Description
Francisco Goya’s What a Golden Beak! gives an eloquent speaker the body of a parrot. Perched at a pulpit with one foot extended, the bird addresses a gathering of absorbed listeners whose open mouths echo its performance. A less impressed observer below the pulpit introduces a small note of resistance. Light catches the faces and gestures, concentrating attention on the spell cast by the speaker.
Plate 53 of Los Caprichos, published in 1799, is a sharp satire of impressive language that substitutes for thought. The parrot’s ability to repeat words becomes a fitting image for empty rhetoric and unquestioning admiration. Goya’s contrast of precise line and soft tonal shadow gives this unlikely congregation a convincing presence, inviting the viewer to notice how readily authority can be created by performance alone.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Goya collection.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.