Plate 73 from ‘Los Caprichos’: It is better to be lazy (Mejor es holgar.)

Description

In It is better to be lazy, women work with thread and a spindle while another figure enters the exchange, turning a familiar occupation into an ambiguous social scene. Francisco Goya’s It Is Better to Be Lazy gives the activity a deliberately contrary caption. The title asks the viewer to reconsider whether the labor represented should be admired simply because it is labor.

Published in 1799 as plate 73 of Los Caprichos, the etching and burnished aquatint distinguish the gathered figures through their postures and proximity. Goya allows work, persuasion and interested behavior to meet without resolving them into a single lesson. The print’s wit comes from the gap between an apparently useful task and the caption’s refusal to praise it. Its interest lies in that reversal, where industriousness can become another appearance that requires closer scrutiny.

Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Goya collection.