No one has seen us

Preparatory drawing for Caprice 79. Nobody Has Seen Us.

For Matilla, this drawing criticises the conduct of those religious who, in the privacy of their monasteries, transgress the rules of virtuous behaviour and indulge in worldly excesses, represented here through drinking.

The composition is much more realistic in the preparatory study than in the print, as in the sketch the figures appear in a cellar where some merry monks are feasting. Two skylights are clearly distinguishable in the background and the scene could easily illustrate a drunken song, whereas in the print it crosses the threshold of realism into the realm of hallucination.

Goya first sketched in pencil, and then, with sanguine, he shaded the contours and created the shadows that characterise the nocturnal nature of the scene in the final print. In which the supernatural lighting, of external origin to the scene, highlights two of the figures. And the aquatint background creates an impassable wall on which the gigantic shadow of a ghost-monk, arriving from beyond the grave to toast with his colleagues, is projected.