In class, we talked about how Goya is considered both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the new. The reasoning behind this is easy to see in the difference between his two phases, particularly in how he interacts with the elite class. Phase 1 of Goya’s work was commissioned and classically trained by the ruling class; his work cooperated with the existing relation between art and elitism. (Of course art still carries a sense of exclusivity, but in Goya’s time the intensity and cost of labor made art less a matter of aesthetics than wealth, at least for the patron.) In this context Los Caprichos is even more bizarre–Goya completely rejects the institution by which he was raised, trained, and employed. It’s not even a matter of leaving it behind; he openly mocks it in the prints, almost brutally tearing down the Church, the monarchy, the elite, and the Inquisition. The change is so abrupt it’s rather extraordinary, with or without taking into account the circumstances in Goya’s personal life.
