ABSTRACT
The most visually prominent item in the image is what appears to be the bleached head of a donkey, or, perhaps better, a donkeyman. The donkey-head compels attention for a number of reasons, apart from its oddness. Los Caprichos was a vehicle for Goya to express his criticism, often satirically, of aspects of Spanish society, such as the clergy. Goya attempted to insulate his criticism from persecution by presenting his etchings as the products of irrational or disturbed mental states – caprices, or, as people might say, ravings. Indeed, by means of his bestiary of asses, Goya subversively identifies the Spanish ruling class as an empty-headed, self-deceived, asinine crew of nitwits. The hybrid, mixed, composite cast of the imagery, along with the crude modelling of the figures, the brutal, sometimes blurry colour contrasts, and the splotchy application of the pastels present the work intentionally as a mess, both pictorially and ontologically.
