Sketch Book for the Artist

Goya's Monsters

WITH CUNNING BRILLIANCE, Goya often invented his monsters out of characters seen in other

painters' works, showing us that gallery study is not just for the student and beginner. Among

his "Black Paintings" in the Prado Museum, Madrid, are two long, thin works titled The Witches'

Sabbath and The Procession of St. Isidore. They are a pair and hang opposite each other. Through

studying and drawing these great paintings I have discovered that they are based on a pair

of similarly long, thin works made by Bartolome Murillo in Seville about 120 years earlier. Here,

two of my own drawings show you how Goya's devil (below) is based on the shape of Murillo's

boy on a horse (top right). Goya's witches have been literally drawn and evolved out of the

shapes of Murillo's prophet and pilgrims. With further research, I found relationships between

all four paintings in terms of shapes, formal composition, and narrative twists.