Art Institute of Chicago

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, plate 43 from Los Caprichos

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Date

1797/99

Medium

Etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper

Culture

Spain

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Hovering between the grotesque and the comical, Francisco de Goya’s series Los caprichos ( Whims or Fantasies ) consists of 80 etchings satirizing Spanish society during the late 18th century. For this iconic image, which may have been intended as the title page of the series, Goya represented himself as an artist who has fallen asleep at his drawing table. In the background are his nightmares, the macabre tormenters that pervade the rest of these prints.

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