Los Proverbios. Colección de diez y ocho láminas inventadas y grabadas al agua fuerte

Details

Delteil 202-219; Harris 248-265.

Descrizione

The complete set in the rare 3rd edition of 1891, printed in dark brown ink with the number at the top right. Published by the “Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando” in Madrid. All sheets in uniform paper format with wide margins around the platemark, this copy without title leaf.
In this series, Goya shows us the world as a madhouse in terms of content and formally as a chaos of light and dark masses, which are artistically tamed and given shape in the Engraving. But the human figures are often dehumanised, animals and monsters gain power over them, devour them, abduct them. These follies, follies and absurdities … “are not just those of a bygone 18th century society. They are still in us today, in the mental abysses of human nature, from which they repeatedly burst forth as desires, longings, hopes, cruelties, fears and feelings” (Gäßler p. 160). This unsparing and at the same time imaginative examination of human and inhuman facets makes Goya a pioneer of modernism. – Paper slightly wavy, some sheets minimally darkened at the edges, one sheet on the reverse with finger stains, sheet 13 with blue chalk, otherwise in good condition.