They've already got a seat

CATALOGUE ENTRY

In the late 1790s Francisco Goya, Spain’s leading painter, turned to printmaking as an outlet for more personal and imaginative subjects.  Los caprichos, the first of his four great etched series, uses fantasy and satire to draw attention to human follies and vices. The images, which resist clear interpretation, extend the tradition of etched capriccio, no doubt inspired by Giambattista Tiepolo’s Scherzi di fantasia.

Created in a climate of political instability, Goya’s eighty plates also provide veiled social criticism of the times, alluding to greed, corruption, foolishness and evil, particularly amongst the clergy and aristocracy.  In this respect Goya may have been encouraged by British satirical prints.

They’ve already got a seat is one of the more amusingly absurd images from Los caprichos.  Young girls with petticoats and chairs on their head are oblivious to the laughter of men in the background.  It seems to refer to the silliness of some young girls and may be an ironic play on the Spanish expression “sentar la cabeza” (to seat one’s head) which meant to be sensibly organised.

Goya, like Dürer and Rembrandt, is one of the great printmakers in Western art, and like the latter explored dark tonality in his etchings.  Los caprichos is remarkable for his mastery of the relatively new medium of aquatint to create heightened chiaroscuro effects.

Julie Robinson, Five Centuries of Genius: European Master Printmaking, Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2000, p.76.