The Blind Guitarist (El ciego de la guitarra)

These assorted prints are, from a technical point of view, extremely heterogeneous. In their creation, the painter makes use of both etching and aquatint techniques, with which he experiments and tries out variations of at different times and depending on his current artistic needs. This is why a detailed study of each of the prints and their technical peculiarities is so important.

In The Blind Guitarist, we see an outdoor scene with fourteen people gathered around a blind man who is playing the guitar and singing, as we can tell from his facial expression and his open mouth. Such characters travelled from town to town telling stories, sometimes dramatic in their content, to earn a few coins. The people listening to the show are of mixed ages and social classes. In the foreground, close to the blind man, a water-seller, seen in profile, listens attentively. As do the well-dressed young couple - the woman wearing a spellbound expression on her face - who look like they belong to high society. Next to the singer is a child with an impish look on his face, dressed in a cape, who may be the performer's lazarillo, or guide. Behind him, in the background, a man leads along a pair of oxen, totally indifferent in the show.

This etching, one of Goya's finest, can be related to a tapestry cartoon depicting the same subject which the artist made in 1778 for the antechamber to the bedroom of the Prince and Princess of Asturias in the palace of El Pardo (rec. no.). Goya modified this highly complex cartoon on repeated occasions. The many similarities between the etching and the cartoon lead us to believe that he worked on the two works simultaneously, or that one work led on to the execution of the other. In both works we can see the blind man in the centre, the water-seller off to one side, the well-off couple, the lazarillo, and the male figure at the top, at the apex of the clearly pyramid-shaped composition. However, in the cartoon the landscape is richer and lusher, especially on the right-hand side, whilst in the etching Goya has stuck to just the bare essentials.

The pyramid-shaped composition of this image brings to mind certain prints by Giambattista Tiepolo (Venice, 1696-Madrid, 1770), whilst the characterization of the various figures is reminiscent of some of William Hogarth's (London, 1697-London, 1764) images. In both Goya's work and that of the English painter there is a strong sense of social satire, but conveyed indirectly and with great subtlety.