Donde va mamá?

FRANCISCO DE GOYA (1746-1828)

Print number 65 of the Los Caprichos series, 1799.

12th edition, 1937, Calcografía Nacional.

Etching and aquatint on Japan paper with Ministry of Public Instruction seal.

Numbered on the reverse “11”.

Good condition. Full margins.

In the engravings dedicated to witchcraft in the Los Caprichos series, Goya gave life to a universe in which terror and satire went hand in hand. Indeed, in these prints the obscurantist atmosphere that surrounded the world of witches is portrayed in a monstrous and ugly way, but in the grotesque exaggeration of these representations humor also emerges and with it, the criticism of witchcraft.

This discredit through satire was more effective than the strategy used by the Holy Inquisition. The church, under the pretext of wanting to combat witchcraft through harassment and violence, ended up crediting it as a real danger. If witches were burned it must be because their magical arts were effective. Goya’s satire, on the contrary, denies these powers, reducing the sorceresses to the status of ridiculous characters.

Beyond the image of infernal power transmitted by the Inquisition, the reality of these witches was closer to that of excessive and alcoholic women, who survived by practicing pandering and preparing filters or incantations to order.

In the Goya manuscript kept by the Biblioteca Nacional, it is commented on this engraving: “La lascivia y la embriaguez en las mujeres traen tras de sí infinitos desórdenes y brujerías verdaderas” (“Lewdness and drunkenness in women bring behind them infinite disorders and true witchcraft.”). The transfer of a witch to the coven by demonic beings is similar, through the grotesque representation of her, to the crazy daydream of a drunk.