Goya at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum

(I can't illustrate this post with my own photos because the prints in question were behind glass that gave off too many reflections. Instead I'm using public domain illustrations from Wikipedia.)

I'm not that fond of Goya as a painter, except for his Black Paintings, which I'm very much looking forward to seeing at the Prado. As a maker of prints, though, wow. There have been other great satiric printmakers -- Hogarth and Daumier come to mind -- but nobody can match Goya for nightmarish grotesquerie. 

I wasn't even aware of the series called Los Disparates (The Follies) until I saw it at the museum today. It was the last series of prints Goya ever created; and he created it near the end of his life when he was holed up, deaf and fearing for his sanity, in the same little house on the walls of which he painted the Black Paintings. 

Scholars seem to be divided on the meanings of these images, despite each having a potentially helpful title. Of those I've included in this post, the first is called "Simpleton's Folly," the second "A Mode of Flying," and the third "Cruel Folly."

Goya's best-known print series are Los Caprichos (Caprices) and Los desastres de la guerra (Disasters of War). In my opinion, Los Disparates ought to be equally well-known.