Dream of Some Men Who Were Eating Us
1796 - 1797. Pencil, Iron gall ink on laid paper. Not on displayPreparatory drawing for the etching Capricho 13. They are Hot (G02101). This work is one of twenty-six pen drawings that make up the Dreams series on which the Caprichos were based. Both the preliminary and preparatory drawings differ in some ways from the final print. While the first version of Drawing 63 from the Madrid Album (Jolly Caricature -obverse D04369)- is much harsher in its criticism -it is a version not intended for public consumption- the work is increasingly self-censored as the creative process advances. In a second drawing that belongs to the Dreams series, the enormous phallic nose is eliminated although slight references to its origin remain, and the other caricatural elements remain, including stupid and sarcastic faces and gluttonous poses. Thus, its anti-monastic critical stance is preserved. And it is further reinforced by Goya’s own brief note on this drawing, Dream of Some Men Who Were Eating Us, which clearly alludes to the heavy burden that this unproductive institution imposes on society. The mark of the copper plate indicates that Goya used this drawing to transfer the composition’s main lines to it. During the engraving process, he made state proofs to test the work and adjust it as need be. One example is the state proof of Capricho 13, in which the aquatint of the foreground monk’s habit has not yet been burnished to obtain the white highlights that add volume to the figure and appear in the definitive print. Curiously, the sexual character of the first drawing, which is lost in the later Dream and in the definitive print, is recovered through the inclusion of the title: They are Hot. Contemporary handwritten comments already identified the protagonists with monks and their vices. Thus, the Museo del Prado’s commentary reads: They are so eager to gobble them up that they swallow them when they are boiling. Temperance and moderation are necessary even when taking one’s pleasure. As usual, the Biblioteca Nacional’s manuscript is more sarcastic: The stupid Friars stuff themselves in their dining halls while laughing at the world; It’s hardly surprising, then, that they are so hot!. Both commentaries explicitly allude to the friars’ lack of self-control, and the drawing from the Madrid Album makes it clear that Goya was referring not only to gluttony, but also to lechery. And even at that time, the term hot had a sexual meaning. As Esteban Terrero observed in his Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes (Castilian Dictionary with Science and Art Terms. Madrid, 1786-93:) Hot [alludes] to female animals who are in heat, and also to whoever is burning with passion. In that period’s slang, to be hot could also imply having drunk too much alcohol. Goya does not attempt to represent something he actually saw and then deformed, as was the case in other prints. Instead, his friars are fantastic figures drawn from dreams, as that is precisely what best conveys the critical and satirical mood he seeks to generate in the viewer. Goya may well have been influenced, in that sense, by English satirical prints, which were widely known in Europe. He may have seen such works at Sebastián Martínez’s house in Cadiz, or at the Moratín library, which he had recently visited in England. But unlike William Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson or James Gillray, whose prints were quite specific in their criticism, Goya offers a more general satire of the Church’s vices and corruption, its gluttony and sexual appetites. The Museo del Prado has a series of pieces related to Dream 25 (D04232 / G01933 / G02101 / G00682 / D04369-obverse)-, and the Calcografía Nacional in Madrid has a copper place with a steel electrolyte coating from the same series (219 x 153 mm, 512.30 g. No. 3439). In terms of appearance, the drawing bears the mark of the plate, which was left by the process of transferring the image to the 218 x 153 mm copper plate, as well as some vertical frisket holes (Text drawn from Matilla, J. M., Caricatura alegre / Sueño 25. Sueño de unos hombres que se nos comían / Están calientes, in Matilla, J. M. and Mena Marqués, M. (dir.), Goya: Luces y Sombras, Barcelona: Fundación La Caixa, Barcelona: Obra Social La Caixa-Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2012, pp. 136-137).