Description
In Blow, Francisco Goya gathers grotesque figures around a witch who holds a child as though using a bellows. The surrounding faces stare with exaggerated intensity, and the dark ritual compresses vulnerable bodies into an unsettling mass. Carefully etched contours keep the figures distinct even as the scene pushes toward nightmare. Its theatrical absurdity never quite conceals the cruelty at its center.
Published in Los Caprichos in 1799, plate 69 belongs to the series’ disturbing encounters with witchcraft and superstition. Goya does not offer this gathering as a reassuring fantasy; he uses its excesses to expose a world in which the defenseless become instruments of others’ desires. The brief imperative of the title adds a chilling note of ordinary instruction. Humor and horror remain inseparable, refusing the viewer an easy emotional distance.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Goya collection.
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