Plate 24 from ‘Los Caprichos’: Nothing could be done about It (Nohubo remedio.)

Description

In Nothing could be done about It, a woman is exposed to public judgment, surrounded by a gathering that makes her isolation more severe. Francisco Goya’s Nothing Could Be Done About It presents punishment as a spectacle whose participants appear more powerful than the person at its center. The title adds a fatalistic note, as though intervention has already been declared impossible.

Plate 24 of Los Caprichos, published in 1799, uses etching and burnished aquatint to organize the contrast between the singled-out figure and the collective presence around her. Goya leaves the viewer to consider the cruelty of public humiliation rather than supplying reassurance about its justification. The image’s force lies in its unequal distribution of agency. One person bears the consequences, while the surrounding company can watch, pronounce judgment or remain indifferent without sharing the same exposure.

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