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

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This dialectic is also mirrored in the two self-portraits within this series.<br />

<strong>The</strong> opening pl<strong>at</strong>e shows the stern-looking artist in pr<strong>of</strong>ile, dressed as a bourgeois<br />

gentleman, and identified in the caption as “Fran. co Goya y Lucientes / Pintor”<br />

(“Francisco Goya y Lucientes / Painter”). His piercing look sideways <strong>at</strong> the<br />

viewer underscores his st<strong>at</strong>us as keen, unrelenting observer and s<strong>at</strong>irist. 88 By<br />

contrast, the second self-portrait, Capricho 43, El sueño de la razón produce<br />

monstruos (<strong>The</strong> Sleep <strong>of</strong> Reason Produces Monsters), portrays the sleeping artist<br />

<strong>at</strong> his desk, conjuring up all sorts <strong>of</strong> nightmare cre<strong>at</strong>ures in his dream, which<br />

surround him. Here, “artistic cre<strong>at</strong>ivity is linked with the fantastic and visionary”<br />

(Schulz 11). 89<br />

Capricho 43 is <strong>of</strong>ten seen as key to the whole series, and its interpret<strong>at</strong>ion<br />

frequently stands in for the meaning <strong>of</strong> the rest <strong>of</strong> the etchings. 90 For example,<br />

López-Rey claims th<strong>at</strong> the caption within pl<strong>at</strong>e 43, El sueño de la razon produce<br />

monstruos, “is just as much an opening for the second part as it is a commentary<br />

on the first” (136). However, the etching has been used for two opposing<br />

interpret<strong>at</strong>ions, and the Caprichos have consequently been claimed as<br />

representing either a Romanticist position th<strong>at</strong> criticizes the doctrine <strong>of</strong> reason, or<br />

88 <strong>The</strong> commentary on this etching from the manuscript which is now in the Biblioteca Nacional<br />

in Madrid in fact reads: “Verdadero retr<strong>at</strong>o suyo, de mal humor y gesto s<strong>at</strong>írico” (qtd. in Edith<br />

Helman, El trasmundo de Goya [Madrid: Alianza, 1983], 213.) (“True portrait <strong>of</strong> himself, in bad<br />

humor and with s<strong>at</strong>irical expression.”).<br />

89 Susanne Schlünder has also pointed out the bipolar role <strong>of</strong> the author as manifested in those two<br />

self-portraits, which she sees as complimenting each other, <strong>of</strong>fering a view, respectively, <strong>of</strong> the<br />

internal and external n<strong>at</strong>ure <strong>of</strong> artistic cre<strong>at</strong>ion, the artist as public figure and priv<strong>at</strong>e person. See.<br />

Karnevaleske Körperwelten Francisco Goyas. Zur Intermedialität der Caprichos (Tübingen:<br />

Stauffenburg Verlag, 2002), 125.<br />

90 See, for example, Edith Helman, Los Caprichos de Goya (Estella, Navarra: Salv<strong>at</strong><br />

Editores/Alianza Editorial, 1971), 113 and José López-Rey, Goya’s Caprichos: Beauty, Reason &<br />

Caric<strong>at</strong>ure, Vol 1 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1953, reptd. 1970), 136.<br />

72

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