grotesque in Goyas art. While his witches and monstrous figures break the conventions of aesthetic beauty, they are satiric in purpose and therefore can also stimulate laughter. Goyas grotesque figures destroy boundaries of earths reality and transcend into a fantasy world in which diabolic cre atures and magical acts exist. Many scholars have studied the experiences that such images cause when viewed for the first time. When the grotesque is viewed in a pictorial form it is unexpected and often shocking because of its nature as a thing of unconventionality and obscurity. Wilson Yates has studied the grotesque in art history from a theoretical and theological perspective. He states that the grotesque depicts aspects of the human experience that have been denied validity, rejected, and dismissed as images of a distorted reality. 12 By the time Goya painted his witches, enlightened and educated society had denied the validity of witchcraft and other diabolical or magical acts, and dismissed such superstitions as unreasonable beliefs held by illiterate peasants. According to Yates, the grotesque is about that which violates some aspect of the religious, moral, social, or natural world we have constructed and legitimated. 13
9

Frances S. Connelly, ed., Modern Art and the Grotesque (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 4. Connelly, Modern Art and the Grotesque, 2. 11 Ibid. 12 Wilson Yates, An Introduction to the Grotesque: Theoretical and Theological Considerations, in The Grotesque in Art & Literature: Theological Reflections, ed. James Luther Adams and Wilson Yates (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 40. 13 Ibid., 41.
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Goyas grotesque images of witches, monstrous men with distorted faces, and cannibalism certainly fit within this definition. Both Goyas figures and their actions violate accepted boundaries. Yates describes the continued existence of the grotesque in art and the experience it gives, saying that some may find it a violation of order and others may find it a powerful means of understanding human experience. 14 The experience of viewing Goyas grotesque works involves many contradictory reactions. Yates explains that the grotesque provokes reactions of disgust, shock, or repulsion because it violates the way the world has been ordered and rationalized, and thus violates what has been deemed rational, good, and appropriate and is therefore unwelcome. 15 This destruction of order has also been described by Geoffrey Galt Harpham in his studies on the grotesque. According to Harpham, a grotesque form is a material analogue or expression of spiritual corruption or weakness, and such forms give an impression of atrocious and inappropriate vitality; such vitality is the symbol of sin, which is e qual to the destruction of order.16 Harpham emphasizes the contradictory properties of the grotesque, describing its simultaneous ability to attract and disgust marked by an affinity with antagonism, or the copresence of the normal ideal and the abnormal degenerate.17 Harpham also refers to Sigmund Freuds psychological research involving the grotesque. Freud wrote about things that are fused together that should be kept apart, and these fusions generate a reaction that when these elements pierce into consc iousness, we become aware of a distinct feeling of repulsion.18 Contradictions are evident in the grotesque figures of Goyas works. For example, witches

14 15

Yates, Introduction, 9. Ibid., 41. 16 Geoffrey Galt Harpham, On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 6. 17 Ibid. 18 As quoted by Harpham, On the Grotesque, 11.

are sinful, deviant women of spiritual corruption and weakness to the temptations of the Devil, but when Goya painted them in a satirical and humorous tone, they were attractive to the circles of enlightened aristocrats because of their amusement, thus creating the paradox of these images. Contradictions are also properties of humor, which is import ant in interpreting Goyas grotesque works. Goya incorporated the grotesque in his art as a vehicle for satire and ridicule, but it may be difficult to understand why images of repulsive, disgusting, ugly, or horrific figures may be humorous. Nol Carroll, considering the boundary between horror and humor, explains the relationship between these two seemingly opposite emotions. In his study, Carroll elaborates on the long-standing phenomenon of the horror/humor relation in art and literature as well as movies and television of the twentieth century, in which there has been a strong correlation between the two emotions. Alfred Hitchcock had referred to many of his horror movies as comedies, stating that there is a fine line between getting someone to laugh and getting someone to scream.19 Carroll quotes Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, who stated that comedy and horror are different sides of the same coin, and that both deal in the grotesque and the unexpected, but in such a fashion as to provoke two entirely different physical reactions.20 Carroll also notes the connections to humor for the famous author Edgar Allan Poe, who described fantasy as a continuum with humor. 21 Carrolls article presents a theory on humor that can provide fascinating insight into Goyas grotesque paintings. He points out a theory by Francis Hutcheson on incongruity,

19 20

Nol Carroll, Horror and Humor, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57.2 (1999): 146. As quoted by Carroll, Horror and Humor, 146. 21 Ibid.

suggesting that laughter is caused by bringing together images which have contrary ideas. 22 The contrast between these ideas seems to embody the spirit of the burlesque. 23 That is, the basis of comic amusement is incongruity, or the bringing together of disparate or contrasting ideas or concepts.24 This idea of incongruity is equal to the contradictory properties of the grotesque described previously by other art historical scholars. Carroll is familiar with these properties of the grotesque because they can also incite horror. He argues that the relation of horror to humor emerges under these properties, and that the emotion changes to horror instead of humor under the condition that the emotional state in question be directed at an entity perceived to be impure.25 Examples of such entities permeat e Goyas grotesque art in the form of witches, who are sexually deviant and spiritually impure, as well as monstrous men, whose corrupt actions are impure, which Goya implicates in their distorted features. The definitions of horror and humor in Carrolls article therefore also embody the grotesque. His conclusion on the concept can be used to interpret Goyas art:
the affinity of horror and humor might be that these two states, despite their differences, share an overlapping necessary condition insofar as an appropriate object of both states involves the transgression of a category, a concept, a norm, or a commonplace expectation.26

This idea involves the breaking of boundaries and established conventions, as does the grotesque. It would suffice to say then that Goyas art, infused with grotesque images, constantly balances and sometimes crosses the line between horror and humor.

22

For more on the theory of incongruity see Francis Hutcheson, Reflections on Laughter (Glasgow, 1750), reprinted in John Morreall, ed., The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (SUNY Press, 1987). 23 Carroll, Horror and Humor, 153. Carroll further quotes Hutcheson: We also find ourselves moved to laughter by an overstraining of wit, by bringing resemblances from subjects of a quite different kind from the subject to which they are compared. 24 Ibid., 153. 25 Ibid., 154. 26 Ibid.

A strong relationship exists between horror and humor, and thus humor and the grotesque. A term was coined for this concept by Russian philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin, in his book Rabelais and His World. Bakhtin referred to the interaction of the grotesque and carnival humor as carnivalesque. He referred to folk culture during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and its carnival traditions, during which there was a temporary suspension of all hierarchic distinctions and barriers among people and of certain norms and prohibitions of usual life. 27 Carnival took place at the beginning of Epiphany and ended on Ash Wednesday, just before the abstinence, solemnity, and self-deprivation of Lent. Carnival was therefore a time to celebrate excess in every form. The Church feasts and festivals had performances, clowns, fools, and dwarfs; people in attendance wore costumes and masks, and roles were reversed in the way of gender, class, profession, age, or even species. The carnivalesque was that which found communal hilarity in grotesque forms. 28 Bakhtin describes the grotesque body as the opposite of the Classical body, which is monumental, static, closed, and sleek, and which corresponds with the aspirations of bourgeois individualism. 29 The carnivelsque therefore belonged to low culture. Goya incorporated these principles in his images of witches as well as deviant men, distorting their bodies to convey them as grotesque for the purpose of satire and amusement. Bakhtins idea of carnivalesque humor in relation to this study of Goyas grotesque art can be applied to his theories of grotesque images. Bakhtin states that grotesque images are ambivalent and contradictory; they are ugly, monstrous, hideous from the point of view

27

Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1968), 15. 28 Mary Russo, The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess, and Modernity (New York: Routledge, 1995), 61. 29 Ibid., 63.

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of classic aesthetics, this is, the aesthetics of the ready-made and the completed.30 Again the concept of contradiction and unconventionality is defined as a property of grotesque images. However, Bakhtin states that this concept involves humor in a carnivalesque sense, because it incorporates the materiality of the body. That is, a focus on the lower level of food, drink, digestion, copulation, defecation, and childbirth is presented as positive, something universal, materialized by laughter.31 This concept carried over to Goyas modern era, becomes closer to satire. According to Bakhtin, the satirist whose laughter is negative places himself above the object of his mockery, he is opposed to it.32 Bakhtin explained that carnivalesque humor was more positive in the Middle Ages and later in the modern and Romantic periods became a darker humor, full of irony and sarcasm. 33 Using the body to convey humor, as this can be understood by everyone, Goya distorts its features, making it a grotesque body. Bakhtins theories are very relevant to Goyas deviant male figures, especially the idea of the fool, which Goya made a recognizable character repeatedly in his work. Fools and clowns were characteristic of the medieval culture of humor and were constant, accredited representatives of the carnival spirit in everyday life out of Carnival season.34 The fool was the embodiment of all human folly, put on display to recall each excess. Goya would do the same by creating a recognizable fool in many of his works of art, always with the same distorted, deviously grinning face, to indicate him at the figure guilty of folly. Chapter four will discuss Goyas portrayal of the monstrous body and his incorporation of humor into his representations of fools and deviant men.

30 31

Bakhtin, Rabelais, 25. Ibid., 19-20. 32 Ibid., 12. 33 Russo, Female Grotesque, 61. 34 Bakhtin, Rableais, 8.

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Anna Maria Coderch and Victor Stoichita have studied the carnivalesque in relation to Goya. They focus on Carnival as a celebration of excesses and otherness and relate it to Goyas fascination with dynamic masses of people and the roles they play in society. Goya painted a direct image of Carnival in his Burial of the Sardine (Fig. 1.1). This composition depicts the ritual of the ending of Carnival festivities and shows a mob of participants in masks and dressed in drag dancing and celebrating. A deeper, more sinister atmosphere is sensed when considering the progression of the crowd in drunken confusion, the unsteady movement, and the menacing look of many of the masks and the figures flanking the dancers at left.35 However, the dark colored banner swaying above the crowd in the center of the scene is the most sinister, with Goyas familiar fool grinning broadly and stupidly. This painting is an example of Goyas interest in portraying disorder and sin in the confusion and paradox of the carnivalesque traditions that prevailed. 36 Again Goya is using grotesque figures as a vehicle to convey carnivalesque humor. It is widely acknowledged that Goyas intention was satirical for much of his ar t, but why did he use grotesque bodies? Ronald Paulsen has written that Goya believed art should be socially useful, and that the grotesque could function as a satirical device. 37 Paulsen states that in describing a social or political monster, or repression and revolution, with ridicule as one aspect, a grotesque mode is justified. 38 Goyas grotesque functions as a means to provide a conscious equivalent or concrete depiction of disorder and sin, in turn offers relief from oppressive authority or power.39 Goya conveyed this through aberrant figures. He ignored

35

Anna Maria Coderch and Victor I. Stoichita, Goya: The Last Carnival (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 34-

5.
36 37

Ibid., 36. Ronald Paulsen, Representations of Revolution (1789-1820) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 331. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 335-6.

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Fig. 1.1. Goya, Burial of the Sardine, c. 1812-14, oil on panel, 82.5 x 59 cm., Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. 13

many small details in his works, making human figures the emphasis of his compositions; inanimate objects were trivial and became significant only when he was concerned with them.40 In his reinvigorated representations of witches, Goya omitted the much of the scenery and magical paraphernalia found in the art of Drer, Grien, and Rosa, and emphasized the witches as characters, as grotesque figures and their actions. Goyas grotesque figures were equally critical of all society, regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, or religion. By using the misogynistic ties to witchcraft belief, Goya exposed the corruption of male institutions such as the Inquisition that persecuted women. 41 His own misogynistic ideas formed the basis of his view of witchcraft as an outrageous belief fostered by the Inquisition to which ignorant Spanish peasants were vulnerable.42 Robert Hughes has also written of Goyas fascination with grotesque figures as powerful satirical devices. He calls witches and their spiritual relatives a favorite theme of Goyas, also for their inventive possibilities. The late Black Paintings employ these themes again with dark humor to explore a more psychological and pessimistic side of his earlier grotesque characters. The final chapter of this paper will investigate images of monstrous men and grotesque bodies of the Black Paintings. Other spiritual relatives of the witch are the cannibal and the melancholic, both making appearances in the body of Goyas Saturno. The context of this gruesome figure, however, is humorous because it was painted in Goyas dining room for his private amusement. The proceeding chapters will explore Francisco de Goyas complex grotesque figures and the ways in which he used them for a specific purpose or agenda. Goya incorporated

40

Paulsen, Representations, 293. These observations were also made by noted art historian Theodor Hetzer, as Paulsen explains. 41 Hults, Witch as Muse, 230. 42 Ibid., 226.

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grotesque themes in his art because of their possibility for invention, fantasy, imagination, and artistic liberty. He identified with and made use of different strands of the grotesque because of their ability to provoke an array of reactions with their unconventional nature. Goyas grotesque figures became ve hicles for the satire and ridicule of the corruption, folly, and vices of society. His images of witches and fiendish men played with the fine line between horror and humor. Carnivalesque humor was an important component in Goyas art, emphasizing the material body of figures and conveying a universal humor. This paper emphasizes how the grotesque character and his or her body became the artists profound device of humor, satire, and ridicule.

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CHAPTER 2 A HISTORY OF THE ICONOGRAPHY OF WITCHCRAFT There is a long tradition of depicting witchcraft in visual art. Goyas art makes up one major stage in the pictorial representation of witchcraft, but there are other key periods of history, artistic movements, and aesthetic traditions that influenced Goyas works. Goya is not exempt from the creation of images rooted in misogynistic stereotypes. His criticism of women was generally focused on materialism, feebleness, or vanity, and images of gossip, promiscuity, and gullibility also appear in many of his drawings and prints. However, his adoption of witchcraft as an artistic subject had an objective that aimed beyond the misogynistic traditions that formed the basis of witchcraft iconography in earlier centuries. It was a concept that everyone in Catholic Spain was familiar with from a young age, which Goya and his fellow ilustrados felt was increasingly subject to ridicule. His images of witches incorporated an iconography established centuries before by demonologists, religious authors, and artists of the medieval and Renaissance periods. Religious publications, especially the Malleus maleficarum (1487), solidified popular superstitions about witchcraft. The iconography of the witch, appearing in the art of Renaissance Germany with Albrecht Drer and Hans Baldung Grien and later in the theatrical Italian Baroque with Salvator Rosa, was based on the superstitions put forth in such texts and retold through history. While Goya found the subject fascinating for its visually imaginative properties, his purpose was to convert the iconography of the witch into a device satirizing the superstitions of the ignorant masses. Witchcraft beliefs have an extended history and probably began in classical narratives with sorceress figures. Later ideas forming the stereotype of the witch originated in the

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Middle Ages and coalesced at the time of publication of the Maleus maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, in 1487.1 Written by two inquisitors of the Church in Germany, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, with a foreword by Pope Innocent VIII, this publication promoted awareness of witchcraft beliefs as a tool for prevention, recognition, and treatment. The stereotypes written about in the Malleus maleficarum motivated the large scale witch-hunts and burnings of accused women. Women became scapegoats and were often accused of witchcraft when they displayed socially unacceptable behavior, when bad weather destroyed crops, when livestock fell ill, when children did not survive birth or died shortly after, or when men could not perform sexually. Sources like the Malleus were the instruments used to validate accusations and were also used as tools to eradicate the witchcraft problem. Moving into the Enlightenment era of Goyas lifetime, the stereotypes of witchcraft became less credible and began to be used as teaching tools in the upbringing of children. A parent could inform a daughter that if she displayed certain behaviors she could be accused of witchcraft and have to suffer the consequences brought by the Inquisition. Or if a child was defiant, a parent might threaten them by saying they would be abducted by a witch and given to the hands of the Devil as a sacrifice. Goya would later ridicule these types of superstitious parenting tactics in his satirical print series, Los Caprichos, such as in Sopla, or Blow, Los Caprichos, plate 69 (Fig. 2.1). Here Goya depicts a hideous coven of witches gathered to vampirize and cannibalize the children that they have abducted. A gruesome bit of humor is shown in the standing witch, holding up a child who blows gas from the anus, to

Linda C. Hults, The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 2.

17

Fig. 2.1. Goya, Los caprichos, plate 69, Sopla (Blow), 1796-97, etching and aquatint, 21 x 15 cm.

18

feed the fire. Goyas caption reads: No doubt there was a great catch of children the previous night. The banquet which they are preparing will be a rich one; bon apptit. 2 Certain stereotypes of witchcraft outlined in the Malleus maleficarum were incorporated into art for their aesthetic interest. The formation of these stereotypes was rooted in the beliefs about the natural tendencies of the female sex. The Malleus outlines the reasons for women being the most susceptible to the heresy of witchcraft, stating that women are intellectually like children and therefore more credulous and impressionable. 3 Women are more ready to receive the influence of a disembodied spirit, they have slippery tongues and cannot conceal from fellow women their knowledge of evil arts, and since they are weak they find an easy and secret manner of vindicating themselves by witchcraft.4 The natural wickedness is referred to in the creation of woman. Her deviant body has been so since the formation of the first woman. 5 The Malleus speaks of womans body as a deviation of mans, not only because she was formed secondly from the mans matter, but also because she was formed from a rib bone, which is naturally bent. The Malleus describes, that is, a rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in a contrary dir ection to a man, and because of this defect, she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives. 6 This describes what woman has naturally in common with the Devil, who is the ruler of lies and often called the Great Deceiver. A wicked woman, the Malleus continues, is by her nature quicker to waver in her faith, and

Philip Hofer, ed., Los Caprichos: Francisco Goya (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969), 69.Gran pesca de chiquillos hubo sin duda la noche anterior el banquete q se prepara sera suntuoso. Buen probecho. 3 Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Malleus maleficarum, trans. Montague Summers (London: Pushkin Press, 1948), 44. 4 Kramer and Sprenger, Malleus, 44. 5 See Gen. 2: 18-25 (Revised Standard Version). And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is the bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken. 6 Kramer and Sprenger, Malleus, 44.

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consequently quicker to abjure the faith, which is the root of witchcraft. 7 Thus, women are described as naturally weak, causing them to display wicked behavior or to reject their faith, which in turn makes them suspicious of witchcraft. The Malleus explains that since women are weaker in mind and body, they are more often seduced by witchcraft. The most important reason for this comes from the alleged sexual deviance of women. Above all, womans natural carnal lust is to blame for her tendency for heresy. The Malleus states: All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.8 The Old Testament book of Proverbs, cited as the source for this information, notes that the barren womb of a woman is never satisfied, and therefore the mouth of the womb is never satisfied. 9 Many of these misogynistic Western ideas are rooted in the writings of classical Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, who also spoke of the deviance of the womans body, referring to it as incomplete or as the half-formed version of mans. Aristotle wrote that woman is inferior to man because of her reproductive deficiency; a man plants a seed in her vessel and she nourishes it, but takes no part in conceiving it.10 Aristotle states that a woman is essentially an infertile man because her bodily fluids cannot turn into semen for lack of soul or heat, and are therefore impure. 11 Woman is therefore referred to as wicked due to the nature of her body. Her natural form contributes to her insatiable lust, as described in the passage from Proverbs. The Malleus then indicates that woman is naturally more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations.12
7 8

Kramer and Sprenger, Malleus, 44. Ibid., 47. 9 Prov. 30: 15-16 (Revised Standard Version). 10 Aristotle, Generation of Animals, trans. Arthur Leslie Peck (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943), I, 728a. 11 Ibid. See also I, 737a, where it is written that the female is as it were a deformed male. 12 Kramer and Sprenger, Malleus, 44.

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The many carnal abominations of witches became popular artistic motifs in visual representations of witchcraft during the Renaissance. It was believed that the witchs insatiable lust would drive her to copulate with devils or with her fellow witches. This practice was believed to take place at the witches gathering for devil worship, where other abominable acts of magic took place. The gathering, referred to as the witches Sabbath, would take place, as the superstition usually entails, at night in the forest or some other remote area away from their usual homes. Witches would transport themselves to the Sabbath by stripping naked and rubbing their bodies with grease or unguent made of the fat of babies that would cause them to levitate.13 Once airborne and mounted on a broomstick or goat (which was really a demon disguised as a goat), the witches would fly to the Sabbath where they would engage in various rituals of magic, sexual orgies with each other or with demons, wild dancing, worshiping and sacrifices to the Devil, and cannibalistic feasting on children.14 These rituals are mentioned in the Malleus and appeared in many artistic representations of witchcraft, providing the framework for the iconography of witchcraft adopted by Goya.15 Concerning the iconography of the witch adopted by Goya, it is important to convey the effect that witches were believed to have upon men and children. As a deviant woman, a witch was believed to use her powers to prevent man from performing the carnal act, or else render him impotent by robbing him of his member or making him believe she had removed it by magically making it invisible. Thus, a primary threat of the witch was her
13 14

Helen Langdon, ed., Salvator Rosa (London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2010), 164. Ibid. The Malleus continues on the method of transportation of witches on page 107 as the taking of the unguent made from dead babies parts, especially unbaptized babies under the instruction of the devil, and anointing a chair or broomstick with it upon which they would immediately take flight, often invisible because of the glamour and illusions of the Devils power. 15 For more about superstitions of the Sabbath see also Margaret A. Sullivan, The Witches of Drer and Hans Baldung Grien, Renaissance Quarterly 53.2 (2000): 360-375, and Dorinda Neave, The Witch in Early 16thCentury German Art, Womans Art Journal 9 (1988): 4-7.

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dominance over a mans sexuality. 16 This was often the result of a woman scorned by love. The Malleus states that a woman scorned by love will turn to witchcraft for the sake of vengeance by bewitching her lover or the wife he had married. 17 The authors continue, alas! experience tells us that there is no number to such girls, and consequently the witches that spring from this class are innumerable.18 Such acts of scorn, depicted by both Rosa and Goya, showed witches holding small dolls or mannequins representing former lovers into which they prick pins and needles in order to inflict evil curses. Since women were more sexually objectified than men, it is not surprising that deviant sexuality would be implicated in a women accused of witchcraft. Indeed, it was the most emphasized characteristic of witchcraft before Goya refocused the theme. A sexually powerful female was to be feared above anything else. The Protestants also played a role in the construction of witchcraft iconography. In Germany, where the largest number of witch trials occurred (about half of the European total), Martin Luther promoted the extermination of witches, claiming that the Bible called for it and that capital punishment of witches would prevent others from taking part in such diabolical acts.19 While the Malleus stated that women were driven by their sexual nature to become witches, Luthers advocacy of prevention suggested that women chose witchcraft from their own free will. 20 In Protestantism, a high importance was placed on the institution of family. Therefore, Luther did not believe sexuality to be the origin of witchcraft because it was a natural means of procreation and establishing family given by God.21 Luthers views
16 17

Kramer and Sprenger, Malleus, 66. Ibid., 97. 18 Ibid., 98. 19 Sigrid Brauner, Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews: The Construction of the Witch in Early Modern Germany, ed. Robert H. Brown (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), 55. 20 Ibid., 56. 21 Ibid., 59.

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remained consistent with those of the Malleus in considering women to be weak in mind and body. However, he believed that spiritual idolatry was a choice that people made, and that women had the power to choose between their duties as good wives and mothers, and witchcraft or service of the devil. 22 It is also important to note that Protestant vernacular often portrayed the witch as an old woman, which differs slightly from the Malleus which describes women of different ages. The witch as old woman, or hag, would become an important part of her artistic iconography. Another type of female was distinguished as a particular danger to society, the midwife. According to the Malleus, no one does more harm to the Catholic Faith than midwives.23 The Malleus states that witches sacrifice children to serve the Devils purposes, which are hatred and deception, and also that the amount of witches may grow to the devils gain when they have witches dedicated to him from their birth.24 Children were readily available to midwives at their birth and could theoretically be stolen before their moment of baptism for sacrifice. According to the superstition, the child would be sacrificed either by killing it and using its body parts to create their unguent for transporting to the Sabbath, by devouring it, or by offering it to the Devil while still living. As mentioned, with midwives the danger was immediate. After birth, the Malleus explains that the midwife carries the infant from the room o n the pretext of warming it, raises it up, and offers it to the Prince of Devils, that is Lucifer, and to all the devils. And this is done by the kitchen fire. 25 Viewed as a deviant woman also because of her old age or unmarried status, the midwife was considered dangerous. Much depended on the midwifes medical knowledge and skills in childbirth, so

22 23

Brauner, Fearless Wives, 66. Luther focuses on these roles of women rather than their carnality. Kramer and Sprenger, Malleus, 66. 24 Ibid., 142. 25 Ibid., 141.

23

if things went wrong the blame was frequently placed on her. The mortality rate of children in centuries past was quite high, and midwives were often scapegoats for accusation of witchcraft when such tragedies occurred. Because of her importance in the survival of children, the midwifes position was a powerful one. Her profession at the time of the publication of the Malleus became practically synonymous with witchcraft. The superstitions of witches doing harm to children became essential to their iconography in artistic renderings of the theme. Early Renaissance etchings and woodcuts, such as those by Drer and Grien (Figs. 2.3 & 2.3), often depicted children accompanying witches, much like the plump cherubs and putti dominating neoclassical and rococo compositions. These were presumably the children who had already been dedicated to the Devil and were accompanying the witches, as if in training. Rosas Baroque version of the theme shows small babies swaddled in cloth as if to emphasize the pity and tragedy of their fate (Fig. 2.4). However, while Rosa incorporated this aspect of witchcraft into his iconography, he was much more concerned with other magical practices of witches, such as potion making and other diabolical acts. In Goyas work, witches treatment of children was more important. Following the theatrical Baroque heritage of Rosa, Goya reinvigorated the theme with more dark humor, and by doing so took the idea of witchcraft from its misogynistic roots, changing it from a fear of witches to a fear of those who believed in them.26 The artists mentioned were the most profound contributors to the construction of witchcrafts iconography. The traditional ico nography was established by the stereotypes put forth in the Malleus maleficarum, and the famed printmakers of northern Germany, Drer and Grien portrayed these stereotypes in many of their woodcuts. Drers Witch Riding
26

Hults, Witch as Muse, 217.

24

Backwards on a Goat, represents the inversion and social disorder threatened by unregulated women (Fig. 2.2).27 This engraving was also instrumental in the construction of the physical stereotype of the ugly hag witch, with wrinkled face, large hooked nose, long gangly limbs and shriveled breasts. Such physical characteristics were based on contemporary attitudes toward old women who were often widowed, destitute but considered sharp-tongued.28 At the time, it was believed that postmenopausal widows had higher sex drives, which was revolting not only because of their nonideal bodies but also because it could not lead to procreation. 29 Here Drers hag is mounted on a goat but faces backward, with her hair flowing in the opposite direction of the goats flight. Putti attempt to tie her and the goat down to the ground to prevent her escape. The witchs deviant sexuality is implicated in the goat, a traditional symbol of lust, as well as her open mouth, her firm and ready grasp of the goats horn, her suggestively open mouth, and the phallic distaff and spindle propped between her legs.30 Although the witch as old hag is the quintessential image, witches with idealized bodies are also part of the traditional iconography. Many appear in the woodcuts of one of Drers apprentices, Hans Baldung, called Grien. Working in Drers studio, Baldung was probably given the nickname Grien by the master artist, perhaps to distinguish him from the other apprentices named Hans (there were at least three), or by a clever association with the popular name for the Devil, Grienhans.31 Griens early penchant for devilish fantasies in his art could have earned him such a name. 32 Grien depicted the deviant acts of

27 28

Hults, Witch as Muse, 73. Ibid. 29 Ibid., 74. 30 Ibid. The distaff and spindle were traditional symbols of femininity because they were only used by women. 31 Ibid., 75. This idea has been reiterated by many scholars but was first pointed out by Gustav Radbruch. 32 Jonathan Scott, Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times (London: Yale University Press, 1995), 45.

25

Fig. 2.2. Drer, Albrecht, Witch Riding Backwards on a Goat, ca. 1500-1501. Engraving, 115 x 70 mm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. 26

witches in many of his works, and seemed to find the subject amusing and inventive. His witches are always naked, their bodies flail about in twisted poses and their sexuality is highly emphasized. Grien also created an early image of the Sabbath which is most often referred to as a key iconographic portrayal of witchcraft stereotypes for later artists. His chiaroscuro woodcut, Witches Preparing for the Sabbath Flight, shows a group of naked witches gathered in the forest around their cauldron which is spewing a thick stream of smoke (Fig. 2.3). Also featured is a levitating witch mounting a goat, various scattered magical tools and ingredients, and the old and ugly hag with sunken eyes and shriveled breasts. The hanging sausages to the left refer to the witches power over the male sexual organ. Griens portrayals of witches were made less than thirty years after the first publication of the Malleus.33 His choices of what aspects of witchcraft from the text to depict and how to depict them were important in these formative stages of witchcraft iconography. 34 The choice of concentrating upon the Sabbath activity was fundamental to the consolidation of the stereotypes of witchcraft.35 Griens woodcut, based on the stereotypes established by the Malleus, helped visualize the beliefs of witches deviant practices. It is evident that he found the theme amusing throughout his artistic career. There is wit and humor in Griens depictions, and he was often referred to as a satirist by his contemporaries. 36Another artist who treated the theme of witchcraft extensively in his career and who made a career simultaneously as a poet and satirist was the Baroque Neapolitan painter, Salvator Rosa. Rosas artistic inspiration bloomed when he moved to Florence in 1640 and joined the theatrical, philosophical, and
33

Linda C. Hults, Baldung and the Witches of Freiburg: The Evidence of Images, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no. 2 (1987): 250. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., 253. 36 Sullivan, Witches of Drer and Grien, 363.

27

Fig. 2.3. Hans Baldung Grien, Witches Preparing for the Sabbath Flight (or The Witches Sabbath), 1510, chiaroscuro woodcut from two blocks, printed in gray and black, 37.1 x 25.5 cm., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 28

literary societies with which he identified. In his Florentine period, Rosa became caught up with the bizarre and picturesque fascinations of his painter, satirist, poet, philosopher and playwright friends, with whom he would collaborate at theatrical and literary gatherings. The dominant attitude of these circles was light-hearted and they gathered to create riddles, witticisms, and novelties blended with a scholarly intellect. 37 These gatherings inspired Rosas witchcraft paintings, in which he is drawn to a kind of fantasy and the macabre close to that of some of the works of his creative friends who also wrote about witchcraft. 38 Rosa combined these burlesque Florentine influences with that of traditional iconography from Drer and Grien when he painted his own images of witchcraft. Salvator Rosa was certainly aware of Griens woodcut depicting the Sabbath. The iconography remained similar into Rosas lifetime and there was another Italian artist who copied it whose work Rosa would have seen in Florence. 39 Rosa retained much of the iconography in his own work, most notably the image of the hag and the craggy dead tree trunk as seen in Witches at their Incantations (Fig. 2.4). This work shows a number of figure groups each engaging in a different aspect of witchcraft. The far left group consists of two figures who point at the central tree, a veiled figure adorned with wreaths holding a ring of candles, and two crones beneath them hovering over an open casket and propping up the corpse to force it to write something on paper. To the right of this group, two naked witches lean over a miniature wax mannequin held up to a mirror, a common representation of love spells. Above this pair a dead man hangs from the central tree, his corpse being fumigated by a plump, naked witch while another clips off his toenails, presumably to use as some type of

37

Langdon, Rosa, 25. The school Rosa formed with his friends in Florence was known as the Accademia dei Percossi, or Academy of the Smitten. 38 Ibid., 26. 39 Scott, Salvator Rosa, 49.

29

Fig. 2.4. Salvator Rosa, Witches at their Incantations, c. 1646-9, oil on canvas, 72.5 x 132.5 cm., The National Gallery, London.

30

magical ingredient. Another plump, naked witch seated in the center of the foreground, with bright white hair, is surrounded by magical aids for spell making and rests a pestle for grinding human bones between her knees. 40 To the right of the seated witch, a soldier, perhaps a captive being forced by the broom-wielding crone behind him, leans over a circle of candles set up for another ritual. The diabolic procession at the far right is another innovative aspect, showing Rosas inventions of infernal creatures upon which some hags are mounted. This is a change to the traditional procession of witches upon brooms or goats.41 Included among this group of mounted figures, a hag holds up a swaddled baby for sacrifice into a mysterious pit. The background of the composition is a bleak and foreboding horizon with thin streaks of blue and pink, and the eeriness of the scene is enhanced by tenebroso light. Rather than a specific depiction of one aspect of witchcraft, Rosas Witches at their Incantations is more of an anthology of its themes, combining all rituals of popular fantasy with some elements of the artists own invention. 42 Based on his known dislike of adhering to the restrictions of patrons, his yearning for fame, and his fascination with fantasy and the grotesque together with his literary friends, Rosas goal in painting ima ges of witchcraft was to break from the conventions of patronage and achieve artistic freedom. 43 This idea would be adopted by Goya at the end of the eighteenth century but to serve a different purpose. By Goyas time, widespread belief in witchcraft had been largely replaced by skepticism. In the past, large-scale witch-hunts were much rarer in Spain and Italy than in other parts of
40 41

Langdon, Rosa, 174. Scott, Salvator Rosa, 47. A few of these demons with skeletal bodies were probably inspired by a collection of prints published by Filippo Napoletano called Diversi Scheleteri di Animali, which illustrates scientific drawings and bone structures of various animals. The tall bird-like demon with the long beak is almost identical to one of Napoletanos illustrations. 42 Ibid., 47. 43 Hults, Witch as Muse, 186-7.

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Europe,44 and at the time of the Enlightenment, Goya and his circle considered the beliefs in witchcraft to be limited to the illiterate poor and peasants in rural areas. In Goyas age, belief in witchcraft was widely understood to epitomize human folly and indicate some of the failures of the Catholic Church. Goya took an anticlerical stance, in the sense that he portrayed the Church as the culprit in promoting such ridiculous superstitions. 45 The stereotypes promoted by the Malleus maleficarum, that women were carnal beyond reason and that demons exploited that carnality to wage war against Christendom, no longer made sense to most people. 46 In Goyas lifetime, the notion that women had a fundamental attraction or vulnerability to diabolic evil was no longer an intellectual commonplace.47 The developments of science also had an effect on diminishing old superstitions. Furthermore, the bourgeoisie and aristocracy, to distinguish themselves from the lower classes, fostered the acceptance of the new philosophical and scientific ideas, and the superstitions of the ignorant became popular targets of satire.48 It was under these circumstances that Goya ventured to reconstruct the iconography of witches. In late 1792, after many successful years painting tapestry cartoons for the Spanish royal court and teaching at the Royal Academy, Goya suffered a life-threatening illness (possibly lead poisoning, meningitis, or syphilis) which left him deaf. 49 With his illness, the break from commissioned duties gave Goya the artistic independence to explore
44

Neave, Witch in Early 16th-Century German Art, 4. The German territories hosted the most witch -hunts in Europe over the years, Germany was the birthplace of organized witchcraft, the home to the most esteemed inquisitors, the most trials, and appeared to harbor the most witches in Europe. 45 Hults, Witch as Muse, 2. 46 Ibid., 214-15. 47 Ibid., 215. Hults explains that the development of materialistic, empirical, and mechanistic worldview drastically undermined or negated the possibility of demonic interference in nature and society that had been missing from early modern skepticism. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 218. Lead poising was common in the tapestry factories however scholars cannot determine with certainty what particular illnesses Goya suffered in his lifetime. He was not expected to survive, and his illness forced him to resign from his post at the Royal Academy in 1797.

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more unconventional and fantastical subjects that challenged his imagination. Goyas reconstruction of witchcraft iconography drew from its stereotypes rooted in the text of the Malleus. The iconography of witchcraft in the Renaissance was established by Drer in the quintessential image of the ugly hag, and with Griens choices of specific stereotypes taken from the Malleus and represented in his particularly humorous way, often emphasizing the sexual deviance of the witch. While Drers art was important for creating a stereotypical physical type of witch, Griens representation of the Sabbath was crucial to future depictions of the subject. It gave vision to the superstitions put forth by the Malleus, and in turn influenced the theme in art for centuries to come. Salvator Rosa adopted the traditional images of magic and diabolical acts established by Grien in his theatrical Baroque versions of Sabbath-like gatherings. Rosas burlesque a nthology of witchcraft emphasized the fantastical and magical elements of the theme, and explores demonic creatures of invention. Goya would incorporate these traditions into his versions of the witchcraft in the late eighteenth century. However, as will be discussed in the coming chapter, Goyas iconography of witchcraft no longer served the purpose of visually representing a socially accepted belief, but was used as a device to satirize an ignorant superstition.

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CHAPTER 3 SATIRE AND THE OSUNA PAINTINGS By the eighteenth century many authors and artists considered witchcraft a superstition perpetuated by the Church, but were equally fascinated by the subject and its imaginative, supernatural influences. It became a subject of fantasy popular in theatre and literary fiction. Goya was interested in the creative possibilities of the subject, and in its potential to blend and stretch the boundaries between horror and humor. The theme of witchcraft gave Goya the chance to explore its grotesque and gruesome visions never seen in everyday life. Goya incorporated these aspects into his paintings of witchcraft, purchased by ilustrado friends, the Duke and Duchess of Osuna. This chapter will explore Goyas fascination with witchcraft in its relation to his views about superstition in the Church as well as the themes creative and grotesque visual possibilities, and how Goya used grotesque styles to incorporate a more intensely dark humor to his work. Paintings such as Goyas Aquelarre, Escena de brujas, and Vuelo de brujos (Figs. 3.3, 3.4, 3.5) show the grotesque and imaginary figures and settings he was able to creatively represent, along with the manner in which these representations would expose the subject as the superstition that it was. The Enlightenment is usually characterized as an age when epistemological changes took place in culture, as well as changed attitudes toward authority. It is important to note these ideas before explaining the artistic changes that took place for Goya when he first painted the theme of witchcraft. Spains Enlightenment is often compared to that of France, framed in terms of the attack on established religion. 1 Enlightenment in general is characterized by a move from authoritative, privileged forms of truth to a skeptical,
1

Philip Deacon, Spain and Enlightenment, The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, ed. David T. Gies, Cambridge Histories Online, Cambridge University Press (2004), DOI:10.1017/CHOL9780521806183.019 (accessed April 2, 2012).

34

reasoning way of thinking. 2 In Spain, the authority on knowledge and truth was the Catholic Church. At the time of the Enlightenment, the Inquisition was still dominant and had the power to censure anything. In that, Spain differed slightly from France or Britain. Enlightenment principles de-emphasized the reliance on authority for knowledge and gave new significance to the role of individual understanding, from which emerged a process of personal emancipation and self-confidence. 3 Goyas satire of clerics and similar institutions stems from his dislike of their hypocrisy. He often referred to the Inquisition in his art, either explicitly or indirectly, as the paradigm of a cruel and anachronistic penal system, because of tolerance outside of Spain of the crimes it supposedly punished.4 The Inquisition was widely known for its use of torture and could ruin a persons name even if he or she were found innocent of whatever crimes it accused. It reserved the right to pry into the most intimate aspects of a persons life, using methods of persecution that were in decline elsewhere in the eighteenth century.5 Such principles can be seen in Goyas ambitious satire later in this chapter. The daring to assault authoritative knowledge challenged the power of those asserting it, which was a risky thing to do during the Inquisition, the institution that held a monopoly on knowledge and truth for centuries. 6 This is why there is arguably no Spanish equivalent to a Voltaire or Diderot, because of the limits on expression. 7 Goya escaped much censorship because of his important circle of noble friends and connections to the royal court. However, he was not exempt from it; for example, he had a strategic location selected for selling his
2 3

Deacon, Spain and Enlightenment. Ibid. 4 Janis A. Tomlinson, Goya in the Twilight of Enlightenment (London: Yale University Press, 1992), 165. 5 Ibid., 166-7. Ironically, the French Revolution was a factor in prolonging the life of the Inquisition because to conservative Spaniards, the French Revolution proved the need for Inquisitors to undermine such elements before they became too powerful. The Inquisition was not officially abolished in Spain until 1834. 6 Deacon, Spain and Enlightenment. 7 Ibid.

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Caprichos, but the print series would still be withdrawn from the public in 1799 for his apparent criticism of ecclesiastical practices. 8 Many elements of modernity came into existence during the age of the Enlightenment.9 During this age of reason, many old superstitions such as witchcraft were debunked as illegitimate and ridiculous. The theme became a burlesque fantasy for Spaniards known as ilustrados, of the educated upper class, who enjoyed fictional literature, poetry and theatre incorporating the subject. Goya was part of this circle. His success at court gave him opportunity to befriend many of Madrids prominent citizens and high ranking aristocrats, and to paint commissioned works for such patrons. His circle of friends included leading ilustrados such as the great writer Jovellanos and the Duke and Duchess of Osuna. The Osunas were one of Spains most prominent noble families of the eighteenth century and were major patrons of Goya (Fig. 3.1). By the time Goya had befriended them, the Osunas were rich, educated, had four children, and were passionately interested in everything having to do with the arts and sciences. 10 The duchess, in particular, was an important member of society. Mara Josefa de la Soledad Alonso-Pimentel y Tllez-Girn, countess of Benavente, duchess of Osuna, was related to many of the grandest clans in Madrid, but stood out from other aristocratic women because of her intelligence in addition to her wealth.11 She was the hostess of elite evening gatherings of cultural discussion, called tertulias, not unlike the private salon gatherings in Paris.12 She also played major roles in public life, advocating for political issues such as improving the state of womens prisons,

8 9

Deacon, Spain and Enlightenment. For more on the historical and political aspects of the Spanish Enlightenment see also Iris H.W. Engstrand, The Enlightenment in Spain: Influences upon New World Policy, The Americas 41.4 (1985): 436-444. 10 Robert Hughes, Goya (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 117. 11 Ibid. Mara Josefa de la Soledad became Duchess of Osuna after marrying Duke of Osuna in 1771. 12 Ibid., 118.

36

Fig. 3.1. Goya, The Family of the Duke of Osuna, 1788, oil on canvas, 225 x 174 cm., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

37

childrens education, and including widespread vaccination methods as common medical practice. 13 She was the leader of the Junta de Damas (Womens Council), a female wing of the Madrid Economic Society. 14 Through these various roles in both her public and private life, the duchess of Osuna can truly be considered a woman of the Enlightenment. Goya painted a portrait of the duchess of Osuna in 1785 (Fig. 3.2). The duchess is depicted in fine French attire, standing in front of a neutral background, a fan in one hand and the other resting on the handle of a cane or parasol. Each texture of the duchesss clothing is portrayed in intricate detail, from the tiny frills of lace to the soft, fluffy feathers and sleek, shiny ribbons. Though Goya did little to enhance her face to make it more conventionally pretty, it is still evident that she was an inspiration to him and that he responded to her critical intelligence. 15 Her stance with the cane, posture, and piercing gaze sum up the audience and convey complete self-possession. 16 Goyas portrait of the duchess of Osuna portrays a confident noblewoman with a sharp mind and personality who held an important role in Spains Enlightenment culture. Goyas friendship wit h the Osunas was based on their extensive involvement with the arts. The Osunas were major patrons of theatre, and ran their own private theatre which held regular performances and concerts. The Osunas, like the majority of modern society, were amused by burlesque theatre performances that involved satire and fantasy. The theme of witchcraft often appeared because it incorporated both of these elements and was no longer a widespread superstition. This aristocratic perspective on the theme is the basis for their choice to decorate their country estate, La Alameda, with images of witchcraft. Goya created

13 14

Hughes, Goya, 118. Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.

38

Fig. 3.2. Goya, Mara Josefa de la Soledad, Duquesa de Osuna, 1785, oil on canvas, 104 x 80 cm., Coleccin Bartolom March.

39

a series of six paintings of the theme, three of which will be discussed in this chapter. These paintings were purchased by the Osunas from an amusement with witchcraft from a political and intellectual perspective.17 The paintings were sent to the Osunas on June 27, 1798, along with a receipt reading six paintings of composition of scenes of witchcraft, with a charge for six thousand reales, which the duke signed, adding that he painted them for my country house, La Alameda.18 The paintings evoked theatrical drama and satire, as was common in the perspectives of ilustrado circles. As discussed in the previous chapter, the traditional iconography of the witch in art was based on stereotypes described in the Malleus maleficarum, which were later made visual in the art of the medieval period and Renaissance. The text was put forth by the Church as a demonstration of the existence and prevalence of witches and their terrible threat, a defense of the practiced detection and persecution of said witches, and an instruction of legal and spiritual remedies provided for witches. 19 Defined the in Malleus as women in servitude of the Devil, witches had unbridled sexuality coming from indistinguishable power.20 In the Malleus, the witch becomes the effective agent of diabolic power, a living, breathing, devil on earth in respect to those around her.21 Not only did the witch fill a void of minimal diabolic presence and channel disordering and harmful forces, but her status was also dependent on mens intense fear of the also disordering power of her sexuality. 22 This misogynistic point of view was evident in the art of Drer and Grien and the perspective later

17

Linda C. Hults, The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 221. 18 Francisco de Goya, Vuelo de brujos, in the Museo Nacional del Prado Online Database, http://www.museodelprado.es/investigacion/biblioteca/acceso-al-catalogo/ (accessed March 29, 2012). 19 Hans Peter Broedel, The Malleus maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 3. 20 Ibid., 7. 21 Ibid., 5. 22 Ibid., 4 & 6.

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changed to a theatrical fantasy such as in the Baroque paintings of Rosa. When Goya adopted the subject for the Osuna paintings, the theatrical tradition was maintained but for a different purpose. Misogyny was as central to the idea of witchcraft as the Church was, and therefore central to artistic images of it, an element that Goya rethought in his treatments of the genre. 23 This misogynistic view involved in witchcraft associated the female with the grotesque, because her body is able to bear children and is therefore more open and less autonomous.24 As mentioned earlier with the views of Aristotle on the female body that were so influential to Western thought, mens bodies are perfectly formed, complete, and therefore normal. 25 The female body incorporates parts in the breasts, uterus, and vagina, and processes in menstruation and pregnancy, that appeared grotesque to the authors and artists who represented them. 26 There was much to be made, then, of the witchs body which was often depicted in art at least half-naked, withered, old, and hag-like, all features that pointed to her formlessness.27 Whether or not it was grotesque, the witchs bo dy became a powerful device for the display of artistic prowess. 28 The witchs evil acts were also believed to be focused on procreation, which she would sabotage through magic (spells to interfere with pregnancies or births) or through kidnapping children to cannibalize them, suck their blood to steal their nourishment, or sacrifice them to the Devil. 29 These beliefs were no longer substantiated when Goya painted his series for the Osunas. They were considered

23 24

Broedel, Malleus and Construction of Witchcraft, 14. Ibid., 22. 25 Margaret Miles, Carnal Abominations: The Female Body as Grotesque, in The Grotesque in Art and Literature: Theological Reflections, ed. James Luther Adams and Wilson Yates (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 96. 26 Ibid. 27 Broedel, Malleus and Construction of Witchcraft, 22. 28 Ibid., 23. 29 Ibid., 22-23.

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superstitions limited to the uneducated and the poor, whom the Osunas ridicule by displaying satirical versions o f them in Goyas cabinet paintings at their country house. It was a significant way to maintain their elite status even though they were removed from it, as the Alameda was located in a rural area in the outskirts of Madrid. While staying in the same rural country where witchcraft-believing peasants resided, the Osunas distinguished themselves by hanging burlesque witchcraft images on the wall as a reminder that they were above such superstitions. Painting witchcraft was a chance to give full rein to the artists fertile imagination, achieving great narrative and visual effect.30 Such effects were sometimes more difficult to achieve under the restrictions of patrons commissions. However, after his illness in the early 1790s, Goya sought a long recovery and had to postpone his court commissions until his health improved. In a letter written to a close friend in the spring of 1793, Goya stated that although he was on his feet again he did not know if his head was on his shoulders, for he had no desire to eat or do anything, the correspondence showing evidence of depression in his prolonged convalescence.31 This illness gave him an opportunity to turn to more experimental works, a critical creative period that aided in the change of his artistic style. 32 The beginning of this experimental period was when Goya first portrayed the theme of witchcraft. In a letter to a friend at the Royal Academy in Madrid, Goya stated:
To occupy my imagination, mortified in consideration of my ills, and to recuperate in part the great expenses that they have caused, I devoted myself to painting a set of cabinet paintings, in which I have realized observations that are usually not permitted by commissioned works, and in which caprice and invention have no greater extension.33

30

Lorenzo Lorenzi, Witches: Exploring the Iconography of the Sorceress and Enchanress, trans. Ursula Creagh (Florence: Centro Di della Edifimi, 2005), 107. 31 Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746-1828 (London: Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1994), 94. 32 Ibid. 33 As quoted by Tomlinson, Goya, 94.

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Such invention and imagination falls directly into the definitions of the grotesque, into which fantasy, innovation, and the breaking of boundaries can be funneled. The characteristics of the grotesque, especially those inventive in the realm of the gruesome, macabre, and horrific, were popular in modern culture. Goyas capacity for the imaginary in his art was thus appreciated by certain aristocrats with eclectic tastes such as the Duke and Duchess of Osuna,.34 As fellow ilustrados, the Osunas apparently appreciated Goyas ability to expose the vices and extravagances of people in society in an entertaining and imaginative way. 35 The new rationalists like the Osunas were fascinated by fantasy and, through patronage of tenebrous artists such as Goya, gave new life to phantoms, devils, goblins and witches, perhaps finding relief in the shadows of unreason after being exposed to such superstitions for so long.36 The subject of witchcraft not only served as a reminder to the Osunas that they were above the superstitions of their rural counterparts while staying at the Alameda, but could have also been attractive to them as dark but romanticized popular fiction. Goya and his fellow enlightened opponents of the Churchs superstitions may have been fascinated by images of powerful monsters in order to overcome or destroy them by exposing them as the superstitions they were. 37 Goya represented this irrational human behavior through satire in his paintings of witches. 38 Of the six Osuna cabinet paintings, two are now lost or destroyed. One of the lost works was a scene of a witches kitchen and another depicted a scene of Don Juan encountering the avenging commendatore; these survive only in indistinct photographs.39 In another Osuna painting that still survives, Goya
34 35

Tomlinson, Goya, 102. Edith F. Helman, The Younger Moratn and Goya: On Duendes and Brujas, Hispanic Review 27 (Jan 1959), 104. 36 Ibid., 107. 37 Ibid. 38 See also Helman, Duendes and Brujas, 119-120. 39 Hughes, Goya, 152.

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depicted a scene from a play called The Forcibly Bewitched. The remaining three Osuna paintings depicting witchcraft are discussed here, and are scenes of Goyas own invention. One of these works, called Aquelarre or Witches Sabbath (Fig. 3.3), depicts the often seen iconography of the Sabbath gathering of witches with the Devil. The composition consists of a group of witches sitting in circle around Satan, who takes the form of a huge billy goat. They have adorned his horns in a garland wreath, and he is visibly pleased because of all the children and infants the witches brought to sacrifice to him. Looking from left to right the viewer of this work begins to pick out the tiny figures of children, from a partially decayed corpse sprawled on the ground to an alive childs legs poking out from under a witchs shawl, an emaciated scrawny child being held up by an old hag, and a plump baby cradled by a young, pretty witch. The Devil points to her with his left hoof evidently in favor of her offering. In a gruesome and sinister twist on common rabbit hunting practices, the half-naked witch on the far left holds a stick from which the grey bodies of dead babies hang to add to the sacrifice. The gathering takes place in a bleak brown landscape with a halfmoon in the sky that reflects Satans sharp curved horns and owls and bats (considered infernal creatures of the night) flying through the black foreboding sky. Goya created the Aquelarre composition in a palette of mostly neutral tones, yet it is more colorful than the other Osuna cabinet paintings. The light and palette are the main reasons for this. The scene is painted in an uninhabited landscape in an unfamiliar place, with a gray sky that becomes brighter in the lower horizon. Yellows, grays, tans, and greens are the dominant shades of color giving it a slightly warmer aspect despite the dark subject matter. The figure of the Devil dominates the scene and is framed by the circle of witches around him, with the small details of the dead or dying children becoming noticeable only

44

Fig. 3.3. Goya, Aquelarre (Witches Sabbath), 1797-98, oil on canvas, 44 x 31 cm., Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano, Madrid. 45

later. It is also worth noting that the witches faces are not exactly menacing. The witches are homely and ugly, a few plump and a few scrawny and shriveled, but are not so grotesque that they cannot be imagined as real people. It would not be surprising if Goya based some of these witches faces on true observations, for many of them are quite ordinary in appearance. There is also a more pink and peach tone to the skin of the witches that is not as noticeable in prints or other reproductions of this work. These aspects indicate the lighthearted tone of this work and the carnivalesque elements in spite of its dark theme. Goyas composition of the Witches Sabbath is consistent with the superstition that created its iconography ages before. Further exposure to these superstitions can be seen in Goyas Escena de brujas, usually given an English title of The Spell (Fig. 3.4). Here Goyas group of witches employ an array of magical practices including spells and pin-pricked dolls which add to the grotesque visual effect of their gruesome ugly features. By giving image to these common beliefs about witchcraft, Goya ridicules the superstition as a whole, thereby exposing the Churchs corrupted institutions, particularly the Inquisition, that persecuted witches.40 For centuries the Church had regarded superstitio as religion observed and practiced in an excessive way, a manner under circumstances that was evil or defective. 41 In other words, all unauthorized, erroneous, or excessive devotions to God or acknowledging divinity in a different god was deemed improper and therefore categorized as superstition. 42 Goya may have considered this view of the Church as an ultimate hypocrisy, especially because of his dislike of the excessive torture and persecution practiced by the Spanish Inquisition.

40 41

Hults, Witch as Muse, 230. Broedel, Malleus and Construction of Witchcraft, 147. 42 Ibid.

46

Fig. 3.4. Goya, Escena de brujas (The Spell), 1797-98, oil on canvas, 44 x 32 cm., Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano, Madrid.

47

In The Spell, Goyas witch figures form a pyramid in the foreground and stand over a cowering man in his nightgown whom they have presumably abducted in the night. He is crouched on his knees with his hands clasped together in prayer, begging the menacing witches above for mercy. His white nightgown contrasts intensely with the dark setting and draws the eye upward to the yellow mantle of the witch closest to him, followed by the four standing hags completely cloaked in black. The dark line of the four standing witches divides the composition, with the upper half occupied by owls and an infernal angel hovering over the group to deliver human bones for the spell. The witch at the far left reaches out to the victim as the hag to her right pricks a doll with large needles. The other hooded witch in the middle recites verses from a paper she is holding with a candle to illuminate, and the crone on the right holds a basket from which the limbs of dead babies hang. The background is again an unfamiliar and bleak landscape, here with a much darker night sky. Both The Spell and Witchess Sabbath, are housed today in Madrids Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano, the private collection of Jos Lzaro Galdiano (1862-1947), who was a wealthy Madrilenian businessman, art collector, and avid Goya admirer. It is most surprising to see the two works hanging on the same wall in one of Galdianos galleries and to understand how small in scale the paintings are. Also striking is the extreme darkness in color of The Spell, which is not as noticeable in prints and other reproductions of it. To view the painting entirely it must approached very closely, enough to make out the figures from the liquid black shine of the oil paint. The most prominent details of The Spell are the faces of the figures, especially the wide fearful eyes of the man and the bulging madness in the witches eyes. Goya painted these details in tiny strokes, enough to create marks of distortion in the witches wrinkled, sunken, and repulsive faces. Despite the bright flame of the ca ndle,

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which seems to be the only source of light in the scene, the witch holding it retains the grotesque lines and distortions in her face. The infernal angel flying above her seems better illuminated. Through the extreme darkness of the scene, the whites and outlines of their teeth and wide eyes emerge. The walls of the room in which these paintings hang are lined with wooden moldings, carved in relief with grotesque ornament. Griffins and other metamorphic figures are carved among plantlike designs which transform into more fantastical creatures, surrounding the gallerys walls in an appropriate tribute to the grotesque as it began and later developed in the modern art of Goya. One of Goyas works for the Osunas with stronger satirical views is his Vuelo de brujos, or Flight of Witches (Fig. 3.5). In this beautiful and profound composition, a trio of witches in flight is suspended midair as they hold the flailing body of a naked victim and devour his flesh. The victim flings his head back and arms out in helplessness, his sunken eyes wide with fear and mouth forming the gaping hole of a scream. Two other men in the picture are innocent passersby; one cowers face down on the ground covering his ears and the other passes directly underneath the flying witches, covering his head with a sheet and making a figa sign with his hands (sticking the thumb in between the index and second fingers) to ward off evil. 43 The most striking visual effect comes from the witches, who are very palpably real, even idealized, muscular males, whose arms and legs create a burst of light in the thick blackness of the composition. These male witches also wear the coroza hats worn by defendants in the Inquisition, which in this case are cleaved in order to resemble bishops miters and their bare upper bodies and short pants suggest flagellants. 44 The cleaved hats are also decorated with the curled bodies of serpents, traditional symbols of evil.

43 44

Hughes, Goya, 155. Hults, Witch as Muse, 222.

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Fig. 3.5. Goya, Vuelo de brujos (Witches Flight), 1797-98, oil on canvas, 43.5 x 30.5 cm., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. 50

In the first version of the composition, known through x-ray technology, the figure standing below the flying witches was originally painted facing the opposite direction with his back to the viewer.45 Goya may have changed the mans position to make his hand gesture more visible as well as the mans fear and attempt to hide under his cloak. The donkey, a symbol of ignorance often used by Goya, reinforces the satirical element of the painting. By changing the gender of this group of witches and adding the religious symbolism, Goya took the focus away from the misogynistic traditions that many of his other works were based on, and made the painting a more clear dedication to the struggle between wisdom and ignorance. 46 Here he carnivalizes the power of the Inquisition by identifying its authority with that of hoi polloi, and portraying it as lacking in sound judgment. 47 Goyas Flight of Witches incites an intense reaction like that which is caused by grotesque images. While the satirical aspect is amusing or comical, the gruesome act of the very normal looking witches can inspire fear or repulsion. By exposing the superstition of witchcraft but changing the characters to men dressed as defendants of the Inquisition, Goya pointed out the irrationality of such beliefs and condemns the Church for fostering them. The artists views of witchcraft as the epitome of unreason were enriched by his anti-Inquisition stance.48 The popularity of macabre and grisly imagery at the time also influenced his experimentation with the more imaginative themes for his art. The modern condition of barbarism was a strand of the grotesque that Goya turned to in his art after surviving his horrible illness that kept him from his court patrons. 49 This period of new developments of the grotesque in Goyas art implicates the Church in the material analogue of witches as an
45 46

Goya, Vuelo de brujos, Prado Online Database. Manuela B. Mena Marqus, Goya en tiempos de guerra (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008), 161. 47 Tomlinson, Goya in Twilight of Enlightenment, 170. 48 Hults, Witch as Muse, 247. 49 Frances Connelly, ed., Modern Art and the Grotesque (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 88.

51

expression of spiritual corruption or weakness. 50 Goyas witchcraft paintings embody the grotesque not only because the horrific acts and distorted figures create distinct feelings of fear or disgust but also the satirical ridicule of the Church is comical and amusing. This simultaneous attraction and repulsion is a common aspect of the grotesque in Goyas art.51 While the beliefs in the existence of witches had been deeply rooted in European cultures for centuries, Goya as a modern thinker and ilustrado exposed them as irrational superstitions perpetuated by the Church for the hypocritical objective of retaining power. Through texts and publications like the Malleus Maleficarum, the Church had fostered these beliefs and superstitions on witchcraft. Goyas time off from the restrictive commissions of court patrons after a severe illness gave him the opportunity to create imaginative works such as Aquelarre, Escena de brujas, and Vuelo de brujos. Goya himself had spoken about the fascinating observations he made about the follies of society during this stage of his art. By incorporating different elements of the grotesque, Goyas witchcraft paintings reveal the artists unique ability to illustrate the grisly elements of a horrific theme, while at the same time presenting it as a mere ridiculous superstition.

50

Geoffrey Galt Harpham, On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 6. 51 Ibid., 9.

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CHAPTER 4 THE MONSTROUS BODY The monstrous body is an important component of the grotesque. Figures with distorted features embody the principles of the grotesque in their unconventional and repulsive effect. The monstrous bodies of Goyas witches portray them as guilty of wrongdoing. Depicting figures with grotesque features is a device that Goya used throughout his career, for the purpose of exposing the follies and vices of those figures. It was also a device that Goya did not restrict to images of deviant women. The monstrous male was also a figure in Goyas art that reappeared on many occasions. The famous print series, Los Caprichos, incorporated monstrous bodies of both sexes and turned them to a variety of meanings. However, Goya would enhance or exaggerate different features of the mans body than those of a womans to accuse him. The deviant female, especially the witch, was often shown with distorted features throughout the whole body. Consistently though, only the head or face of the male was distorted, because this was the feature immediately looked upon and would therefore provoke a more intense reaction. Goya took this device even further late in his life, when his art took a drastic change stylistically. His late career, especially with the Black Paintings, on the surface may seem like a descent into melancholy and resignation, but a distinct element of satire and dark humor is still present, there is simply a need to dig deeper to find it. Throughout his career, Goya portrays the monstrous body with aberrant features to allude to the figures guilt, while his late work incorporates the monstrous body with a different style and technique, in a pessimistic perspective of dark humor. The principles of the grotesque involving physical distortion are important in interpreting all stages of Goyas art. Physical distortion is that element of the grotesque

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which breaks with convention, or breaches a boundary that has been set. The grotesque is the constant struggle with the boundaries of the known, conventional, and understood.1 The monstrous body is an image that is characterized by these properties. The grotesque describes an aberration from ideal form or from accepted convention, resulting in an image that is misshapen, ugly or deformed. Without the established convention or boundary, the body would not be deviant or monstrous. It depends on such expectations to transgress them, merge them, or destabilize them. 2 In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Edmund Burke describes the effects of beauty as based upon feelings of love, while the sublime has its basis in terror and astonishment. Burke states that clear and discreet boundaries are essential to the apprehension of beauty. 3 Therefore, Goya uses the abject body in his figures to expose them as violations of an expected norm. The grotesque is dignified when a shift in vision from literal to symbolic occurs, revealing the deformed as the sublime not on its physical surface but as an idea. 4 If the sublime is the result of terror, awe, and astonishment as Burke suggests, Goyas figures with deviant bodies that provoke a similar reaction could indicate the sublimity of the artists profound study of society. Goya created a catalogue of societys vices in the Caprichos. He named this series of eighty prints made from etching and aquatint after an artistic tradition of the Italians (capricci) and the French (caprices), which featured architectural fantasies. This artistic tradition, which can be seen in the works of Piranesi, Tiepolo, and Hubert Robert, was a

1 2

Frances S. Connelly, ed., Modern Art and the Grotesque (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 5. Ibid., 2. 3 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (London: R. and J. Dodsley, Pall-Mall, 1764), 65-67. See also Of the Sublime, 58-62. 4 Geoffrey Galt Harpham, On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 20.

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lighthearted play on mystery and imagination, with invention being the primary focus. Goya was the first artist to use the word capricho to signify images of fantasy that had some critical purpose or commentary. 5 When he published the Caprichos in 1799, Goya ran an advertisement in the Diaro de Madrid that began with the following paragraph:
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 business 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 made usual, those subjects which he feels to be the more suitable material for satire, and which, at the same time, stimulate the artists imagination. 6

Such innumerable follies are connected to the figures that Goya illustrates with abject features. With this technique, Goya would point his audience directly to the culprit, as if to show that the culprits interior foibles were reflected in the physical distortion on the exterior. The Caprichos are populated with deviant bodies: male, female, and animal. Unlike artists of centuries past, Goya did not discriminate among his targets of satire. The deviant body of the male becomes as repulsive and ugly as the female. Certain physical features of fiendish men occurred repeatedly in Goyas art. The fool in particular, became a classifiable physical type. Goyas fool was often distorted in the face, drawn with exaggerated features like large, wide eye sockets and a gaping, stupidly grinning hole of a mouth. A clear example of this fool character is seen in Capricho 56, Subir y bajar, To rise and to fall (Fig. 4.1). This plate illustrates a man being held up by his ankles by a gigantic satyr, and being spun in the air like a Wheel of Fortune, with the two bodies falling head first in either side of the pair representative of the cycle of rising and then

Robert Hughes, Goya (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 180. Goya owned several Piranesi prints and was familiar with Tiepolos art from the court of Carlos III. Hughes defines capricho on page 179 as a whim, a fantasy, a play of the imagination, a passing fancy. 6 As translated by Hughes, 181. This announcement was in the Tuesday, February 6, 1799 edition of Diario de Madrid.

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Fig. 4.1. Goya, Los caprichos, plate 56, Subir y bajar (To rise and to fall), 1796-97, etching and aquatint, 22 x 15 cm.

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falling again. The satyr sits on top of a huge sphere, which is presumably the planet Earth, while the fool he is holding up brandishes two handfuls of fire or smoking lightning bolts. His hair billows upward as if also smoking or caught on fire. The fool is wearing what appears to be military regalia, but also seems to have lost his pants. The backdrop behind this group of figures hovering above the globe is a neutral blank space. The caption under this print reads; La fortuna trata muy mal quien la osequia. Paga con humo la fatiga de subir y al quien ha subido le castiga con precipitarle.7 Roughly translated this caption states that fortune maltreats those who court her, and she rewards those with hot air, and those who have risen she punishes by downfall. 8 By showing the fool with grotesquely distorted features, Goya implicates him as the idiot who put his belief in the wrong thing. Most scholars agree that Subir y bajar ridicules two important political figures, Queen Maria Luisa and Prime Minister Manuel Godoy. It was believed that the two had a love affair, and that Godoy was the Queens subservient pawn. Drawing from the traditional image of the Wheel of Fortune, which depicts mans progress from ambition to success and then his descent down into failure again, Goya may be showing the fool as Godoy, who had his own rapid ascent to power followed by a brief fall. In 1798 Carlos IV fired Godoy from his post after a diplomatic failure dealing with France, but he was brought back in 1799 after his ilustrado replacements were dismissed.9 Many speculate that it was the queens favor that brought Godoy back to power, therefore making his procurement of power through his sexual liaison with the queen the subject of ridicule in Subir y bajar. The satyr has been a traditional symbol of lust since antiquity, and this hooved creature holds the man erect while gazing up

7 8

Philip Hofer, ed., Los Caprichos: Francisco Goya (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969), 56. Ibid. 9 Hughes, 183. Godoy had been briefly replaced by ilustrados Francisco de Saavedra and Goyas good friend, Gaspar de Jovellanos.

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at him and kicking its leg up in glee. In addition, the phrase subir y bajar had colloquial meaning in Spanish, referring to a mans erection followed by detumescence. 10 Goya thus indicates that Godoys rise and fall went hand in hand with his sexual power with the queen. Goya ridicules this kind of extreme passion, appetite, or pleasure, suggesting that it will ruin a man if he allows that passion to rule him, uncontrolled by reason, and lure him to his own destruction. 11 This folly is portrayed in the deviant male body with exaggerated facial features.12 The fool displays a wide, stupid grin of gratification, but is missing his pants and is being supported by the animalistic god of lust. Goya ridicules this kind of rise to power through dishonesty and lust, the type of corruption that Godoy was believed to be guilty of. Although this grotesque image is primarily satiric, this fool is also horrifying and believably dangerous because of the violence of his gesture, the erratically smoking hair, and the flaming weapons he holds readily in each outstretched hand. Goya finds corruption in prominent males of society, in ways similar to the iconography of the witch, a character whose stereotypes were based upon sexual deviance and corruption. He represents each character in his art with equal scrutiny. Physically distorting the features of the corrupt figures emphasizes their guilt, and provides the opportunity for Goya to experiment with artistic invention. Goya brings back the theme of witchcraft in the Caprichos as well, incorporating it into his broad project of social satire exploring grotesque and extravagant elements.13 Inspired by the inventive capriccio, Goya reinvigorates fantasy and imagination with grotesque and carnivalesque images, all the while

10 11

Hughes, Goya, 182. Ronald Paulsen, Representations of Revolution (1789-1820) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 310. 12 See also Paulsen, Representations of Revolution, 295. While studying and copying works by Velzquez, Goya chose a particular kind, the isolated figure of a fool, buffoon, or madman, and used this as the model for all his Velzquez copies. 13 Hults, Witch as Muse, 221.

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insisting on their social relevance. 14 This is what classifies Goya as one of the first truly modern artists. Fantasy and invention, rather than the grand history painting, become the most difficult test of the artists genius. 15 With the deviant figures of his satirical art, Goya incorporates physically aberrant characters to intensify his satirical message to the audience. Late in his career, Goya experienced many life changes and in turn made many profound changes to his artistic style. In 1819, a month before his seventy-fourth birthday, Goya purchased a home in the outskirts of Madrid called the Quinta del Sordo, or House of the Deaf Man. Although Goya had been deaf since a near fatal illness in the early 1790s, it was a mere coincidence that this property was already known as the Deaf Mans House, because a previous owner was also deaf. At this point Goya had already lived an extraordinarily long life. His wife Josefa had died in 1812 and only one son, Javier, survived into adulthood. Javier married in 1806, and despite Goyas doting on him, he turned out to be a lazy disappointment of a son, who ignored Goyas ambitions for him. 16 In 1819, Goya was struck by another severe illness, not long after he moved into the quinta, and was all but written off for dead before receiving treatment from a doctor friend, Dr. Eugenio Garca Arrieta, who saved his life.17 Deaf, lonely, and having just survived another near fatal illness, Goya made a dramatic change in artistic style. In his isolation inside the walls of the quinta, he began to apply paint to those walls in a series of private murals significantly darker in color and subject matter than his previous work. Begun at some point in 1820, after

14 15

Hults, Witch as Muse, 221. Ibid. 16 Hughes, Goya, 373. Goyas son Javier made no career for himself, made his living with support from his father and other inheritances (including one from the Duchess of Alba), and from selling art works his father deeded to him. Javier also inherited Goyas home in Madrid after marrying in 1806. 17 Ibid.

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recuperating from his sickness, they became the aptly named Pinturas negras, or Black Paintings. The Black Paintings were painted directly onto the walls of Goyas home, with the Quinta becoming a place of refuge for the old, deaf genius. Goya continued to work in hermit-like seclusion in the quinta until in September 1823, when he transferred the whole property to his grandson Mariano.18 The meaning of the Black Paintings has been a source of speculation by many scholars and art historians. At first it was thought of as an arbitrary, unsystematic program painted by a tired old man in a mentally declining state, until a sketch was discovered that revealed that Goya had actually studied and planned out the series rather than spontaneously composing pictures on the walls.19 However, interpreting the Black Paintings is still a difficult task, since Goya left no titles for the works, no explanations of them, and no correspondence about them. They are his most private works, completed for his own purpose with no patron to consider and only himself as the audience which would confront them on a daily basis. Revisiting a subject he was fond of for its imaginative qualities, Goya painted the theme of witchcraft again in the Black Paintings, but this time with a more ambiguous message. In the quinta, Goya turned again to the Aquelarre, or Witches Sabbath. He painted what appears to be a coven of witches gathered to serve or worship the Devil, who is again depicted as a giant Billy goat or cabrn (Fig. 4.2). With his back to the viewer, the Devil faces the group of women who are seated in a circle around him. His prominence is created in the harsh, black silhouette of his figure, with a huge head, sharp horns and a gaping mouth.
18

Folke Nordstrm, Goya, Saturn, and Melancholy: Studies in the Art of Goya (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1962), 185. 19 Ibid., 190. Nordstrm states that the sketch was recently discovered but does not specify when, indicating that it must have been found sometime prior to the publication of Nordstrms book Goya, Saturn, and Melancholy in 1962.

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Fig. 4.2. Goya, Aquelarre (Witches Sabbath), 1820-24, oil transferred to canvas from mural, 140 x 438 cm., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

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Without being able to distinguish the rest of his body and limbs, it is possible to say he is wearing some sort of cape. His right eye is a yellow slit on the side of the head that is otherwise completely dark. The setting is unknown; there is nothing in the foreground or background to indicate where this gathering is taking place. It is simply a dark room or cave. Originally this composition extended further to the right side, but this area was cut off after being taken down and transferred to canvas. 20 This original format would have given less prominence to the Devil, and more to the figure of the seated woman with the black hood on the right, slightly removed from the rest of the group and distinguished by her serenity in contrast to the emotions of the surrounding group.21 This woman sits looking back at the huddled coven of women and it is unclear whether she could be a new recruit to the witches coven or simply an outsider looking in, just like any viewer of this painting would. This late version of the Aquelarre is much more intimate, and much darker and more mysterious. The Osuna Aquelarre, from 1797-98, is a burlesque treatment of superstition, grotesque in subject but theatrical in style. Goya retained a scene in the background, as well as some of the neutral colors and pastels of Goyas early tapestry cartoons. The quinta version is painted in thick, corroded brushstrokes and a palette of dark browns, greys, yellows and blacks. Here the grotesque is no longer based upon the sexually deviant bodies of women, but is instead conveyed in their distorted facial features. The subject of this Aquelarre is the faces of the crones who show an array of reactions from fear, to awe, to reverence, all emphasized by stacking the faces on the surface and abandoning any concern with scale or space between the figures. 22 The deviant female is shown as an altogether grotesque mob, ugly and stupid but still dangerous because of its fascination with the Devil.
20 21

Tomlinson, Goya, 241. Ibid. 22 Ibid., 243.

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This Aquelarre takes on the irrationality of the mob, showing the emotionalism of the crowd that displaces the rational thought of the individual. Goya seems to have looked back on his earlier witch themes and made them into one that removes the anecdotal connotations create a more foreboding, confrontational scene. 23 Goyas Black Paintings were named so not only because of his shift to the darker consideration of light and color, but also because of the dark themes portrayed in the compositions. 24 Blackness is the decisive element these works; it creeps along the edges of forms and is the ground tone forcing its way through layers of pigment so that the eye is constantly aware of solid masses of darkness.25 Goya personifies the monstrous body of the male again in the famous image of Saturno devorando a su hijo, or Saturn Devouring His Son (Fig. 4.3). This abrupt, violent image of the Titan god from ancient Greek mythology cannibalizing his offspring is so gruesome that it gives the impression that only a madman could have created it. However, the context of the myth and its symbolism, as well as the context in which Goya painted it, gives insight into his personal interpretation and purpose for creating the terrifying image. Saturn is a Roman god whose identity and story is based on Kronos, his Greek equivalent. Kronos was one of the Titans, the first generation of divinities born into the world from Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Sky). Ouranos was an oppressive father, and hid the many children he had with Gaia in her crevices out of fear that they would overthrow him. 26 Gaia encouraged her children to end their own suffering by fashioning a harvest sickle out of hard stone and suggesting that they wield it against Ouranos. Kronos was the only volunteer to do

23 24

Tomlinson, Goya, 243-5. Fred Licht, Goya (New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2001), 237. 25 Ibid., 236. 26 Richard P. Martin, Myths of the Ancient Greeks (New York: New American Library, 2003), 24.

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Fig. 4.3. Goya, Saturno devorando a su hijo (Saturn Devouring His Son), 1820-24, oil transferred to canvas from mural, 144 x 82 cm., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

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so. When Ouranos came around to bring the night sky, Kronos ambushed his father, and in one stroke sheared off his fathers member with the sickle and threw it into the sea. When he grew up, Kronos became powerful and respected, married his sister Rheia and with her gave birth to glorious gods. But the Titan retained a streak of his fathers violence and paranoia, and Gaia foretold that one of his own children would usurp his power. So when each of his offspring was born, Kronos gobbled them up and swallowed them. Rheia became pregnant again and consumed with grief, devised to trick her husband so he would not kill another of their children. She gave birth to Zeus and hid him in a cave, then found a large rock, wrapped it in swaddling cloth and presented it to Kronos, who ate it immediately. About a year passed before Kronos vomited up the stone followed by his still living children, one by one. Zeus had grown up elsewhere, and planned revenge on his father by taking as gifts Thunder and Lightning from his Cyclops uncles. Zeus guided his fellow generation of gods in a final battle against the Titans. After ten years of war, Zeus enlisted the help of the underground Hundred-Handed monsters and finally drove off the Titans to Tartarus, the deepest and gloomiest depths of the sky, where they were tied up in unbreakable chains. Zeus then took lordship of the sky from his banished and disgraced father, and became the king of the gods. The tale of Saturn is interchangeable with that of Kronos and has been depicted in art for centuries. Artistic iconography of Saturn usually includes the attribute of the sickle, or the more modern scythe. For the Romans this iconography eventually made Saturn the god of agriculture as well, simply because of the scythe. 27 Furthermore, chronos, the Greek word for time also implies Kronos, the god who thought he could outwit time and death by eating his

27

Lucia Imelluso, Gods and Heroes in Art, trans. Thomas Michael Hartmann (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2003), 228.

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children, but instead spent eternity at the ends of the earth and sky bound with chains. 28 Saturn is therefore also known as the god of Time, sometimes depicted with wings and given symbols such as the hourglass and the serpent that bites its own tail, a sign of eternity representing Saturns eternal imprisonment in Tartarus. 29 Artistic depictions of Saturn devouring his children were integrated with the symbolism of time, which devours everything it creates.30 This idea of time is crucial to the interpretation of Goyas Saturno, because of its relation to the artists age and stage in life. In the famous Saturno, the Titan god crouches in an unknown space thick with blackness. His anatomy is eccentric and distorted, with a scrawny right leg disproportionately long and left leg only visible to the largely knobbed knee cap so that his stance seems to be hobbled and unbalanced. The arms too are aberrant, with a right arm gnarled and awkwardly bent. The hands are more clearly defined with dark outlines to indicate the fingers being tightly clenched around the childs corpse, the strength of his grip even more defined in the highlight of the white knuckles and the detail of red blood seeping through the fingers. The disheveled mane of grey hair and beard frame Saturns face, his eyes wide and white with madness, his mouth a gaping black hole with which he is about to gobble another piece off the stump of his childs bloody arm. The brushstrokes are quick and the corroded paint is messy. Thick chunks of paint create bloodstains between his knuckles, shadows on his face and in his hair, and outlines of his eyes and mouth. In the Museo del Prados Black Pai ntings gallery, Saturn stands out not as a powerful conquering god, but as monster caught in an act of desperation and madness. He is hunched in a position as if hiding, and his eyes are wide, glassed over, and unfocused, showing the irrationality of his act.
28 29

Impelluso, Gods and Heroes, 228. Ibid. 30 Ibid.

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This image of Goyas Saturno is gruesome and disturbing. It portrays the god at the moment of his most unreasonable and crazed act, all for the purpose of retaining power. Why did Goya choose to depict this horrible moment in Saturns story? After all, the most prevalent association with Saturn is with melancholy, that he was the god of melancholy, and that the planet named after him rules over melancholy. After exploring the relationship between Saturn and melancholy, an interpretation of Goyas Saturno based on the painters own state of melancholy as well as artistic history, becomes evident. Melancholy is a condition that has been considered both a temperament and a mental illness. The notion of melancholy as a medical concept has disintegrated in contemporary times, but the term used to describe an illness characterized mainly by attacks of anxiety, deep depression, and fatigue. 31 Other indications of melancholy in centuries past came from merely mildly pensive or nostalgic states of mind or sicknesses characterized by symptoms of fear, misanthropy, frenzy, or madness in its most dangerous forms. 32 Melancholy also came to be thought of as a disease of heroes and geniuses because of their high intellect and talent; they were associated with auras of sinister sublimity (influenced by Greek mythology), superhuman greatness, high spiritual exaltation, and dispositions of accursed madness. 33 The gifted artist, always considered in the realm of geniuses, was thus connected with melancholy because of his imaginative power. The artist was thought by the ancients to work in a state of inspired madness, often referred to as mania. 34 For centuries, writers and doctors considered it an incontestable fact that melancholy had a special relationship to

31

Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1964), 2. 32 Ibid., 14. 33 Ibid., 16. 34 Diane Karp, Madness, Mania, Melancholy: The Artist as Observer, Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 80, no. 342 (Spring 1984): 6.

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Saturn, who was really to blame for the melancholics unfortunate character and destiny. 35 In medical studies, melancholy was associated with an excess of black bile in the body, making black its color as well as its mood. Saturn is the god of melancholy because he was the dethroned and solitary god who dwelled at the uttermost end of land and sea, exiled beneath the earth.36 Therefore Saturn, as the representation of both Time and melancholy, is associated with the last and saddest phase of human life, old age with its loneliness, its physical and mental decay, and its hopelessness. 37 Considering the different elements of the melancholic temperament in the context of Goyas life, it is easier to understand his relation to Saturn. Furthermore, in Spanish the adjective saturnino means both Saturnian or under the influence of Saturn, and melancholic. 38 Thus, the connection between Saturn and melancholy was in Goyas native language. 39 The iconography of melancholy in art usually included poses with the head resting in the hand, crossed legs, and slouched posture all to indicate a disengaged or depressed mood. But rather than incorporate this iconography in his Black Painting of Saturno, Goya takes away all of his attributes. Saturn is not shown with his characteristic scythe, hourglass, or serpent. Other artists had shown Saturn eating one of his children but usually included his attributes, and often showed the god in a recognizable space such as a cloudy, heavenly realm, or a harvested field. How, then, does one interpret Goyas melancholy through his horrific painting of Saturno if it is so unconventional? It is useful to consider the context in which other examples of Saturn actually eating his children are represented in art. The most famous would be Saturn Devouring One of His
35 36

Klibansky, Saturn and Melancholy, 127. Ibid., 134. 37 Ibid., 149. 38 Nordstrm, Goya, Saturn, and Melancholy, 84. 39 Ibid.

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Sons, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1636-38 (Fig. 4.4). Goya knew this painting because it was part of the royal collection in Madrid and many believe it could have even been the model for Goyas work.40 It shows Saturn holding his baby son in one hand, his scythe in the other, bending over and pulling at the childs flesh with his mouth. The baby reaches back and screams in anguish but the viewer can only guess at what the expression on Saturns face indicates. Is it anger, madness, intent focus, hunger, or maybe remorse? The angle of the face makes it hard to tell, and the right eye and brow are the viewers only clues. The more refined Rubens version instead endows the theme with a sense of dignity and drama, with a focus on interlaying action and expression. 41 The impression of the Rubens canvas is that of a narrative from Greek mythology that has meaningful lessons to teach us about the history of the universe. 42 Goyas Saturno, in comparison to the Rubens, makes no allowance for anything but the Titans madness. The Rubens child is allowed to struggle and scream for help, while Goya shows the childs body as having the softer curves of an adolescent but mutilated beyond reconstitution so that there is no foreseeable resolution to what is happening. 43 Goyas Saturno is a frightening and menacing depiction of the myth. As scholar Fred Licht observed, the grandeur of Saturns legend which symbolizes the progress made by man and by the universe has been put to rest.44 With a pictorial metaphor for Saturns mela ncholy, Goya may have alluded to a kinship with the Greek legend and in turn, his own melancholic condition.45 According to Licht, the image Goya created raises a universal principal, that

40 41

Licht, Goya, 220. Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid., 221.

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Fig. 4.4. Peter Paul Rubens, Saturn Devouring One of His Sons, 1636-37, oil on canvas, 180 x 87 cm., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

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chaos is the origin and the end of life and madness is rendered in its own mad terms. 46 Goya shows Saturn at one of the darkest moments of his legend, with darkness not only being the decisive element of his act but also of his pictorial presence. 47 This unthinkable event ultimately led to his fate, imprisoned eternally in the depths of Tartarus, no doubt intensely melancholic. For Goya, the true significance of Saturno lay in its allegorical meaning. 48 It is essential to point out the location of the Saturno painting within the Quinta del Sordo. Goya painted Saturno on the wall of his dining room, which he also decorated with the Aquelarre and other works belonging to the Black Paintings. To be confronted with the image of a cannibal eating his child in the room in which eating takes place seems like a sickening joke, yet this context is an important aspect of relationship between horror and humor. Goya frequently experimented with this relationship in his art over the years, and in the case of Saturno, the pendulum easily swings to the side of horror. However, the location of the painting in the dining room still incorporates a sense of amusement. At this advanced stage in his life, Goya could have been using Saturns story to confront his own approaching death. Goya had multiple encounters with by this point, and could have been referring to his familiarity with it in the image of Saturns desperation. Saturns story points to the capacity of humans to destroy what challenges their power, denies their immortality, and questions their will to control. 49 It is possible that while the monstrous image of Saturn evokes an initial traumatic reaction, the remaining experience intended by Goya is an apathetic indifference to being faced with death. 50
46 47

Licht, Goya, 221. Ibid., 236 48 Klibansky, Saturn and Melancholy, 207. 49 Wilson Yates, An Introduction to the Grotesque: Theoretical and Theological Considerations, in The Grotesque in Art & Literature: Theological Reflections, ed. James Luther Adams and Wilson Yates (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 45. 50 Licht, Goya, 209.

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This type of stubbornness was apparently a major aspect of Goyas personality. His good friend, the poet Don Leandro Fernndez de Moratn, with whom he shared his last years in Bordeaux, wrote of Goya as an active yet stubborn eighty year-old: His is very naughty and arrogant, and paints like nobodys business, refusing to rectify anything he does. 51 This account of Goyas behavior gives invaluable evidence of his personality. If he was indeed as arrogant as Moratn describes, he may have been using the image of Saturn to smile at death which he had already eluded on various occasions. There is further evidence of this in one of Goyas letters from Bordeaux to his son, Javier, in which he asks him whether he thinks he will live to be ninety-nine years old like Titian did.52 Goya also created a drawing of an old man to illustrate his stubborn vitality. His chalk drawing, An aprendo, Im Still Learning, created in his last years, depicts a senile man, hunched over in a long robe, with a walking stick in each hand to support his efforts to move (Fig. 4.5). While the long mane of white hair and beard and the wrinkled, scowling expression indicate the bitterness of age, the large stride forward with the left leg and clear caption written in first person pronounce clearly a sublime testament to the vitality of the ancient painter.53 His stubborn attitude indicates that neither old age nor physical suffering refrain him from marching forward through his work. 54 Goyas grotesque painting of Saturno shows how he was able to identify with the gods associations with melancholy, choosing to depict the scene in an innovat e style and shockingly gruesome scene so as to leave the viewer with no choice but to confront Saturns

51

This quote was included in the description plate under Goyas portrait of Moratn at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. Est muy arogantillo, y pinta que se las pela, sin querer corregir jams nada de lo que pinta. 52 Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya, ed. Franois Lachenal (New York: Reynal & Co., 1971), 354. 53 Gassier and Wilson, Goya, 354. 54 Ibid.

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Fig. 4.5. Goya, An aprendo, Im Still Learning, 1824-28, black chalk on paper, 195 x 150 mm., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

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fate and attempt to understand him. By showing the theme in this grotesque manner, Goya shows the viewer that all can fall victim to melancholy and the effects of Time. Goya was deaf and isolated in his home, withdrawn from the city and its citizens among whom he had walked as a successful court painter in the years prior. 55 Goya, living as a solitary, deaf hermit who had recently almost died of illness, plagued by melancholy himself, identified with Saturn as a symbol of his old age and loneliness. 56 Saturno is a reaction to a stubborn confrontation with death, created by an isolated artist during a course of difficult years and events.57 Goyas composition shows Saturns ill-fated attempt of self-preservation and leaves little room to indicate anything but the reason why the god of melancholy came to be known as such. The idea of the grotesque evolved from a strange and fantastical type of ornament to images that provoke fear and disgust. Goya incorporated the grotesque in his artistic oeuvre because he believed in its significance as a social commentary. He took the misogynistic traditions in which the iconography of witchcraft was rooted, and built upon them to create images that simultaneously provoked terror, repulsion, and carnivalesque humor. While Goya was not exempt from incorporating different misogynistic beliefs with this theme, his images of witchcraft were more focused on a broader agenda of ridiculing ignorance and superstition. Desiring to experiment with more imaginative subjects, Goyas first cabinet paintings of witches catered to his ilustrado friends and their common fascination with dark themes relating to fantasy and the macabre. These works also catered to the egos of Goyas aristocratic friends, providing amusement for them in their countryside estate and reminding them that they were above superstitions that by the time were viewed as ridiculous beliefs
55 56

Nordstrm, Goya, Saturn, and Melancholy, 197. Ibid., 198. 57 Ibid., 221.

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perpetuated by the Churchs cruelty. Goya incorporated other grotesque figures throughout his career such as the fool and the monstrous bodies of male figures, distorting their physical features in order to point directly to their guilt and corruption. His broad project of criticizing folly and hypocrisy through grotesque figures stretched into his publicized print series, including the Caprichos, and late in his life with his private Black Paintings. These grotesque figures incorporated a much darker humor and a change in artistic style to convey the artists cynicism. The Black Paintings explored madness and melancholy with characters who committed gruesome acts. Throughout his career, Goya portrayed these many grotesque themes while at the same time operating on other levels including portraitist, painter to the royal court, and even painter of religious works. His ability to adapt to each of these worlds and keep his own commentary on the side is what makes him one of the first truly modern artists.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aristotle. Generation of Animals. Translated by Arthur Leslie Peck. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Helene Iswolsky. Cambridge, MA: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1968. Brauner, Sigrid. Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews: The Construction of the Witch in Early Modern Germany. Edited by Robert H. Brown. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995. Broedel, Hans Peter. The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London: R. and J. Dodsley, Pall-Mall, 1764. Carroll, Nol. Horror and Humor. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57.2 (1999): 145-160. Casalduero, Joaqun. Significado del Saturno goyesco. Boletn del Museo Nacional del Prado 4.12 (1983): 167-169. Coderch, Anna Maria, and Victor I. Stoichita. Goya: The Last Carnival. London: Reaktion Books, Ltd., 1999. Cole, Michael. The Demonic Arts and the Origin of the Medium. The Art Bulletin 84.4 (2002): 621-640. Connell, Evan S. Francisco Goya: Life & Times. New York: Counterpoint, 2004. Connelly, Frances S., ed. Modern Art and the Grotesque. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Cuesta, Marina Cano. Goya en la Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano. Madrid: Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano, 1999. Deacon, Philip. "Spain and Enlightenment." The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature. Edited by David T. Gies. Cambridge University Press, 2008, Cambridge Histories Online, Cambridge University Press. 04 April 2012, DOI:10.1017/CHOL9780521806183.019. Engstrand, Iris H.W. The Enlightenment in Spain: Influences upon New World Policy. The Americas 41.4 (1985): 436-444.

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Garrido, Mara del Carmen. Algunas consideraciones sobre la tcnica de las Pinturas Negras de Goya. Boletn del Museo Nacional del Prado 5.13 (1984): 23. Gassier, Pierre, and Juliet Wilson. The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya. Edited by Franois Lachenal. New York: Reynal & Co., 1971. Glendinning, Nigel. The Strange Translation of Goyas Black Paintings. The Burlington Magazine 117, no. 868 (July 1975), 464-477. Goya: el capricho y la invencin: cuadros de gabinete, bocetos, y miniaturas. Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 1994. Guidol, Jos. Goya. Translated by Kenneth Lyons. Barcelona: Ediciones Polgrafa, 2008. Hafter, Monroe Z. Petronius, Mercier, and Goyas Colossus. Eighteenth-Century Studies 22.4 (1989): 529-547. Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. Harris, Stephen L., and Gloria Platzner. Classical Mythology: Images and Insights. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. (Fourth Edition). Helman, Edith F. The Younger Moratn and Goya: On Duendes and Brujas. Hispanic Review 27 (January 1959): 103-122. Hofer, Philip, ed. Los Caprichos: Francisco Goya. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969. Hofmann, Werner. Goya. Translated by David H. Wilson. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. Hughes, Robert. Goya. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Hults, Linda C. Baldung and the Witches of Freiburg: The Evidence of Images. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18.2 (1987): 249-276. ------- Baldungs Bewitched Groom Revisit ed: Artistic Temperament, Fantasy and the Dream of Reason. The Sixteenth Century Journal 15.3 (1984): 259 279. ------ The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Impelluso, Lucia. Gods and Heroes in Art. Translated by Thomas Michael Hartmann. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2003. 77

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Muller, Priscilla E. Goyas Black Paintings: Truth and Reason in Light and Liberty. New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1984. Museo Nacional del Prado Online Database. http://www.museodelprado.es/investigacion/ biblioteca/acceso-al-catalogo/ (accessed March 29, 2012). Neave, Dorinda. The Witch in Early 16th-Century German Art. Womans Art Journal 9 (1988): 3-9. Nordstrm, Folke. Goya, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the Art of Goya. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1962. Paulsen, Ronald. Representations of Revolution (1789-1820). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. Russo, Mary. The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity. New York: Routledge, 1995. Schulz, Andrew. Goya: La imagen de la mujer, and: Goya: Images of Women. Eighteenth- Century Studies 36 (Fall 2002): 81-85. Scott, Jonathan. Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times. London: Yale University Press, 1995. Sullivan, Margaret A. The Witches of Drer and Hans Baldung Grien. Renaissance Quarterly 53.2 (2000): 333-401. Symmons, Sarah. Goya. London: Phaidon, 1998. Tomlinson, Janis A. Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746-1828. London: Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1994. -------- Francisco Goya: The Tapestry Cartoons and Early Career at the Court of Madrid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. -------- Goya in the Twilight of Enlightenment. London: Yale University Press, 1992. --------, ed. Goya: Images of Women. London: Yale University Press, 2002. Torrecillas Fernndez, Mara del Carmen. Las pinturas de la Quinta del Sordo fotografiadas por J. Laurent. Boletn del Museo Nacional del Prado (1992): 5770. -------- Nueva documentacin fotogrfica sobre las pinturas de la Quinta del Sordo de Goya. Boletn del Museo Nacional del Prado 6.17 (1985): 88.

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VITA Kristin Ann Ziech was born in Racine, Wisconsin on October 25, 1983 and grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She was educated in a public magnet school with a focus on International Studies, where Spanish lessons were taken from the second grade. She continued her Spanish every year through high school at Loy Norrix High School, where she graduated in 2002. She attended Albion College and completed a study abroad program in Alcal de Henares, Spain during the spring semester of her junior year. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude with a double major in Spanish and Communication Studies in 2006. Ms. Ziech moved to Kansas City, Missouri after graduating from Albion College. After four years of working as a Business Director for a Head Start program with the YMCA of Greater Kansas City, she began the graduate program in Art History at the University of Missouri Kansas City. She was awarded the Graduate Assistance Fund scholarship with outstanding merit by the UMKC Womens Council in 2012, and used the funding to support a trip to Madrid to complete professional research on the art of Francisco de Goya in March of the same year for her Masters thesis. She graduated with a Master of Arts in Art History from UMKC in May, 2012. Ms. Ziech is a member of the Midwest Art History Association and continues in her position at the YMCA of Greater Kansas City. She also volunteers for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, doing event planning for the Party Arty committee as well as curatorial research to support prospective exhibitions. She plans to pursue an art historical career in research or other support for an art museum.

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