© Gunnar Tómasson

29 December 2014.

Francisco Goya – Los Caprichos – Saga Myth – I

Introduction

Many years ago I saw an exhibition of paintings by Francisco Goya in the Prado Museum in Madrid. I had never seen any of his paintings before but they struck me as familiar! For they appeared to have been selected to show Goya‘s visual construction of concepts from ancient creation myths which I knew well. Thus, I could explain to my late wife the ideas which seemed to be reflected in almost every painting.

Last summer I re-visited the Prado Museum with my sister-in-law and related to her my impression of Goya‘s paintings at the first visit. On our return to Iceland she gave me an excellent Icelandic edition of Goya‘s Los Caprichos – The Monsters – which are described by Wikipedia as follows:

Los Caprichos is a set of 80 prints in aquatint and etching created by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya in 1797 and 1798, and published as an album in 1799. The prints were an artistic experiment: a medium for Goya’s condemnation of the universal follies and foolishness in the Spanish society in which he lived. The criticisms are far-ranging and acidic; he speaks against the predominance of superstition, the ignorance and inabilities of the various members of the ruling class, pedagogical short-comings, marital mistakes and the decline of rationality. Some of the prints have anticlerical themes. Goya described the series as depicting „the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance or self-interest have made usual“.

Guðbergur Bergsson, one of Iceland’s foremost writers who lived and worked in Spain for many years, prepared the Icelandic edition of Los Caprichos, including comments on each of the 80 works which he wrote for publication  in an Icelandic newspaper 40 years ago. The last work depicts four human-like monsters screaming in the reader’s face, ‟Ya es hora!‟ – The time has come!

Guðbergur concluded his comments on this last work with the provocative question asked nine times in Völuspá or Sybil’s Prophecy – a majestic Icelandic cosmogonic poem from the Saga Age: Vituð ér enn – eða hvat? – Have you understood – or what?

In an early version of Goya’s series, the first work of the series was entitled El sueño de la razón produce monstrous – The sleep of reason produces monsters. Later, it was replaced by a self-portrait of Goya, and moved to 43rd place.

Might the replacement have been meant to signal that reason had awakened from its sleep within Goya himself? And, if so, how might one test that hypothesis?

As background for my answer to that question, to be posted in a follow-up, here is a message which I sent on October 7 2013 to friends concerning my first visit to the Prado Museum:

Many years ago, my wife and I visited the Prado Museum in Madrid, where three roomfuls of paintings by Francisco Goya were on display.

One particular group of paintings stood out in their imaginative depiction of scenes that struck me as familiar from ancient creation myth.

On an end wall in one of the rooms were the two famous paintings, La Maja Desnuda and La Maja Vestida.

On checking out Wikipedia just now, I read the following:

“The identity of the model and why the paintings were created are still unknown.”

Also just now, it occurred to me that Goya, like Michelangelo, might have sought inspiration in Dante’s La Comedia Divina.

And, as it happens, an Italian researcher, Giancarlo Gianazza, has concluded that Dante’s work is intimately tied to Iceland.

I myself am persuaded that Gianazza is right, although his construction of the association is different from mine.

On the working assumption that the Saga Cipher was KNOWN to, and used by Goya, I did a quick Cipher Calculation:

4855 = La Maja Desnuda

5409 = La Maja Vestida

10264

And both the “identity” of the woman and the “why” of Goya’s paintings are suddenly suggested:

3263 = Beatrice – of Dante’s La Comedia Divina

1 = Monad

7000 = Microcosmos – Man in the Creator’s Image

10264

As for the “why” of the paintings, it concerns the ESSENCE of Augustan-Saga-Shakespeare Creation Myth:

Dante’s Beatrice, like Hamlet’s Ophelia, are the VIRGIN aspect of MAN – of Dante and Goya themselves.

Monad is the WHOLE MAN/WOMAN whose “union” returns both aspects to their Original/Spiritual State/Monad.

In other words, La Maja Vestida attests to the APPEARANCES of things that La Maja Desnuda lays bare.

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the wicked pair Queen Gertrude and Usurper King Claudius meet their maker in “death”.

That is, appearances are stripped away and a new and unsuspected reality is suddenly brought to LIGHT, as in:

4520 = Gertrude

4470 = Claudius

8990 = Brave New World

In a paraphrase,

We have met our Maker, and He/She is Us!

***

A calculator for converting letters to cipher values is on the Internet at:

http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphersaga.htm