Francisco Goya (The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, ca. 1797) vs. Janet Cardiff (The Murder of Crows, 2008)
“All those distortions, those bestial faces, those diabolic grimaces of his are impregnated with humanity."
--Charles Baudelaire on Los Caprichos, Ciofalo
Francisco Goya (1746-1828), El Sueño de la Razón Produce Monstruos (The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1797)
Plate 43 of series Los Caprichos
El Sueño de la Razón Produce Monstruos (The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, ca. 1797) belongs to Goya´s book of satirical images Los Caprichos. In this manuscript, the Spanish painter explores superstition, sensuality, greed, vice, violence and man´s weakness. The etching on display here, an allegory of reason and truth, shows Goya asleep at his desk with owls and other creatures hovering in the background as if emerging from the artist's dreams; i.e. when reason sleeps, our wicked imagination produces monsters and insanity. The lynx is a symbol of secrecy, and the owl indicates wisdom but, in conjunction with the cat, can also refer to depression and sadness. Goya added to the etching the thought: “Imagination abandoned by reason generates improbable monsters; but added to it, it becomes mother to the arts and the fountain of every marvel.”
These etchings were produced during the Spanish Enlightenment (1790s), an era in which people and intellectuals began to question ecclesiastical authority, royal hierarchies, but always aiming at bringing some rationality and reason to our understanding of the world, the heavens and mankind. Soon after hearing he had been reported to the Spanish Inquisition (abolished for good in 1834), Goya withdrew the set from sale.
An “itchy” sketchy representation and brief notes of the subject matter by the author of these lines
The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters (design for the Caprices, plate 43)
Sepia pen and ink drawing
1797-1798
Yinka Shonibare, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
(C-print mounted on aluminum)
2008
Photo by CARDIFF & MILLER
Janet Cardiff’s installation The Murder of Crows (2008) consists of ninety-eight speakers, chairs, stands, and a gramophone horn. The artist explores the idea of creating sculptural and physical sounds whilst mirroring the illogical but interconnected affinities experienced in dreams. A central theme for the piece is Goya’s “Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters”. At the centre of The Crows there is one element that echoes Goya’s etching: a small desk with a megaphone speaker lying on its side. Cardiff’s voice comes out of the speaker occasionally, reciting accounts of shocking dreams. All that is combined with other recorded sounds such as machinery, Gregorian chants, military songs, and the caws and wing flaps of a murder of crows. The sounds and music in Cardiff’s installation act like the owls and bats surrounding the sleeping man in Goya’s etching: the artist’s voice, like Goya’s dreamer, cannot escape from her apocalyptic dreams.
Printmaker, sculptor & industrial designer, Arieto Bertoia (1915-1978) made hundreds of sound sculptures in the early 1970s, primarily focusing on the spatial and tonal environment created by his installations, i.e. “Sonambient”. To achieve a variety of organic and mysterious sounds, Bertoia worked manipulating shapes, length and thickness. http://www.ubu.com/sound/bertoia_1029.html
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