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

is an extended tableau vivant that represents Goya’s Capricho 43 by dramatizing
the situation depicted in that aquatint. Goya repeatedly feels besieged by strange
creatures: “Um ihn hockte es, flog es, spukhaft, katzenköpfig, eulenäugig,
fledermauslfügelig” (Goya 402). 79 But as is implied in the aquatint, in which an
owl tenders a pen to the man at the table, with the help of painting, he manages to
dominate those creatures:
Mit furchtbarer Anstrengung riß er sich zusammen, griff zum Stift. Warf
sie aufs Papier, die bösen Geister. Da waren sie. Und da er sie auf dem
Papier sah, wurde er ruhiger. An diesem Tag, am nächsten und am
übernächsten, ein zweites, ein drittes Mal und immer öfter, ließ er sie aus
sich heraus, die Gespenster, aufs Papier. So hielt er sie fest, so wurde er
sie los. Wenn sie übers Papier krochen und flogen, waren sie nicht mehr
gefährlich. (Goya 402). 80
Feuchtwanger interprets Goya’s Sleep of Reason here as image to be
overcome by an image of awakened reason. This tableau vivant thus implies a
visual sequence that extends Goya’s original aquatint to an image in which the
man has taken the pen from the owl and used it to dominate the nightmarish
creatures around him. Goya’s Capricho 43 is thus represented as implying the
possibility of banning the demons by putting them on paper. Moreover, the quote
above also emphasizes the repeated or continuing preoccupation with this
transition from the threat as depicted in Goya’s image to banishing the menacing
creatures.
79 “It [the nightmare of despair] squatted by him, flew about, spectral, cat-headed, owl-eyed, batwinged”
(This Is 364).
80 “With a fearful effort he pulled himself together, seized a pencil Dashed them down on paper,
the evil sprits. There they were. He spent almost a whole week alone in his bare rooms with his
ghosts. He did not shut his eyes against the demons, did not through himself across the table to
hide his head from them. He looked them in the face, held onto them till they had revealed
themselves to him fully, then forced them and his fear and madness onto paper. ” (This Is 364)
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