Goya blogging - "The dream of reason"

The title of this print by Francisco de Goya appears in the lower left of the image itself, "El sueño de la razón produce monstruos" (The dream of reason brings forth monsters). It was part of an 80-piece set of prints released in 1799 called "Los caprichos". I particularly like the wild-eyed, cat-like creature in the lower right. The angry owls are pretty cool, too.

The art critics probably call this "an expression of the Romantic spirit" or some such. Freud probably liked it because it shows reason taking a hike in sleep and letting the re-imaged inhabitants of the id swarm.

Carlos Fuentes in his book El Espejo Enterrado (1992) says that he likes to think of it picturing Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos y Ramírez (1744-1811), or just plain Jovellanos, for short. Goya painted Jovellanos a couple of times, including one in 1798 (see below).

Fuentes sees Jovellanos as kind of a Spanish Benjamin Franklin, the chief advocate of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, in the Spain of his day. Jovellanos got to do some constructive things as a judge, writer and educator under the Enlightened Despot King Carlos III, the Bourbon monarch who reigned 1759-1788. Unfortunately, Carlos III was succeded by his son Carlos IV, who was just a despot without much of the "enlightened" part.


Carlos IV basically turned over his government to Don Manuel de Godoy, who won his position as first minister due to his amorous relationship with Carlos IV's queen, María Louisa. Godoy also had a wife and a mistress. It's a wonder he found time to take part in politics at all. Carlos IV rather perversely called Godoy "the prince of peace", perhaps reflecting the intensity of his wife's insistence on the appointment of her paramour.

Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos y Ramírez by Francisco de Goya (1798)

Godoy brought Jovellanos into his government in a devious political move and then proceeded to persecute and arrest his followers. It was in this situation that Goya painted him in 1798, before Jovellanos' own arrest. (Jovellos was eventually arrested himself and sent to prison. When Napoleon took over Spain, he was released. But he supported the anti-French independence movement and died of a heart attack in flight from the French.)

In Fuentes' take on the "dream of reason" print, the man depicted is Jovellanos, having fallen asleep just after the scene captured in the 1798 portrait. The dream of enlightened progress, illuminated by Reason, is being hijacked by predatory creatures and his reason is being sucked away ("vampirizada", a great word). Fuentes writes of the image:

Pero acoso la razón, cuando olvida sus propios límites y deja de comportarse críticamente en relación con sí misma y con su hija, el progreso, merece esta pesadilla. Acoso sólo el sueño de los monstruos produce la razón.

[But in the final analysis, reason, when it forgets its own limits and ceases to conduct itself critically in relation to itself and to its daughter, progress, deserves this nightmare. In the end, only the dream of monsters brings forth reason.]

You know, I'm not entirely sure what Fuentes means by that last sentence. But, darn, it sure sounds good!

Tags: carlos fuentes, godot, goya, jovellanos

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