Renounce the Friend Who Covers You with His Wings and Bites You with His Beak, plate five from Los Proverbios

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Here a strange animal, rather like the griffin of mythology, alights into the dark sky with a couple on its back. Night scenes play a key role in many of Goya’s prints, lending them an ominous tone. A critical component of the foreboding look of the prints is Goya’s masterful use of aquatint, a process involving a grainy ground of resin that prints a light-suffused darkness. In this scene, the night sky becomes a flat cosmic backdrop to the figure’s antics, as they seem to ignore the advice of the print’s title.

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