The Golden Trident

By Addison Bruce

Artwork courtesy of Francisco Goya

In history books, we can read a page on wars and conflict throughout time but how can we learn through silent interpretation? Art during national disputes can show us a personal and in-depth experience without directly communicating anything. When we look into Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes’ exposition of his mental turmoil, we can commiserate with his struggles. Born in 1746, Goya was a Spanish romanticist artist during the Spanish Inquisition and the Peninsula War. He painted various pieces for royalty such as King Charles III and King Charles IV, starting at age 40. Three years later in 1789, he was advanced to court painter by Charles IV which was the top rank of artistry. Throughout this time, he endured an illness that left him deaf in both ears and to this day, the illness is unknown.  Due to the amount of stress and changes in his life, Goya isolated himself in what was referred to as the “Quinta del Sordo” or “The Deaf Man’s House” (due to the history of deaf tenants) and fell into a state of psychosis. This is where we see his “dark” paintings come out. It is a sudden change from light and lively art to dark and grim. He painted these dark visions and ideas everywhere inside his shack, even on the walls, and art historians still don’t know confirmation on when they were made and sometimes what they meant. 

Goya’s paintings were almost political in some sense, he was watching Spain fall and surrender to the churches instead of progressing like the rest of Europe and his paintings were a protest against it all. He wasn’t scared of being threatened by the church and he also needed a way to show his people that this is not how a cohesive nation operates. However, a motif shown throughout all of his dark paintings is the trepidation of losing his mind.

Vuelo de Brujas

 “Vuelo de Brujas” or “Witches’ Flight” is a piece where you can see two men, terrified, covering their heads and trying to hide from 3 creatures in the sky. These “figures” are witches who have just kidnapped one of the men. They are sort of gnawing on him but instead of violence as depicted in “Saturno Devorando a su Hijo” or “Saturn Devouring his Son”, they are more desirable towards the man. Most historians believe that the desire is a virtue to how dominant women were tried for witchery and this is Goya mocking that conception. Three very fascinating aspects of this painting expose many more layers to the emotions and meanings of the art. One of these aspects is the donkey in the bottom right corner of the painting. This donkey is to symbolize ignorance in society whether it be targeted towards the men, the witches, or how Spain was accusing women of being witches for a minimal reason. It also brings satirical ideation into the vision, it’s kind of as if Goya is saying “I told you so.” The second detail to point out is the hand symbols that the fleeing man is holding up. This symbol was believed to protect from the evil eye. Goya’s choice to make the man hold the gesture up instills a religious panic that was very common around the time and boldens his fear and the fact that he is human. The last and most vital feature of the painting is the triangular hats each one of the witches is wearing, called corozas. Around this period, people who had been arrested would be put in these corozas as a humiliation tactic to shame them for what they had done. Different colors and paintings on the hats showed what they were arrested for. A popular reason that they were arrested is that they weren’t catholic or under suspicion that they weren’t. The ones they are wearing in the painting have flames on them which means they are being trialed for witchery. Carmen Fernandez-Salvador has an extraordinarily written article on Goya called The Witches of Goya. It explains in depth the way that Goya depicted women, and how Spain, at the time, condemned the majority of women as witches. In paragraph 27,  Fernandez-Salvador explains how he believes that Goya was trying to commemorate the sexual differences between women and men.  He says, “the vision of the witch as a woman who had acknowledged her own desire and in doing so, had attempted to subvert the domination of patriarchal society.” I would like to believe that this man was a feminist and seeing a lot of his work, it starts to prove that idea. He is trying to show that the hats are a way to degrade the “witches” because they are threatening the hierarchy by being desirable. However, this was so uncommon for women at the time that doing things such as making their own money, not having a husband, or doing what they wanted instead of falling in line was considered a threat.

El Conjuro

In English, El Conjuro is translated to “The Incantation,” Although, the painting is referred to as “The Spell.” “The Spell” is a composition where a man in a white shirt that is draped over him, almost like a gown, is having a dream. Expanding into the depiction, you can see that this is anything but a dream. This is a nightmare full of fear and disturbing perceptions of the world that Goya is living in. There are five witches on the ground surrounding the man and a spirit in the sky holding two bones, one in each hand. The bones the spirit is wielding have been believed to be human thigh bones. Also, notice the actions of each witch. The witch on the far left is holding up a hand gesture that Jesus does in a lot of illustrations of him, three fingers up and two down. This is called the “Benediction Hand” which is a real-life deformity and got added into religious culture because Peter, one of the twelve apostles, had it. The three fingers up is a symbol of the three persons of the Holy Trinity. The two fingers down symbolize Christ was human and divine. The significance of this is that it is a mockery of the witch. They are evil beings so associating herself with a gesture that Christ does is malicious. This also depicts that during the Spanish Inquisition when citizens were forced to be catholic or be punished, religion was being used in a manipulative and malevolent way. The second witch right next to her is disturbing in multiple ways. She has a voodoo doll and is sticking a needle into it. Moving up, her face is hideous. Her facial proportions are extremely off, her teeth and mouth look underdeveloped, you can’t completely see her features, and she looks otherworldly. Above her face, you can see bats holding her hood up so make two horns to symbolize the devil. The next is reading off of a book that is never confirmed but due to the religious trends in his art, it is possible it could be a bible. The fourth witch seems to be the oldest of the witches in black. She is holding a basket of deceased babies. This element can be seen in two different ways. First, you can see it as an evil and disturbing act that is being done solely because they are witches. However, with further knowledge about Goya and his life, there are so many more sides especially because it is a theme in his other pieces such as “El Aquelarre” (Witches’ Sabbath). Goya fathered 7 children and only 1 lived past infancy. The man in white could be Goya himself and the basket of babies is him being reminded of the guilt even in sleep, he cannot escape it. The witch creeping onto the man as if she is blessing him is in a yellow cloak. Yellow in religion is a symbol of renewal and purity and while purity is probably a mockery of the witch, the renewal could be genuine. She might think she is doing him a favor and cleansing him however they would. Furthermore, this is a depiction of the fear-mongering and manipulation being off put from the church. 

Fraile Hablando con una Vieja

“Fraile Hablando con una Vieja” translated to English is “Friar Talking to an Old Woman,” historians call it “Monk Talking to an Old Woman.” In this painting, we are very close to two people’s faces, one being a frightened old woman and the other being a monk, as said in the title. The monk looks like he is actively preaching to the woman, almost yelling. The background is black which brings attention to their expressions but makes the setting ominous. In an article by Fundacion Goya En Aragon, they mention that “Two Monks” was painted on the wall next to “Monk Talking to an Old Woman.” “Two Monks” is another one of Goyas’ pieces that displays the same behavior of yelling into the other person’s ears. Because of that painting, researchers have guessed that it was an expression of how he was losing his mind. I believe these two paintings are correlated because this could be how he imagines people would see him if he ever did go insane. He is terrified of being seen in such a negative notation but feeding into that fixation is making it inevitable. It displays internal shame from Goya and more importantly, fear. Another way we could interpret “Fraile Hablando con una Vieja” is the monk telling the old woman an absurdity. It is common even nowadays that people automatically trust people devoted to religion and since Spain was in such a religious headlock, the manipulation was even worse then. No matter what the monk said, the old woman would believe it. We can see this piece as the monk abusing his power and using fear to make the woman against whatever (or whoever) she was looking towards. Referring back to the innocent women being arrested and killed for being “witches,” if the monk or a religious figure accused them of being a witch, there was zero discussion about it. If they thought you were a witch, you were. So, this piece could be a political statement on the credulity of the citizens of Spain. The reason I am depicting it in such a way is because of the dark era as well as the coloring. The monks’ eyes are dark and sunken in. This is not something that reflects religion positively. Goya has a talent for delineating emotions in such a powerful way and because of that, you can almost feel her fear and his aggression from the piece.

Goya has such an aptitude for artistic expression. He found a way to put all the miserable feelings into his art, yet they never went away. The raw emotions exhibit his mental instability due to the political state of Spain. He was living at such a horrific time and his feelings are parallel with a lot of Americans since the election. His nation was being overturned and restricted with religion, every country around him was progressing while they were regressing, and people who weren’t manipulating themselves into this narrative were being killed. Sound familiar?