Plate 10 from "Los Caprichos": Love and death (El amor y la muerte)

Art Historical Context

**Plate 10 from *Los Caprichos*:Love and Death* ( amor y la muerte)** Francisco de Goya y Luc, a pioneering Spanish artist of the late 18th century, created *Los Caprichos* 1799 as a bold series of 80 satirical prints critiquing the follies, superstitions, and vices of Spanish society during the Enlightenment era. Plate 10, *Love and Death*, captures tense, dramatic confrontation between men and women amid swords, symbolizing the perilous intersection of passion and mortality. Goya's unflinching gaze on human folly made this series revolutionary, blending dark humor with social commentary and influencing later Romantic and modern art. Printed using etching for precise lines, burnished aquatint for moody tonal gradations, and burin for refined details, the medium allowed Goya to achieve velvety blacks and subtle highlights on a compact plate (8 3/8 x 6 in.). This innovative technique pushed printmaking beyond mere reproduction, enabling expressive shadows that heighten the emotional intensity. Acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1918, this work invites visitors to ponder timeless themes: how love can lead to ruinous violence in a world of irrational impulses. (178 words)

About the Artist

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) · 1746–1828

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) was a Spanish painter and printmaker considered the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Rising from modest provincial origins to become First Court Painter to Charles IV, Goya's career spanned the Enlightenment's optimism and the brutal Napoleonic invasion that shattered it. A mysterious illness in 1793 left him permanently deaf and ...