Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

struggle with himself and his internal demons, but he emphasizes the artist’s
victory over them. However, Feuchtwanger also participates at another level in
this battle between the artist and his demons. His ekphrastic transposition of this
scene of the creation of the Sueño de la razón conveys a power to the artist that he
does not have in Goya’s original aquatint. It is thus only through Feuchtwanger’s
ekphrasis that Goya can claim his victory. In other words, this ekphrasis not only
demonstrates the painter’s power, but also that of the author over the painter
By contrast, in Konrad Wolf’s film two of the three ekphrases of Goya’s
Sueño de la razón are responses to political situations and have no direct
correspondence to episodes in the novel. Another scene in which this aquatint is
dramatized occurs after a fight between Goya and Cayetana and thus has a more
personal, private dimension. In all three cases, however, the demons originate not
within but outside of Goya, and the artist is their helpless victim.
The first ekphrasis of the Sueño de la razón is a brief tableau vivant, that
is, an interpretive ekphrasis, rather than a dramatic one. Goya has a fight with his
aide and friend Agustin Esteve about his un-political stance in which Esteve
criticizes Goya for painting only to please his commissioners. Accusing him of
vanity and denigrating his paintings as “effektvollen Dreck” (“effect-seeking
dirt”), Esteve emphasizes that precisely because of his greater talent, his “lies” are
also more dangerous than those of other painters. Goya, however, gets very angry
at his aide and takes great offense at his words, but instead of arguing with him,
he in turn offends him. In the middle of his raving anger, Goya suffers from a
mental attack, and, covering his ears, he sits down at his desk, in the position of
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