My immediate reaction to the Goya Los Caprichos prints were their uncanny resemblance to political cartoons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They both are founded in reality, take liberties in bodily proportions, and equate human fallacy to animals.
I feel very often we also forget that the all surrounding and rather immediate visual culture is quite new. For a few hundred years, people did not have access to images readily until the invention of etching and printing, at which point these images were the only visual connection people had to the world. These were their photographs. For this reason, I am surprised by the surreality of Goya’s aquatints. Although I do find flaws in them compositionally and technically, I appreciate is integration of imagination with reality. There are times where people or clothing is depicted wonderfully, but then include at the same time mannerist choices in facial structure and body positioning. Also similar to the surrealist movement just over a century in the future, the use of cultural or dream —or nightmare— symbolism is adamant, particularly in Plate 43. For something that acted as one of the very limited ways through which people saw the world, this combination of reality and surreality is intriguing and colorful.
