The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

Plate 43 of Goya's Caprichos series, etched 1797-99. The artist sleeps slumped at his desk while bats and owls and a watching cat converge from the shadows. The inscription on the desk's edge reads, in Spanish: 'The sleep of reason produces monsters.' Goya was 53, deaf for seven years, disillusioned with the court he had served for two decades. The set was withdrawn within days. The Inquisition was already investigating him. Now at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid @rabasf