Rejoice, Carnival, for Tomorrow Thou wilt Be Ashes, plate 14 from Los Proverbios

This group of leering figures in masks refers to the Roman Catholic festival Carnival, which (then, as now) precedes the more contemplative season of Lent. Goya used the common proverb of the title to compare the festival’s unsustainable indulgence and ritual pomp with the fate of Catholicism itself. In his art Goya frequently criticized the hypocrisy of the Spanish national religion, specifically its clergy. Both his Proverbs series and the Disasters of War, several etchings of which are also on view in this gallery, were published after his death.