Francisco de Goya (b. 1746, Fuentedetodos)

Los Disparates no. 13. A Way of Flying 

ca. 1815-16 etching, aquatint, drypoint. Sheet 33.5 x 48.5 cm; plate 24.5 x 35.3 cm.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, marked as public domain.

These figures gliding through the night sky are satirical metaphors for the bitter debate amongst Goya’s contemporaries about freedom and equality.  With bird-heads helmets and wings attached to their hands and feet, they expose the stupidity of comparing these ideals with trying to fly.  They also evoke popular spectacles featuring hot-air balloons and parachutes.  In an age before aeroplanes, people were astounded by showmen like the clockmaker Jacques Degen, who took off “like a bird” by flapping “two artificial wings made of small pieces of paper joined together by the final silk.”