Procession (Procesión)

Along with five others, this painting belonged to a series of work bearing the inscription "X.9", corresponding to the number that Brugada assigned to them in the inventory he carried out in 1812, following the death of Josefa Bayeu.

Like the others in this same series, this is a dark work which betrays a profoundly pessimistic outlook. Goya has painted several people, their backs to the viewer, forming part of a procession. They are scattered across the surface of the canvas with no apparent order.

The brushwork is loose and the figures are formed by stains and smudges. The white clothes of two of the people in the procession jump out at us forcibly.

Goya also represented this same theme in the work entitled Procession in Valencia. Although that other work also has a pessimistic air to it, the composition is much more open, due to the fact that Goya also painted the landscape through which the procession is passing, whereas in Procession the artist has concentrated on just a fragment of the scene. It is this mass of people in such a confined space which causes this sensation of suffocation.