Plate 48 from’ Los Caprichos’: Tale-Bearers–Blasts of Wind (Soplones.)

Description

Grotesque figures send their breath outward, giving the act of informing or spreading tales an exaggerated physical form. Francisco Goya’s Tale-Bearers—Blasts of Wind makes words seem like a force that can disturb the surrounding world. The impossible action turns a familiar social behavior into something bodily, invasive and difficult to contain.

Published in 1799 as plate 48 of Los Caprichos, the etching and burnished aquatint combine fantasy with a sharp sense of human consequence. Goya’s title links the figures’ activity to the circulation of damaging speech. The scene’s humor is therefore inseparable from unease: an apparently insubstantial breath can acquire disproportionate power. Its visual interest lies in that transformation, allowing gossip and accusation to be imagined as currents that move beyond the people who first produce them.