A preparatory drawing for Disparates, 6, Cruel Folly. The title of the plate comes from an artist’s proof now at the Museo Lázaro Galdeano in Madrid. Before this state proof with the handwritten title, Cruel Folly came to light, Beruete and Camón Aznar called the plate Foolish Fury because of its protagonist’s appearance. They described him as a furious man with bulging eyes and hair standing on end who has knocked down one man with a monkey’s face and is now holding a pike with which he is about to attack another who is prepared to repel that aggression. The other figures appear either contrite or frightened and various are leaving with bowed heads, as they understand that there is no way this is going to end well. Despite being one of the drawings with the clearest graphic definition, it was significantly modified after its transfer to the engraving plate (G02174). There, the scene becomes nocturnal and the soldier’s shed turns into a ruinous wall on the outskirts of the city, while the figure in the foreground now holds a rifle. At first he held a pike, as he does in the drawing, but Goya added thick strokes of red chalk to suggest the form of the rifle butt and trigger guard. The engraving also has an added figure dramatically entangled in the protagonist’s his legs, while the man who had fallen to the ground amidst other figures in the drawing’s central group has now disappeared. Finally, the man at the right of the drawing, with his head bowed and his hands in his pockets, has been transformed into a cloaked figure that mysteriously turns his back on the furious protagonist. Cloaked figures like the one on the right are customary in Goya’s work, especially in his Caprichos, and they are always associated with lies and irrationality, just as male figures with their hands on their waist and their legs spread have been associated with sexual relaxation—for example in the print titled And his house burns (G02106), or various drawings, including Three Gentlemen and Three Ladies Dancing (D04376) and Blind Man in Love with his Filly (D04044). As with the other Disparates, it is difficult to explain the print’s subject. Valeriano Bozal considers it a street fight: yet another tense, furious depiction of violent emotions and of violence itself, an image of one aspect of everyday life made universal by the location and its darkness. (Text from: Matilla, J.M.: Disparate cruel, in: Goya en tiempos de Guerra, Madrid, Museo del Prado, 2008).