Be Careful with that Step!
1816/1820
Medium
Brush with black ink and gray and black wash on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
26.4 × 18.2 cm (10 7/16 × 7 3/16 in.)
Classification
ink and wash
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
109300
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Francisco Goya seems never to have compromised his intense feelings for humanity or his acute vision of man's vanities and vices. Dating from about 1805, Be Careful with that Step!,part of a series illustrating the follies of the young and the old, shows a girl dancing with abandon. With an astonishing economy of means (a few simple strokes of his fine-pointed brush) Goya succeeded not only in describing the materials of the girl's dress but also in capturing her quick, lively movements.
About the Artist
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes · 1746–1828
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, in the small Aragonese village of Fuendetodos, Spain, to José Benito de Goya, a master gilder, and Gracia de Lucientes. The fourth of six children in a modest lower-middle-class family, Goya received a basic education before beginning his artistic training at age 14 under the local painter José Luzán y Martínez in Zaragoza, where he sp...