Plate 71 from ‘Los Caprichos’: When day breaks we will be off (Si amanece; nos Vamos.)

Description

Francisco Goya’s When Day Breaks We Will Be Off shows a group of witches conferring beneath a starry sky. An older figure gestures to one side while her companions listen, their worn, distorted faces gathered into a close circle. A winged shadow behind them adds to the nocturnal unease. The composition feels like a private consultation held just before its participants must disappear.

Plate 71 of Los Caprichos, published in 1799, uses the approach of daylight as more than a change of hour. Within Goya’s satire, darkness shelters superstition and concealed behavior, while approaching light threatens to expose them. The print’s contrast of pale figures and deep sky makes that tension visible. Its conversational title gives the fantastic gathering an everyday familiarity, making the irrational world disturbingly close to ordinary human habits.

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