How does this artwork elucidate its Inspiration?
Psychiatric institutions were a popular topic in the salons of the Spanish Enlightenment around this time, especially their practices, such as manacling patients. The mentally ill were seen as possessed and often found themselves subjects of public entertainment. Goya had firsthand experience with insanity, as an aunt and uncle of his had suffered from it. He was also familiar with suffering from illness, as he had fallen extremely ill in 1792, struggling to keep his balance and walk as well as suffering partial blindness and deafness. While he eventually recovered, he remained deaf for the rest of his life, and it has been speculated that he had been suffering from Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome, though it is unknown what it truly was. During his recovery, he suffered from bouts of depression, stating that he found himself "sometimes raving with a mood that I myself cannot stand." Around this time, he also experienced the death of his brother-in-law from illness. This period of Goya's life inspired a change in the composition of his works towards darker compositions than early in his life. Speaking of the set of paintings that The Madhouse concluded, Goya said; "I have succeeded in making observations for which there is normally no opportunity in commissioned works, which give no scope for fantasy and invention."
manacling Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome salons Spanish Enlightenment depression