Figure 5.2 Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes): Plate 41 from “Los Caprichos”: Neither more nor
less (Ni mas ni menos), etching, burnished aquatint, drypoint and burin, plate: 19.7 × 14.8 cm; sheet: 29.5
× 20.9 cm, 1799. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of M. Knoedler & Co., 1918, Acc. No:
18.64(41).
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.orgEarlier in the century, Hogarth had been interested in a similar theme. His narrative series on a “modern
moral subject,” A Rake’s Progress (painted 1733–1734 and subsequently issued in print form) (Figure
5.3), satirizes the protagonist Tom Rakewell’s obsession with appearances as a means of increasing his
social standing. A Harlot’s Progress (which was painted and attracted print subscriptions in 1731) links
the deceptions of the masquerade with those of prostitutes, represented as a threat to the moral order
(Carter, 1999, 57–79). Such examples relate to concerns about “superficial” forms of representation and
looking and are understandable in the context of the Enlightenment, which valued the importance of
information gained from the physical senses (including sight) as sources of knowledge and reasoning,
rather than as a means of disguise and deception. In such a context the inclusion in Hogarth’s titles of the
term “progress” appears as a deeply ironic comment on the betrayal of a key Enlightenment value. The
theme recurs in those paintings and prints that refer to tricksters and charlatans of all kinds, and was often
emblematized (as in Goya’s work) through motifs such as the blindfold, the mirror (a symbol of vanity) or
card tricks that aimed to deceive the eye. “Seeing” of a moral kind must penetrate the surface of things
(Craske, 1997, 44, 145–216). Goya’s prints often feature those who cannot see “properly,” either because
literally blindfolded or myopic in a more general sense, in order to comment satirically on those who
misuse sight or surrender to superstition and ignorance rather than the evidencebased knowledge sought
by Enlightenment thinkers (Schulz, 2000, 153–181). The sexualized “leer” was also identified as a moral
hazard; for example, in Traversi’s The Sitting (La Seduta, 1754) (Figure 5.4), which shows an old
woman raising an artist’s head so that he focuses on the face, and not the breasts, of his female sitter. On
the other hand, the more “open” meanings, loose style of painting and primacy of imaginative effect of
Fragonard’s art relied on a view of creativity that minimized clear, rational vision (Milam, 1998, 17–23).