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Friday, January 20, 2017- Wednesday, January 6, 2021:

When America Lost Reason and Humanity to Ignorance, Religious Fundamentalism and Bigotry

'Monsters are the result of the sleep of reason.'Francisco Goya 

Goya portrait painted by Vicente López y Portaña (1772–1850) on display at the Prado National Museum, Spain.

Two centuries ago, Spain was a mess.  Struggling to escape the Inquisition.  Invaded by Napoleon’s France. Wracked  by war, confusion, random cruelty.  In the midst of all that, the great Spanish master Francisco  Goya painted, made prints,  of kings and aristocrats.  And then of chaos.  The Sleep of Reason.  The Disasters of War.  Execution.  Torture...  In our time of  attacks on democracy, atrocity and dismay, hopelessness and despair, anger and frustration and the rise of monsters, Goya is showing us the perils of forgetfulness and turning our backs on reason. 

‘Want to understand the Capitol rioters? Look at the inflamed hate-drunk mobs painted by Goya...

because no artist better captured collective delusion and mass fanaticism.’- Jonathan Jones

It could be Trump on the banner … detail from The Burial of the Sardine, 1808-12’.

Photo: DEA/G Dagli Orti/De Agostini/Getty Images/Via The Guardian

Goya's Lesson on the Fall of Reason and Humanity in the US under Trump  

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

Goya, Plate 43, "Los Caprichos": The sleep of reason produces monsters, 1799, etching, aquatint, drypoint, and burin. 

(The Metropolitan  Museum of Art)

In this ominous image, we see the dark vision of humanity. A man sleeps, apparently peacefully, even as bats and owls threaten from all sides and a lynx lays quiet, but wide-eyed and alert. Another creature sits at the center of the composition, staring not at the sleeping figure, but at us. Goya forces the viewer to become an active participant in the image––the monsters of his dreams even threaten us. We forget this at our own peril.

Friday, January 20, 2017- Wednesday, January 6, 2021:

When America Lost Reason and Humanity to Ignorance, Religious Fundamentalism and Bigotry 

‘Goya even gave a name to our current plight, in a print of a man resting his head on a desk as if giving up on trying to understand the world. All around his despairing form, strange monsters of the night materialise with the shining cold eyes of owls and cats. On the side of his desk is an inscription that translates as: “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” wherein Goya criticized the rampant political, social, and religious abuses of the time period.’

'Follow the flag … pro-Trump supporters breach the US Capitol building on 6 January.'

Photo: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/Rex/Shutterstock/Via The Guardian

...‘The great neoclassical monuments of Washington DC were begun in Goya’s lifetime and continued through the 1800s. Their harmonious design sang the beauty of reason at the very moment the artist witnessed it fail in Spain. The Capitol building was started in 1793 as part of Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s grand plan for a spacious, calm, yet sublime monumental Washington whose classical geometries express an unshakable belief in rational republican optimism. Goya returned to Madrid that same year after losing his hearing and hope for humanity.

L’Enfant’s confidence and optimism now seem to have vanished. Goya’s dark pessimism has far more pertinence to the last days of Trump’s tenure. The invasion of the Capitol brought the Spaniard’s horrific vision to Washington, as the logical architecture of the Capitol clashed with the chaos that filled it. Neoclassicism meets Goya, reason is overrun by madness, and lawlessness threatens to swallow the republic.’- Jonathan Jones,Want to understand the Capitol rioters? Look at the inflamed hate-drunk mobs painted by Goya’, The Guardian, 12 January 2021

......

This is When Reason Loses and Ignorance Wins

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Photo:usnews.com

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