Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, printmaker

A group of men with large artificial wings and bird-head hats flit about like giant moths in the darkness. Goya’s original title (A Way of Flying) provides no clues for interpreting this image. Even within Goya’s haunting, enigmatic oeuvre, The Proverbs are among his strangest prints. The artist began working on the series at the age of 70 and continued until 1824, four years before his death, perhaps leaving it incomplete. Published posthumously, these works greatly affected artists working in etching in the later 1800s.