The Proverbs: If Marion Will Dance, Then She Has to Take the Consequences
Medium
etching and aquatint
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Grover Higgins
Accession Number
1928.102.12
Tags
Latine and Hispanic Artistsmale
About this artwork
The freewheeling, lascivious dancers in Goya’s composion keep time with castanets, pairs of shell-shaped wooden clappers attached to the thumb and index finger. The erotic connotations of castanets dated from antiquity, when they were depicted in vase paintings in association with the cult of the goddess Cybele and the Dionysian rites. According to Martin Mersenne’s treatise, Les Preludes de l’harmonie universelle (1636), castanets were used to accompany the saraband, a fast folk dance considere...