Yard with Lunatics (Spanish: Corral de locos) is a small oil-on-tinplate painting completed by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya between 1793 and 1794. Goya said that the painting was informed by scenes of institutions he had witnessed as a youth in Zaragoza.[1]
It was painted around the time when Goya’s deafness and mental illness were developing, and he was increasingly complaining about his health. A contemporary diagnosis read, "the noises in his head and deafness aren’t improving, yet his vision is much better and he is back in control of his balance."[citation needed]
Background
Though Goya had to that point been preoccupied with commissioned portraits of royalty and noblemen, this work is one of a dozen small-scale, dark images he produced independently. Uncommissioned, it was one of the first of Goya's mid-1790s cabinet paintings, in which his earlier search for ideal beauty gave way to an examination of the relationship between naturalism and fantasy that would preoccupy him for the rest of his career.[2] He was undergoing a nervous breakdown and entering prolonged physical illness,[3] and admitted that the series was created to reflect his own self-doubt, anxiety and fear that he himself was going mad.[4] Goya wrote that the works served "to occupy my imagination, tormented as it is by contemplation of my sufferings." The series, he said, consisted of pictures which "normally find no place in commissioned works."[5]
To art historian Arthur Danto, Yard with Lunatics marks a point in Goya's career where he moves from "a world in which there are no shadows to one in which there is no light".[5] The work is often compared to more mature but equally bleak Madhouse of 1812–19. It has been described as a "somber vision of human bodies without human reason",[6] as one of Goya's "deeply disturbing visions of sadism and suffering",[7] and a work that marks his progression from a commissioned portraitist to an artist who pursued only his bleak and pitiless view of humanity.
Some historians speculate that Goya's symptoms may indicate prolonged viralencephalitis, and the mixture of tinnitus, imbalance and progressive deafness may be symptoms of Ménière's disease. Others claim that he was suffering from mental illness. However, these attempts at posthumous diagnosis are purely, and only, speculative and hypothetical. Goya's diagnosis remains unknown. What is known is that he lived in fear of insanity and projected his fears and despair into his work.[citation needed]
Set in a lunatic asylum, Yard with Lunatics was painted at a time when such institutions were, according to art critic Robert Hughes, no more than "holes in the social surface, small dumps into which the psychotic could be thrown without the smallest attempt to discover, classify, or treat the nature of their illness."[8] Goya's yard is overwhelmingly stark, showing shackled inmates enclosed by high walls and a heavy stone arch. Inmates fight and grin idiotically or huddle in despair, all bathed in an oppressive grey and green light, guarded by a single man. The work stands as a horrifying and imaginary vision of loneliness, fear and social alienation, a departure from the rather more superficial treatment of mental illness in the works of earlier artists such as Hogarth. John J. Ciofalo writes that "there is a virtual vacuum of unreason inhabited and realized by those confined, and most especially by the warden himself."[9]
In a 1794 letter to his friend Bernardo de Yriarte, he wrote that the painting shows "a yard with lunatics, and two of them fighting completely naked while their warder beats them, and others in sacks; (it is a scene I witnessed at Zaragoza)".[10] It is usually read as an indictment of the widespread punitive treatment of the insane, who were confined with criminals, put in iron manacles, and routinely subjected to physical punishment,[11] in ground sealed by masonry blocks and iron gate. Here the patients are variously staring, sitting, posturing, wrestling, grimacing or disciplining themselves. The top of the canvas vanishes with sunlight, emphasizing the nightmarish scene below.
Since one of the essential goals of the Enlightenment was to reform the prisons and asylums, a subject found in the writings of Voltaire and others, the condemnation of brutality towards prisoners, whether criminal or insane, was a subject of many of Goya's later paintings.
The painting had been absent from public view since a private sale in 1922; today it is housed in the Meadows Museum in Dallas, having been donated by Algur H. Meadows in 1967.[12]
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.
Saturn Devouring His Son is a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It is traditionally considered a depiction of the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus, whom the Romans called Saturn, eating one of his children out of fear of a prophecy by Gaea that one of his children would overthrow him. The work is one of the 14 so-called Black Paintings that Goya painted directly on the walls of his house sometime between 1820 and 1823. It was transferred to canvas after Goya's death and is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Charles IV of Spain and His Family is an oil-on-canvas group portrait painting by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. He began work on the painting in 1800, shortly after he became First Chamber Painter to the royal family, and completed it in the summer of 1801.
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters or The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters is an aquatint by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya. Created between 1797 and 1799 for the Diario de Madrid, it is the 43rd of the 80 aquatints making up the satirical Los caprichos.
The Dog is the name usually given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. It shows the head of a dog gazing upwards. The dog itself is almost lost in the vastness of the rest of the image, which is empty except for a dark sloping area near the bottom of the picture: an unidentifiable mass which conceals the animal's body. The placard for The Dog painting in The Prado indicates the dog is in distress, quite literally, drowning.
Witches' Sabbath or The Great He-Goat are names given to an oil mural by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, completed sometime between 1821 and 1823. It evokes themes of violence, intimidation, ageing and death; Satan hulks in the form of a goat in moonlit silhouette over a coven of terrified old witches. Goya was then around 75 years old, living alone and suffering from acute mental and physical distress.
The Milkmaid of Bordeaux is an oil-on-canvas painting completed between 1825 and 1827, generally attributed to the Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746–1828). This painting is believed to be one of Goya's last works, completed the year before his death, and considered one of Goya's masterpieces.
Prison Interior is an oil-on-canvas painting completed by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746–1828) between 1793 and 1794. The painting is bathed in a dim, cold light which gives it an appearance of purgatory.
Unfortunate Events in the Front Seats of the Ring of Madrid, and the Death of the Mayor of Torrejón is the name given to an etching with burnished aquatint, drypoint and burin on paper by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya.
Atropos, or The Fates is one of the 14 Black Paintings painted by Francisco de Goya between 1819–1823. Goya, then 75 and in mental and physical despair, created the series directly onto the interior walls of the house known as the Quinta del Sordo, purchased in 1819.
Judith and Holofernes is the name given to one of the 14 Black Paintings painted by Francisco de Goya between 1819 and 1823. By this time, Goya was in his mid 70s and deeply disillusioned. In mental and physical despair, he painted the private works on the interior walls of his home—applying oils directly on plaster—known as the Quinta del Sordo, which he had purchased in 1819. Judith and Holofernes was likely painted on the first floor, beside Saturn Devouring His Son. The picture is a personal reinterpretation of the narrative of the Book of Judith, in which the protagonist saves Israel from the assault of the general Holofernes by seducing and beheading him. Judith is the only historical figure who can be identified with certainty among the Black Paintings.
A Pilgrimage to San Isidro is one of the Black Paintings painted by Francisco de Goya between 1819–23 on the interior walls of the house known as Quinta del Sordo that he purchased in 1819. It probably occupied a wall on the first floor of the house, opposite The Great He-Goat.
Two Old Men, also known as Two Monks or An Old Man and a Monk, are names given to one of the 14 Black Paintings painted by Francisco Goya between 1819-23. At the time Goya was in his mid-seventies and was undergoing a great amount of physical and mental stress after two bouts of an unidentified illness. The works were rendered directly onto the interior walls of the house known as Quinta del Sordo, which Goya purchased in 1819.
The Inquisition Tribunal, also known as The Court of the Inquisition or The Inquisition Scene, is a 46-by-73-centimetre oil-on-panel painting produced by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya between 1812 and 1819. The painting belongs to a series which also includes Bullfight, The Madhouse and A Procession of Flagellants, all reflecting customs which liberals objected to and wished were abandoned, but their reform was opposed by the absolutist (autocratic) policy of Ferdinand VII of Spain.
The Madhouse or Asylum is an oil on panel painting by Francisco Goya. He produced it between 1812 and 1819 based on a scene he had witnessed at the then-renowned Zaragoza mental asylum. It depicts a mental asylum and the inhabitants in various states of madness. The creation came after a tumultuous period of Goya's life in which he suffered from serious illness and experienced hardships within his family.
Man Mocked by Two Women or Women Laughing or or The Ministration are names given to a painting likely completed between 1820 and 1823 by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya.
Men Reading or The Reading or Politicians are names given to a fresco painting likely completed between 1820 and 1823 by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It is one of Goya's 14 Black Paintings painted late in his life when, living alone in physical pain, spiritual torment and disillusionment with the political direction of Spain, he painted 14 bleak, agonised frescoes onto the walls of the Quinta del Sordo, the house he was living in alone outside Madrid.
The Black Paintings is the name given to a group of 14 paintings by Francisco Goya from the later years of his life, likely between 1819 and 1823. They portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and his bleak outlook on humanity. In 1819, at the age of 72, Goya moved into a two-story house outside Madrid that was called Quinta del Sordo. Although the house had been named after the previous owner, who was deaf, Goya too was nearly deaf at the time as a result of an unknown illness he had suffered when he was 46. The paintings originally were painted as murals on the walls of the house, later being "hacked off" the walls and attached to canvas by owner Baron Frédéric Émile d'Erlanger. They are now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Self-Portrait with Dr Arrieta is the English title given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. The work is an oil on canvas, painted in 1820, and is currently held in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota. Many scholars have seen religious themes in the work. Other interpretations compare and contrast the painting with Goya's series of Black Paintings, contextualizing the work within his career at large.
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