Scene of Disciplines
Francisco Goya·1808
Historical Context
Scene of Disciplines, painted around 1808-12, depicts a flagellant procession where hooded penitents whip themselves in a frenzy of religious devotion. Goya treated this subject repeatedly, viewing such practices as manifestations of the superstition and fanaticism that Enlightenment reformers sought to eliminate from Spanish society. The painting's dark palette and violent energy connect it to the series of cabinet pictures on popular religious customs, madness, and the Inquisition that Goya produced during the Peninsular War years. Now in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, where it arrived through the active nineteenth-century Argentine art market that acquired several important Goya works from European dealers.
Technical Analysis
Goya renders the disturbing scene with dark, intense palette and visceral brushwork, using the contrast between the flagellants' contorted bodies and the watching crowd to create an image of disturbing power.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the hooded flagellant figures creating a ghostly procession: the white robes and conical hats of penitents were simultaneously religious and terrifying, and Goya captures both registers.
- ◆Look at the dynamic movement of the procession: the figures moving through the landscape create a sense of relentless forward motion, as if the procession cannot stop.
- ◆Observe the crowd watching from the edges: spectators and participants create two distinct social groups, and Goya differentiates them through posture and expression.
- ◆Find this as one of several scenes of extreme religious practice: alongside the Inquisition tribunal and the procession of flagellants, this constitutes Goya's sustained examination of religious fanaticism.
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