After vice comes fornication (Tras el vicio viene el fornicio), Plate 4 of Los disparates
About this artwork
Unlike Goya’s other series of prints, Los Disparates were not directed against a particular social or political evil, but were largely pessimistic comments on human life in general - its follies and absurdities. This strange image possibly alludes to the idea that if we could see our vices, they would be ugly and terrifying to us. In the foreground a petrified man cowers behind a woman who is scared rigid. The large figure towering over them is smiling and playing the castanets, looking foolish and vulgar. He is accompanied by nightmarish howling creatures and perhaps represents a personification of the couple’s own vice and depravity.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Francisco de Goya (1746 - 1828) Spanish
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title:After vice comes fornication (Tras el vicio viene el fornicio), Plate 4 of Los disparates
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date created:Etched about 1815–1824; published 1864
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materials:Etching, burnished aquatint, burin and drypoint (?) on paper
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measurements:Plate mark: 24.50 x 35.00 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 1959
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accession number:P 2435.5
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gallery:
Francisco de Goya
Francisco de Goya
Goya, born in Fuendetodos, Zaragoza, Spain, was an original and enigmatic artist, equally gifted as a painter and printmaker. His appointment in 1786 as painter to the Spanish King Charles IV followed a period in Madrid where he had moved from the north east of Spain. Goya's reputation was built on...