Los caprichos

Los Caprichos (The Caprices) is a set of 80 prints in aquatint and etching created by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya in 1797–1798 and published as an album in 1799. The prints were an artistic experiment: a medium for Goya's satirizing Spanish society at the end of the 18th century, particularly the nobility and the clergy. Goya in his plates humorously and mercilessly criticized society while aspiring to more just laws and a new educational system. Closely associated with the Enlightenment, the criticisms are far-ranging and acidic. The images expose the predominance of superstition, religious fanaticism, the Inquisition, religious orders, the ignorance and inabilities of the various members of the ruling class, pedagogical shortcomings, marital mistakes, and the decline of rationality. Goya added brief explanations of each image to a manuscript, now in the Museo del Prado, which help explain his often cryptic intentions, as do the titles printed below each image. Aware of the risk he was taking, to protect himself, he gave many of his prints imprecise labels, especially the satires of the aristocracy and the clergy. He also diluted the messaging by illogically arranging the engravings. Goya explained in an announcement that he chose subjects "from the multitude of faults and vices common in every civil society, as well as from the vulgar prejudices and lies authorized by custom, ignorance or self-interest, those that he has thought most suitable matter for ridicule." Despite the relatively vague language of Goya's captions in the Caprichos, Goya's contemporaries understood the engravings, even the most ambiguous ones, as a direct satire of their society, even alluding to specific individuals, though the artist always denied the associations. The series was published in February 1799; however, just 14 days after going on sale, when Manuel Godoy and his affiliates lost power, the painter...