One cannot watch is the title given by Andrés Rábago (Madrid, 1947), El Roto, to this collection of drawings executed specifically to be displayed at the Museo del Prado, where Solo la voluntad me sobra, an exhibition of Goya’s drawings, is running.

The title proposed by El Roto for this show is taken precisely from a drawing from Goya’s Sketchbook C, which is on view only a few metres directly below. The work of Goya, with whom Rábago shares the same caustically critical eye, is the point of departure for El Roto’s calm and collected in-depth reflection on the unchangeability of human stupidity and our society’s moral decline.

The works of both artists are designed to make us think, to question ourselves. They show us the real and dark side of existence. Goya produced drawings and prints with the intention of conveying his criticism of human conduct to society, and El Roto pursues a similar aim through his daily vignettes that combine images with a short but expressive text in keeping with the essential brevity of his style.

Nowadays it is common for museums to establish dialogues between artists of the past and present, and what better proof of how productive this approach is than viewing and reading these drawings by El Roto, halfway between whims and follies? A word to the wise is sufficient.