The Age of Reason...or Not

Good morning, Younglings.

Short blog today - just one of those things that just kinda "hit" me today.

The other day I picked up this little gem for a measly 10 cents at the Sevier County Library in DeQueen. 

I refer to art when I teach my music classes, because the characteristics of both art and music of a particular historical period share certain similarities. That's why I picked this up, because I don't have a lot of art books. 

One of these days, you may be subject to the proverbial art class either in high school or college. Don't groan, okay? Because some of it is really quite cool, like this guy, Francisco Goya.

Goya is one of my favorite painters, because he's like the "Stephen King of 18th Century Painters." I'd heard about him even before I took Spanish culture classes, but I especially favored him after getting my Spanish teaching certification.

You'll hear a lot some day about the differences between Classical and Romantic art, so I won't get into that right now, but Goya was somewhat ahead of his time. Most of the imagery he painted was more reflective of the following era, with an emphasis on the fantastic and supernatural versus the "civilized" and "enlightened" years that had come before. As I read through this book's section on Goya I was intrigued by an interesting interpretation about this particular drawing, with which I'm quite familiar:

This is "The Sleep of Reason" from a series of drawings Goya termed "Caprichos." The inscription reads, "The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters."
The author of this book, Kenneth Clark, believes this could mean two things:
"...either that when we are asleep our dreaming mind produces the bogies and witches...or, that human beings, when they abandon reason, fall into the horrible practices..."

That struck me as very relevant to the issues we grown-ups are dealing with in this century. I see a lot of "unreasonable" behavior out there in the world, by people I thought had a lot of more sense. Though the media sensationalizes such mayhem, there many things happening that make me sit back and think, "What the....????" I won't go into details, and bad behavior was most definitely going on in Goya's time, (Napolean, anyone??), but...people identifying as...cats?? 

I'd like to identify as a beach bum today. Can I do that, and still have a job??

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Whenever you read this, Younglings, some of 2017's current events will have passed, but I encourage you to Google them, if Google is still the place to go for that 10 or 15 years from now. I've never seen people so divisive just to be divisive. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

It defies reason. And I think that's the point Goya was trying to make. Or maybe he just liked drawing freaky pictures. Much like how people make freaky movies and TV shows like The Walking Dead and Supernatural. Maybe he wasn't trying to make a point at all. 

I still found it rather interesting. And when you get a chance, look up a nice little painting called "Satan Devouring His Children." Goya hung it in his dining room.