In 1797, he first arranged the etchings that he did
after the drawings in his sketchbooks, in sequence and
entitled, Sueños, which means "dreams".
4
Sensing that the images he presented were too
aggressive, he removed the most damaging prints, mixed
up their order and published them under the name of Los
Caprichos in 1799. That first edition was composed of
eighty plates, and was divided into two sections, each
with a self-portrait of Goya. He titled each print and
included a commentary that most believe was composed by
a friend.
5 Caprichos was a common
word of the time that referred to things of imagination,
spontaneity, and creativity, and which are not bound by
any restrictions. This would be an appropriate
description of Goya's collection of satirizing prints.
Often punchy and enigmatic to the viewer, each print in
the collection presents its own puzzle. A. Hyatt Mayor
has also said that capricho could refer to a goat, or
capra, that instead of grazing safely on the grass in
the valley, meanders carelessly on the cliffs above.
6
Perhaps this is descriptive of the chances that Goya
took with publishing this series of prints. He did
indeed pull the prints from the press an extremely short
time after it was advertized, apparently because the
powers behind the Inquisition strongly disapproved of
its message.
7
In 1803, Goya gave the plates and the unsold copies
of the book to the king in hopes of somehow preserving
his work. "Volaverunt" was Number 61 in the original
Caprichos. Wake Forest has three states of the print,
differences are minor from one state to the next. The
word was a common one in Spain, derived from Latin, that
was used to "express goodhumoredly the total loss of
something".
8 In response to the
image it refers to, it creates quite a unusual print.
Goya himself described the print:
"The group of witches who serve as a pedestal
to this stylish fool is more of an ornament than a need.
There are heads so swollen with inflammable gas that
they can fly without being helped by a balloon or by
witches." The "stylish fool" as many have recognized is
the Duchess of Alba. A female companion to Goya earlier
in his life, she ends their relationship on a less than
cordial note. Goya has focused on her image, therefore,
in order to represent the idea of women as inconstant
and fickle.
9 In flight with a
horde of witches under her, she seems oblivious to the
desires or needs of others, and also perhaps even
unaware of her own.”
1. Sayre, 1974, 2. 2. Sayre, 54. 3. Seidel and
Bihalj-Merin, 1981, 12. 4. Seidel and Bihalj-Merin, 12.
5. Seidel and Bihalj-Merin, 13. 6. Mayor, 1971, ?. 7.
López-Rey, 1953, ix. 8. López-Rey, 151. 9. López-Rey,
151.