Los Caprichos. Plate 23. Aquellos polbos (Those specks of dust).

Los caprichos are a set of 80 prints in aquatint and etching, created by the famous Spanish artist Francisco Goya in 1797 and 1798, and published as an album in 1799. The prints were an artistic experiment: a medium for Goya's condemnation of the universal follies and foolishness in the Spanish society in which he lived. The criticisms are far-ranging and acidic; he speaks against the predominance of superstition, the ignorance and inabilities of the various members of the ruling class, pedagogical shortcomings, marital mistakes and the decline of rationality. Some of the prints have anticlerical (anti-church) themes. Goya described the series as depicting "the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilised society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance or self-interest have made usual".

The work was an enlightened critique of  late 18th-century Spain, and humanity in general. The informal style, as well as the depiction of contemporary society found in Caprichos, makes them (and Goya himself) a precursor to modernism almost a century later.

This image is Plate 23, one of two from Los caprichos (the other is No hubo remedio/ There was no remedy, plate 24), that deal directly with the Inquisition. In this work, Goya boldly attacks the arbitrary justice of the Inquisition by depicting the plight of a known personality of the day. The prisoner on trial here is Perico, a disabled woman who was arrested for selling love potions. She appears in front of a mob of officials robed in the typical penitential uniform with its tall pointed hat called the coroza or cap of infamy. She sits hunched over, as if condemned in advance. It appears as if her sentence is being read to her. Goya remarked: "Badly done! To treat an honorable woman in this way, a woman who for nothing served everyone so well and so usefully. Badly done!"

Although the Inquisition in Goya's time was considerably less brutal and arbitary than it had been in the 17th or early 18th centuries, according to Robert Hughes 'it remained a detestable institution, a tool of ideological terror and a loathed symbol of what la legenda nera 'the black legend' of old Spain had meant. And Goya, passionate humanist that he was, invoked it with a corresponding hatred." (Robert Hughes, Goya, New York, 2003, p. 197).

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_caprichos

Norton Simon Museum, 'Caprichos: Those Specks of Dust (Aquellos polbos',  https://www.nortonsimon.org/art/detail/F.1969.04.23.G

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art     July 2017