Flight of the Witches

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Vuelo de brujas (Francisco de Goya)
Vuelo de brujas
Francisco de Goya , 1797/1798
Oil on canvas
43.5 × 30.5 cm
Museo del Prado , Madrid

Flight of the Witches ( Spanish Vuelo de brujas also Brujas en vuelo or Brujos por el aire ) is a painting by Francisco de Goya from 1797/1798. It shows three witches floating in the air , carrying a naked man in their arms, while two other men want to evade the witches' influence. The picture is full of allusions to stupidity, enlightenment and wisdom. It also uses symbols and allusions from Christianity and Freemasonry .

Description and symbolism

The scenery shows a mountain path that disappears in the black background in a downward, only indicated course. Two men with a donkey climbed this path onto the brightly lit plateau to experience the light of wisdom. They are surprised by three witches hovering in the air above them and turn away. The witches are short-cropped and only dressed in skirts (one green, one red, one golden yellow). They wear matching, pointed, split hats reminiscent of the miter of the bishops (or of the hats that were used at the Holy Inquisition to mark heretics). In their arms they carry a naked young man who gives himself to them defenselessly. One of the two hikers lies on his stomach on the ground and covers his ears in order to visually and acoustically resist the lure of the witches. The other has covered himself with his cloak, is striving away from the scene and shows with both fists an obscene gesture, the so-called fig hand . According to popular belief at the time, this should also protect against eye diseases through magic. The donkey on the right edge of the picture also looks down with its ears turned back and, like the hikers, avoids the strong light. It symbolizes stupidity or ignorance, a motif that Goya often used in picture backgrounds, for example in his picture A Scene from “Bewitched by Power” , which was created at the same time. Contrary to popular belief, the witches do not suck the blood out of the naked man in their arms, but blow their strength and knowledge into him with full cheeks; a witch on his loin, the second on his stomach, and the third on his right leg. The whole scene seems to allude to the Trinity . The young man gives himself up to the witches without resistance and reminds in his posture of Jesus hanging on the cross with outstretched arms. The arrangement of the figures is reminiscent of pictures by El Greco from the 16th century, in which three angels, instead of witches, hover over earthly events. Through the witches the young man receives the light and the knowledge of a new life. On their mitra-like headgear, snakes are depicted, which are considered a symbol of wisdom. The whole floating group of figures is to be understood as the representation of a resurrection . According to Goya specialist Manuela Mena B. Marqués, the contrast between darkness and light also has another meaning for Goya. The ascent of the two wanderers from darkness to light is attributable to the symbolism and initiation rites of Freemasonry . Goya had acquaintances in the progressive, enlightened Masonic lodges . The peasant ignorant and stupid stay behind with their donkey in the darkness of the earthly world, they cannot and do not want to endure the light of the Enlightenment.

The Swiss art historian Paul Nizon takes the opposite point of view in his essay Goya :

"An iconographic resolution of the riddle [meaning the fantastic images from that time] is not appropriate, Goya did not want to pass on any secret or encrypted messages, he also drew from the fullness here, from the fullness of the suppressed fantasy, the depths of his own . "

- Paul Nizon

With its witch motif, the picture is related to the Caprichos , a series of etchings and aquatint prints that were made between 1793 and 1799. The picture also anticipates Goya's series of "Black Pictures" ( Pinturas negras ), which became characteristic of his later work. The popular belief in witches at the time was a topic that kept Goya busy for a long time. He wanted to combat this superstition with his sometimes drastic depictions.

Reception (selection)

On the occasion of Goya exhibitions, in which this picture is also shown, reports appear regularly in the media about the flight of the witches . The picture is sometimes contradictory, but also incorrectly described and assessed:

  • On the occasion of the Berlin exhibition in 2005, Kerstin Hilt writes: “For example during the breathtaking 'Flight of the Witches': Three male figures rise into the air and suck the blood out of a young man who writhes in a crucifixion pose. The hats the three sorcerers wear could just as easily be bishop's mitres as Masonic hats. "
  • Nicola Kuhn on the exhibition Black Romanticism at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt in 2012: “'The Flight of the Witches' (1797/98) from the Prado still seems playful. The trio floating in the night sky with their pointed hats looks like a mystical appearance, between them the three witches carry a lifeless, naked figure. Below them, on the ground, runs past a man who has pulled a white cloth over his head. "
  • Christian Saehrendt also writes about the Frankfurt exhibition in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung : “The trip to Frankfurt is almost worth it for Goya's“ Flight of the Witches ”(1797/98), otherwise in the Prado - the small painting with the three weightlessly floating, naked witches has an incredible effect, and there has hardly been a blacker background in art history. "
  • Uwe Schultz interpreted the picture in the newspaper Die Welt with the following sentence: “Francisco de Goya then had the human body freed from gravity as cannibal prey in the 'Flight of the Witches' of 1798, as a traumatic continuation of that real civil war, the massacre of which the Painter at the same time was forced to increase in realistic graphics. "

Aldous Huxley wrote in 1950: These creatures that haunt Goya's late work are unspeakably horrific, with a horror of spiritlessness and animality and spiritual darkness.

The picture stars in the film Trance - Dangerous memory of Danny Boyle from the year 2013 a central role as a desirable object, even killed for.

Provenance and exhibitions (selection)

The painting was commissioned by the Dukes of Osuna and was intended to decorate their country residence. It was later sold and belonged to various art collections: it came from Madrid from Ramón Ibarra to Luis Arana in Bilbao, was acquired by J. Ortiz Patiño in 1985 and, after an auction at Sotheby’s, came into the possession of the Museo Nacional del Prado in 2000 . The painting was one of a series of six small canvases that Goya made in 1797 and 1798 on the world of sorcery and the supernatural.

  • June 15 to October 15, 1986: Goya nelle collezioni private di Spagna. Villa Favorita, Lugano.
  • 0October 6 to December 18, 1988: Goya y el espiritu de la ilustracíón. Museo Nacional del Prado, Palacio Villahermosa, Madrid 1988.
  • July 16 to October 16, 1994: Goya. El capricho y la inventory. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
  • February 10 to April 14, 1996: Francisco Goya. Maleri, tegning, grafikk. National Gallery, Oslo.
  • July 13th to October 3rd, 2005: Goya - Prophet of Modernity. Old National Gallery Berlin.
  • April 15, 2008 to July 13, 2008: Goya en tiempos de guerra. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
  • December 18, 2008 to March 8, 2009: Goya y el mundo moderno. Museo de Zaragoza.
  • March 16 to June 24, 2012: Goya. Luces y Sombras. La Caixa, Barcelona.
  • September 26, 2012 to January 20, 2013: Black romance. From Goya to Max Ernst. Städel Museum, Frankfurt.
  • October 12 to January 19, 2015: Goya. Order and Disorder. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

literature

  • Werner Hofmann : Goya. To every story there belongs another. Thames and Hudson, London / New York 2003, ISBN 0-500-09317-2 , p. 95.
  • Manuela B. Mena Marqués: Vuelo de brujas / Flight of the witches. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster, Wilfried Seipel (Hrsg.): Goya: Prophet der Moderne. DuMont-Literatur- und Kunst-Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-8321-7563-6 (catalog for the exhibition in Berlin 2005).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manuela B. Mena Marqués: Vuelo de brujas. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster, Wilfried Seipel (Hrsg.): Goya: Prophet der Moderne. DuMont-Literatur-und Kunst-Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-8321-7563-6 , p. 196.
  2. ^ Paul Nizon: Goya. Essay. Insel Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-458-19340-1 , p. 50
  3. ^ Website of the Centro Virtual Cervantes , on which the picture is described and interpreted by the art historian Susana Calvo Capilla
  4. ↑ Kerstin Hilt: The modern witch kitchen.
  5. ↑ Nicola Kuhn: Hellish grace. In: Der Tagesspiegel . October 31, 2012.
  6. ↑ Christian Saehrendt: No good without bad, no day without night. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 4th October 2012.
  7. ↑ Uwe Schultz: Exhibition: Tempting Abysses of "Black Romanticism". In: The world. May 6, 2013.
  8. ↑ With the “real civil war”, Schultz probably means the uprising of the Spanish population against the French occupation during the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula , which did not begin until 1807.
  9. ↑ Quoted in: Paul Nizon: Goya. Essay. Insel Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-458-19340-1 , p. 46
  10. ↑ Fundación Goya en Aragón: Vuelo de brujas fundaciongoyaenaragon.es (Spanish).
  11. ^ Goya nelle collezioni private di Spagna . Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Milan 1986, ISBN 88-435-2027-X .
  12. ↑ Jutta Held: Goya y el espiritu de la ilustracíón . In: Art Chronicle . No. 42 , 1989, pp. 16-32 .
  13. ↑ Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manuela B. Mena Marqués: Goya: el capricho y la invención. Cuadros de gabinete, bocetos y miniaturas . Museo del Prado, Madrid 1993, ISBN 84-87317-24-3 .
  14. ↑ Sidsel Helliesen: Francisco Goya. Maleri, tegning, grafikk . Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo 1996, ISBN 82-90744-37-4 .
  15. ^ Art: Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin presents Goya exhibition . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . July 7, 2005 ( mz-web.de ).
  16. ↑ Manuela B. Mena Marqués: Goya en tiempos de guerra . Ediciones El Viso, Madrid 2008, ISBN 978-84-95241-55-9 .
  17. ↑ Concha Lomba, Valeriano Bozal: Goya y el mundo moderno . Fundación Goya en Aragón, Aragón 2008, ISBN 978-84-9785-549-5 .
  18. ↑ José Manuel Matilla, Manuela B. Mena Marqués, Virginia Albarrán Martín: Goya. Luces y Sombras . Fundación La Caixa, 2012, ISBN 978-84-8480-232-7 .
  19. ^ Felix Krämer: Black Romanticism from Goya to Max Ernst . Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2012, ISBN 978-3-7757-3372-4 .
  20. ↑ Jennifer Snodgrass, Fronia Simpson, Stephanie Loeb Stepanek et al .: Goya. Order and Disorder . 1st edition. MFA Publications, Boston, MA 2014, ISBN 978-0-87846-808-9 .