AES32 The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

Art is a testament to our humanity. It is the expression of which we separate ourselves from machines and animals. Without it, life would be monotone, boring, senseless. Our emotions and imagination is the beating heart that drives us to create. But unrestrained imagination and unchecked emotions can also be a bad thing, and can even be a source of great evil.

Today, I want to talk about Francisco de Goya, a very influential painter from Spain in the 18th century, and about his famous work during that time. I have written about the Enlightenment before, an era where ideas of rationality, knowledge and science were championed. Goya painted this in his country of Spain, where the majority of its society was more conservative and reluctant to change. He saw the Enlightenment movement spreading throughout Europe and North America, and was frustrated to see his own country rejecting those ideals, so he made a series of paintings to criticize superstition, corruption, intolerance, ignorance and religious dogma of the society around him, and he named this collection of paintings Los Caprichos. 

And so we arrive at the most famous painting that came out of Los Caprichos, titled The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters. It shows an artist that peacefully fell asleep, while beasts and monsters of the night eerily crawls out to fill the scene. This shows that when reason is asleep, terrible things like ignorance, hate, fear and superstition are free to run out and play. When people become ignorant, fear can drive them to acts of evil and hatred. We should never let our emotions and imagination control us, without our reason and clear thinking to keep us from stumbling down dark paths. Goya’s message is that imagination united with reason should be the inspiration that drives us forward. Never lose sight of beauty, but do not be seduced by the countless lies and false promises that lie ahead of us. Imagination allows us to take flight, but reason will keep us from flying too close to the sun.

“Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.” - Francisco de Goya