Carnival Scene (Escena de carnaval)

A group of people wearing fancy-dress costumes appear to be coming out of a cave on the left of the composition, where they most likely would have begun their celebrations for the carnival. The atmosphere is joyful and boisterous, as we can see by the lively and over-the-top gestures of the party-goers. In the background, Goya has painted some buildings perched atop the rocks, recalling the painting City on a Rock.

The subject of the carnival was represented by Goya on several different occasions. All those who attended this celebration were, for the duration of the carnival, given free licence to be someone they were not, even playing at belonging to a different social class, in a game of shifting appearances. The costumes and the masks broke down social barriers and gave the individual the freedom to behave and to relate to others in such a way that, in many cases, would normally be denied them. This idea, although carried to an extreme, was addressed by Goya in print number 6 of his Caprices series, entitled No-one Knows Himself (Nadie se conoce).

The quick, impasto brushstrokes of this work bring to mind paintings such as The Hurricane, in which, as his grandson Mariano tells us, Goya worked with a reed split open to form a kind of spatula.