Focus on this artwork and discuss the Link with the Witch In The Air.
Goya used the imagery of covens of witches in a number of works, most notably in one of his Black Paintings, Witches' Sabbath or The Great He-Goat (1821–1823). His paintings have been seen as a protest against those who upheld and enforced the values of the Spanish Inquisition, which had been active in Witch hunting during the seventeenth-century Basque witch trials. Critics in the 20th century surmise that the Witches Sabbath was painted in 1798 as a bitter struggle raged between liberals and those in favour of a church and a royalist-led state, which culminated in the so-called Ominous Decade (1823–1833).Both paintings can be seen as an attack on the superstitious beliefs rife in Spain during a period when tales of midnight gatherings of witches and the appearance of the devil were commonplace among the rural populace. They reflect Goya's disdain for the popular tendency towards superstition and the church-led return to medieval fears. Goya's depictions of such scenes in a painting commissioned by landed aristocrats somehow in one critic's words mocked what he saw as medieval fears exploited by the established order for political and capital gain.
Black Paintings Spanish Inquisition coven royalist Ominous Decade Spanish covens Spain Witch hunting Witches' Sabbath or The Great He-Goat Basque witch trials