Los disparates

Los disparates (The Follies), also known as Proverbios (Proverbs) or Sueños (Dreams), is a series of prints in etching and aquatint, with retouching in drypoint and engraving, created by Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya between 1815 and 1823.

The first would have to have been made immediately upon the completion of La Tauromaquia since in the drawing album that the critic Cean Bermudez had, and which is preserved in the British Museum, the state proof of disparates no.

In addition, the investigations of Jesusa Vega, confirm that the copper plates and the type of paper of the Disparates are the same and belong to the same batch as those used in La Tauromaquia.

[7] Valeriano Bozal and other authors, such as Dr. Vega herself, dated the series between 1815 or 1816 and 1819,[8][5] in which, due to the serious illness he suffered, he interrupted the work, which he would not resume and dedicated himself completely to the Black Paintings at his farm in the Quinta del Sordo.

On the other hand, the satirical charge, violence and buried sexuality of these prints would collide with the Fernandian absolutism of the restoration between 1814 and the Liberal Triennium of Rafael del Riego in 1820.

[10] In any case, it was difficult for such a work to bring him significant economic benefits, given that La Tauromaquia (a series with a more popular theme and therefore with greater commercial possibilities) did not sell as well as expected.

Two years later they were in the possession of Jaime Machén, who in 1856 attempted to sell them to the Spanish administration, which was not achieved until 1862, when these eighteen were acquired by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, which they published in 1864, in a circulation of three hundred and sixty copies[8] in the workshop of Laurenciano Poderno, with the title of Proverbs.

[14] Critics such as Charles Yriarte (among others),[15] saw the series as a continuation of Los Caprichos and with the latest prints of The Disasters of War, the so-called "emphatic caprices".

[16][17] In the 20th century, avant-garde and expressionist artists, such as Paul Klee or Emil Nolde, highlighted the "modernity" of the Disparates, although their interpretations were highly subjective.

[19] Nigel Glendinning[20] relates many of the motifs to the tradition of the carnival,[8] a line of research suggested by Ramón Gómez de la Serna.

This satire of the establishment, perhaps a simple Goyesque mockery, is repeated in Carnaval foll (#16) where a military man is seen in the centre of the crowd asleep, possibly drunk or unconscious, but unquestionably presented as ridiculous.

"The exhortations" (#16), has been interpreted as a reflection on infidelity in which a woman holds a man who is leaving, and who in turn is advised or rebuked by a character who appears to be dressed as a priest.

Another episode of fleeing or escape is presented in Poor folly (#11),[26] or at least flight of a beautiful young woman from a pale character - which has been suggested as a representation of death — and another with tousled hair.