This is a free virtual exhibition of 15 works by Francisco Goya that you can walk through in your browser, on desktop or phone, with nothing to install. Among the works on view are The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters from Los Caprichos and Goya's bullfighting print of Juanito Apinani vaulting over a bull.
About Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828) was a Spanish painter and printmaker often described as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. He rose to become First Court Painter to Charles IV in 1799, producing unflinching royal portraits, yet his most personal work lay in printmaking. After a serious illness in the early 1790s left him deaf, his art turned increasingly inward and critical. Los Caprichos (1799), a set of 80 etchings with aquatint, satirized superstition, vanity and abuse of power. The Disasters of War, made in response to the Peninsular War and published only in 1863, long after his death, remains one of the most powerful statements against violence in European art. He also produced La Tauromaquia (1816), a series on the history of bullfighting. Goya spent his final years in Bordeaux, where he died in 1828.
Highlights in this room
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, plate 43 from Los Caprichos
A man slumps over a desk while owls and bats rise from the darkness behind him, and a lynx watches from the floor. Goya combined etching and aquatint to build the night around the sleeper in soft, grainy tones. It has become one of the most quoted images in Western art, a warning about what happens when reason rests.
Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off
This small painting belongs to a series of six panels telling a news story of 1806, in which a Franciscan friar disarmed and captured the notorious bandit known as El Maragato. Goya treats the episode almost like a strip of frames, with quick, fluid brushwork and a bright, open landscape. Seen next to El Maragato Threatens Friar Pedro de Zaldivia with His Gun, also in this room, it shows his gift for storytelling in sequence.
The Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apinani in the ring at Madrid, plate 20 from The Art of Bullfighting (Tauromaquia)
A bullfighter pole-vaults clean over a charging bull, frozen at the top of his leap. The figure seems to float against a blank sky of pale aquatint, while the crowd is packed into a dark band of shadow. It is one of the most celebrated plates in La Tauromaquia, prized for its sense of suspended motion.
Truth has died, plate 79 from The Disasters of War
Near the end of The Disasters of War, Goya shifts from reportage to allegory: a radiant female figure representing Truth lies at rest while robed figures gather around her. The light that seems to glow from her body is created through careful contrasts of etched line and burnished tone. The plate closes the series with a quiet, sober reflection rather than a scene of combat.
How to enjoy the exhibition
- Walk up to a print to see it closer. Goya's aquatint creates soft fields of grey that act like washes of ink, and the transitions between light and dark are where much of the drama lives.
- Click a work to read its label. The plate numbers and series titles help you see how each image fits into Los Caprichos, The Disasters of War or La Tauromaquia.
- Read the captions. Goya's own short, often ironic titles are part of the artwork and change how you read each scene.
- Compare the paintings with the prints. Moving between the brushwork of Boy on a Ram or Saint Ambrose and the etched line of the plates shows how differently he worked in each medium.
- Take your time with the darker plates. The Disasters of War rewards slow, quiet viewing, and you can step back or move on whenever you like.
If you are new to the format, here is a short guide to what a virtual gallery is. For another master of printed drama in a very different tradition, visit the Toulouse-Lautrec virtual exhibition, or see how Manet took up Spanish subjects a generation later.
Create a room like this for your own work
This room was built with Xibit360, and the same tools are open to working artists. You can light and frame each piece, set the mood with themes and layouts, exhibit video works alongside still images, and embed the finished room on your own website so visitors can walk through it without leaving your page. It is free to start, and upgrades are one-time purchases with no subscription.
Know an artist who should see this?
If you know a printmaker, illustrator or painter whose work deserves to be seen this way, send them this page. They can walk through the Goya room above to see what a finished exhibition feels like, then picture their own work on the walls.
FAQ
Is the Goya virtual exhibition free?
Yes. You can open it in your browser for free.
Can I view it on my phone?
Yes. The same walkable space opens on desktop and on phone, with no app to install.
What is aquatint, and why does it matter in Goya's prints?
Aquatint is an etching technique that uses a porous layer of resin on the printing plate to create areas of even tone rather than only lines. Goya used it to build atmosphere, shadow and night, which is why plates such as The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters feel so deep and velvety.