Meaning of Francisco Goya’s Los Disparates
In the shadowy world of Francisco Goya’s late works, few series are as haunting, cryptic as Los Disparates, also known as The Follies or The Proverbs. Conceived during one of the darkest periods in both Goya’s life and Spanish history, Los Disparates is a body of work that defies easy classification, bursting forth with grotesque imagery, surreal compositions, and psychological intensity. It is a masterful series that blends political critique, personal despair, and symbolic ambiguity, painted by a man who had seen too much of war, madness, and the human condition.
Let us take a deep dive into the twisted brilliance of Los Disparates, its background, themes, symbolism, artistic style, and legacy.
What Is Los Disparates?
Los Disparates (Spanish for “The Follies” or “The Absurdities”) is a series of 22 prints by Spanish master Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. The works were created between 1815 and 1823, during Goya’s later years, though they remained unpublished during his lifetime. The series was finally published in 1864 by the Royal Academy of San Fernando, decades after the artist’s death.
Each etching in the series is enigmatic and surreal, filled with strange figures, unnatural beasts, nightmarish visions, and absurd scenarios. Unlike Goya’s earlier works such as Los Caprichos (1799) or The Disasters of War (1810–1820), which had clearer socio-political targets and allegorical meanings, Los Disparates is deeply symbolic, obscure, and dreamlike. The narratives are disjointed, and the compositions feel like fractured glimpses into an irrational world.
A Posthumous Addition
Interestingly, Goya did not title these works himself. The names we use today, such as Disparate femenino (“Feminine Folly”) or Disparate cruel (“Cruel Folly”), were assigned by the Royal Academy at the time of their publication. This only deepens the mystery, as interpretations are filtered through the lens of a different era and authority.
The Historical and Personal Context of Los Disparates
To understand Los Disparates, we must enter the psychological landscape of Francisco Goya in the early 19th century.
By the time he began the series, Goya was an old man, deaf from illness since the late 1790s, and emotionally battered by the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars and the repression that followed in Spain. His early career as a court painter had long since given way to a more personal, introspective, and often critical vision of society. The Spain of Goya’s later years was one of political instability, absolutist backlash, and social injustice.
Goya’s deafness had isolated him. He had experienced war, seen executions, lived under censorship, and become deeply disillusioned with human nature. These feelings manifested visually in his famous Black Paintings, a series of 14 murals painted directly onto the walls of his home, La Quinta del Sordo (“The House of the Deaf Man”), and in Los Disparates, which may be considered a print equivalent of that visual descent into darkness.
In these prints, Goya didn’t just depict folly, he lived it, felt it, and critiqued it.
How Was Los Disparates Painted?
Technically, Los Disparates is a series of etchings with aquatint, occasionally combined with drypoint and engraving. These are intaglio printmaking methods where images are incised into a metal plate and then printed onto paper.
Etching: Goya used a needle to draw through a wax-covered plate, which was then dipped in acid to bite into the exposed metal.
Aquatint: To create tonal areas rather than just lines, Goya dusted the plate with powdered resin, melted it, and then used acid to create various shades of darkness and light.
Drypoint: This involves scratching the plate directly with a sharp needle, creating a rich, velvety texture.
Engraving: Occasionally, Goya used traditional engraving techniques for more defined lines.
This technical versatility allowed Goya to evoke atmosphere, drama, and a sense of mystery. His figures often emerge from shadow, their outlines trembling between being and non-being, visually echoing the madness they represent.
Unlike his earlier, cleaner compositions, these works are murky and heavily shadowed, mimicking a kind of dream (or nightmare) state. His mastery of chiaroscuro (the contrast between light and dark) heightens the emotional tension in each print.
What Is Happening in Los Disparates?
Each print in Los Disparates presents a bizarre or unsettling scene, disconnected from narrative logic, as if pulled from the subconscious mind.
Some examples include:
Disparate femenino: A woman floats eerily in mid-air, surrounded by men in feathered hats who seem to worship or fear her. Is she a goddess? A symbol of temptation?
Disparate cruel: A monstrous figure prepares to execute another figure, blindfolded and passive. Is this a metaphor for tyranny?
Disparate de miedo (“Folly of Fear”): A man cowers before a giant anthropomorphic beast, perhaps fear itself made flesh.
Disparate volante (“Flying Folly”): A group of people appears to fly through the air, possibly mocking humanity’s dreams of ascension or exposing the ridiculousness of delusions.
There are no explanatory captions or clear allegories. The viewer is left to make sense of the chaos, much like a dreamer struggling to recall a nightmare. This ambiguity is deliberate, it pulls the audience into Goya’s psychological and emotional space, forcing them to interpret their own version of “folly.”
Symbolism and Meaning in Los Disparates
The symbolism in Los Disparates is rich and polysemic, meaning it can carry multiple meanings simultaneously. While interpretations vary, several themes consistently emerge.
1. Folly and Madness
The central theme is “disparate”, folly, absurdity, irrationality. Goya portrays a world where logic has broken down, and people behave with blindness or cruelty. These “follies” range from societal to personal: lust, violence, fear, superstition, and delusion. The series is a scathing critique of human behavior, but also a poignant reflection on mental instability.
2. Superstition and Religious Hypocrisy
Several prints feature demonic figures, witches, and supernatural elements, continuing Goya’s long-standing interest in satirizing religious superstition. These are not playful fantasies but grotesque manifestations of cultural irrationality.
3. Repression and Tyranny
Some works, like Disparate cruel, may be subtle indictments of political repression, torture, and state violence. Goya had lived through the Inquisition and the brutal rule of Ferdinand VII. His vision of cruelty was not abstract, it was based on lived experience.
4. Sex and Gender
Several Disparates explore themes of seduction, dominance, and power struggles between men and women. For instance, the floating female figure in Disparate femenino may represent female autonomy or male fear of female power.
5. Dreams and Nightmares
The logic of the series is not rational, it is dreamlike, filled with disjointed symbolism. Goya anticipated surrealism by a century, capturing the darkness of the human subconscious. Salvador Dalí and André Breton would later cite Goya as a proto-surrealist.
What Type of Art Is Los Disparates?
Los Disparates defies strict classification. It is best described as:
Romanticism, due to its emotional intensity and interest in the irrational.
Proto-Expressionism, with its dark tones, grotesque forms, and psychological focus.
Proto-Surrealism, in its dream logic, absurdity, and nightmarish imagery.
Satirical Art, albeit in a deeply ambiguous and somber register.
It bridges Enlightenment rationalism and modern existentialism. It is a warning, a lament, and a puzzle, all wrapped in shadows.
Where Is Los Disparates Located Today?
Goya’s original plates for Los Disparates are held by the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, Spain, which published the first edition in 1864. Original impressions of the prints exist in major museums and collections around the world, including:
Museo del Prado, Madrid
The British Museum, London
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Louvre, Paris
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
Since the prints were made using copper plates and printed in editions, there are multiple high-quality impressions housed in various institutions, but no “single painting” of Los Disparates exists as a unified artwork.
It is not one painting but a series of etchings, each a self-contained world, yet all linked by mood and theme.
Influence of Los Disparates
Although unpublished in his lifetime, Los Disparates has had a profound impact on modern art.
Expressionists, such as Käthe Kollwitz and George Grosz, drew inspiration from Goya’s dark visions and social critiques.
Surrealists hailed Goya as a forerunner of their movement. His irrational images, dreamscapes, and grotesques directly influenced the likes of Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí.
Psychoanalysts, particularly followers of Freud, have interpreted the series as a visual embodiment of unconscious fears and desires.
Modern viewers continue to find Los Disparates both disturbing and compelling. The lack of resolution, the ambiguity, the sheer strangeness, they invite personal reflection, not just historical analysis.
Goya’s Mirror of Madness
Francisco Goya’s Los Disparates is not merely an art series, it is a descent into the chaotic heart of human folly. Painted in the aftermath of war and repression, it reflects a world where the line between sanity and madness has dissolved. It is a prophetic work that sees into the darkness of the modern soul, anticipating 20th-century horrors and artistic revolutions alike.
Even today, as we face our own absurdities, political upheaval, social cruelty, and the irrationalities of mass behavior, Goya’s Disparates feel chillingly relevant.
In these etchings, Goya held up a mirror, not just to 19th-century Spain, but to us all.
