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

the artist in the Sueño de la razón. The camera now shows him from a high angle
position, surrounded by drawings for his Caprichos, that is, by monsters, beasts
and strange creatures from his mind. Although Esteve’s voice sounds now
somewhat muffled, mirroring Goya’s perception of it as he covers his ears, the
viewer does not entirely adopt Goya’s point of view, but remains outside, looking
at him from above without knowing what Goya experiences during this attack.
However, the viewer can connect his mental breakdown to Goya’s beginning
political involvement, which he still denies even as he begins to realize that his
talent is not simply a gift, but a responsibility.
The next ekphrasis of the Sueño de la razón, in which this aquatint is
actually dramatized, occurs again after a fight, this time between Goya and his
mistress Cayetana. Against Goya’s will, she has decided to go hunting with
another one of her suitors. When Goya shows her his sketch of Volaverunt, which
shows her flying through the air with three men below her, she angrily destroys it
with a knife. After she has gone, Goya has another attack of deafness and
madness. He hears voices, sounds and noises, but no real sounds from the external
world, so when he destroys the room, throwing furniture out of his window,
nothing is heard. By thus aligning the viewer with Goya’s internal experience of
silence, Wolf’s cinematic ekphrasis produces viewer proximity to the character.
As Goya lies down on the floor, face down, his room is invaded by strange figures
form his paintings, mostly the Caprichos and Pinturas negras, who encircle him.
Although Goya is here not sitting at his desk in the position of the Sueño de la
razón, the scene is reminiscent of that image in that it shows the artist surrounded
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