1799
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
They Have Flown, Plate 61 is a 1799 by Francisco Goya, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see three witches holding up a young woman who’s floating like a butterfly, her dress and veil fluttering in the wind. Goya made this as part of a series called *Los Caprichos*—prints full of strange, dream-like scenes. He used them to poke at Spanish society, but left the meaning fuzzy. Is the woman flying free, or being carried off? The image plays with old ideas about women being "flighty," but it’s hard to tell if Goya agreed or was mocking it. To see more of his dark, playful prints, look up *Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828)*.
In the print series Los Caprichos , which translates as “caprices” or “artistic fantasies,” Francisco de Goya drew on his expansive imagination to comment on Spanish society. The artist’s critiques are not always clear, and many of the prints are intentionally ambiguous. Here, three witches support a young woman taking flight. Caught in the wind, her dress and veil transform her into a human butterfly, perhaps reflecting views at the time that characterized women as flighty. However, both the association of butterflies with life’s fragility and the presence of witches—often used by the artist…
When Los Caprichos was first published in 1799, the series was sold in a perfumery and liquor shop in Madrid.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; Spanish: ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker.
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