'Barbarous Entertainment', a blind guitarist on the horns of a bull
1800–1804 (published 1828–67)
Medium
Etching, aquatint, drypoint on laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 6 15/16 × 8 5/8 in. (17.7 × 21.9 cm) Sheet: 12 3/8 × 14 7/8 in. (31.4 × 37.8 cm) Sheet (Unfolded sheet): 12 3/8 × 17 13/16 in. (31.4 × 45.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1918
Accession Number
18.42.2
Tags
Art Historical Context
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, the visionary Spanish artist of the late 18th early 19th centuries, a scene of grotesque absurdity in *Barbarous Entertainment*, created between 1800 and 1804 but published much later, from 1828 to 1867. This etching depicts a blind guitarist precariously on the horns of a bull, evoking the perilous spectacles of Spanish bullfighting. Goya, a master satirist and Romantic pioneer, often used such imagery to critique societal follies, violence, and human vulnerability during Spain's turbulent Napoleonic era. Printed on laid paper using etching for precise lines, a...
About the Artist
Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) · 1746–1828
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) was a Spanish painter and printmaker considered the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Rising from modest provincial origins to become First Court Painter to Charles IV, Goya's career spanned the Enlightenment's optimism and the brutal Napoleonic invasion that shattered it. A mysterious illness in 1793 left him permanently deaf and ...