Sunday, August 7, 2016

Goya's Etchings at the Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate  Los Ensacados
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

"What do you feel when you are inside?"   
"It's like being in a dark room. That's it, standing still in a dark room."

The posa is not of any particular design. Two walls of ordinary size slope to form a roof. On each side there is a door-like opening: an entrance and an exit used indiscriminately. There exists perhaps, a formal peculiarity in that it completely lacks any wall covering. The vertical posts are joined to lateral cross-beams, which in turn, link smaller ones. A support structure exists. What it does not have is a brushwood covering or a roof of any kind. Just a framework. Although the inhabitants of the village define it as a house, the posa seems more like the drawing of a house. 

Any one of the peasants from the village, without apparent reason, enters the building. He stays for a  few seconds or for several minutes. Standing. Quiet. Motionless. After this time, he goes out. A few hours later or the next day, another passerby will, in turn, linger in it for a moment or an hour. Meanwhile, the rest of Zurite's inhabitants appear indifferent and go about their business without paying the least attention to him, even when they are but a few meters away from the posa.


The surprising thing about its construction is not the absence of functionality, but rather that its pure transparency rules out the idea of this room as shelter and lodging.


 Juan Muñoz, from Segment (1990) printed in Juan Muñoz : catalogue of a touring exhibition, 2001-2003  organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Francisco Goya died in self-chosen exile from Spain at age 82 in 1828. 
Juan Muñoz died in Spain suddenly and unexpectedly at age 48 in 2001.

Francisco Goya
Disparate  Modo de Volar
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate Puntual
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate Conocido
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate Claro
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate Ridiculo
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate Volante
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate de Bestia
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate de Toritos
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate  El Caballo Raptor
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate de Carnaval
1815-19
aquatin and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate Femenino
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate Alegre
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Francisco Goya
Disparate de Pobre
1815-19
aquatint and etching retouched with drypoint and burin
Prado

Altogether, there are 22 Disparate etchings. Goya turned seventy while etching these Follies. During the same years he covered the walls of his own house with what came to be known (after they had been removed to a museum) as the Black Paintings.