Plate 6 from ‘Los Caprichos’: Nobody knows himself (Nadie se conoce.)

Description

In Nobody knows himself, masked figures encounter one another in a setting where appearance has become deliberately unreliable. In Nobody Knows Himself, Francisco Goya makes disguise more than a festive accessory. The concealment of faces gives the meeting an uncertain character, suggesting that the masks may reveal something about social behavior even as they hide individual identities.

Published in 1799 as plate 6 of Los Caprichos, the etching and burnished aquatint explore the relationship between self-knowledge and performance. The caption extends the problem inward: it is not only other people who are difficult to recognize. Goya lets the masquerade stand for a world of cultivated appearances, where each participant presents a chosen version of the self. Its wit lies in making the effort to conceal seem inseparable from an inability to understand.

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