Plate 56 from ‘Los Caprichos’: To rise and to fall (Subir y bajar.)

Description

In To rise and to fall, one figure rises above another in a fantastic arrangement that makes advancement visibly dependent on support below. Francisco Goya’s To Rise and to Fall joins ambition to the possibility of reversal. The image turns an ordinary account of changing fortunes into a bodily relationship whose balance seems anything but secure.

Plate 56 of Los Caprichos, published in 1799, uses etching and burnished aquatint to give the improbable ascent weight and instability. Goya’s caption refuses to treat elevation as a final condition: rising already contains the prospect of descent. The scene can suggest the workings of favor and social dependence without requiring a single named target. Its force comes from the precarious connection between the figures, where apparent success is sustained by an arrangement that may not endure.

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