Artwork Page for The Proverbs: If Marion Will Dance, Then She Has to Take the Consequences

Details / Information for The Proverbs: If Marion Will Dance, Then She Has to Take the Consequences

The Proverbs: If Marion Will Dance, Then She Has to Take the Consequences

1864

Francisco de Goya

(Spanish, 1746–1828)
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Culture
Spain
Medium
etching and aquatint
Credit Line
Gift of Grover Higgins 1928.102.12
Catalogue raisonné
Harris 259; Perez Sanchez and Gallego p. 187 no. 12
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

The freewheeling, lascivious dancers in Goya’s composion keep time with castanets, pairs of shell-shaped wooden clappers attached to the thumb and index finger. The erotic connotations of castanets dated from antiquity, when they were depicted in vase paintings in association with the cult of the goddess Cybele and the Dionysian rites. According to Martin Mersenne’s treatise, Les Preludes de l’harmonie universelle (1636), castanets were used to accompany the saraband, a fast folk dance considered disreputable in 16th-century Spain. Although by the time the saraband reached the French court in the 17th century, it had become a slow, serious, processional dance, Goya refers here to the dance’s earlier, erotic origins.
A horizontally oriented black ink print depicts six expressive figures dancing with distorted limbs against a dark, grainy background. In the foreground, a stout man with his back turned stands with wide, bent legs. To the left, two men dance with raised arms. On the right, three women in gowns join the frenetic movement with wide, staring eyes. High contrast lighting illuminates their pale skin against the deep shadows.

The Proverbs: If Marion Will Dance, Then She Has to Take the Consequences

1864

Francisco de Goya

(Spanish, 1746–1828)
Spain

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