The House of the Madmen by Francisco de Goya

The picture is the interior of a madhouse. A vast room, reminiscent of a cellar, bare stone walls with arches. Light falls into the openings between the vaults and the window with a lattice. Here, the insane are gathered together and shut up, there are a lot of them – and each of them is hopelessly lonely. Everyone is mad in his own way.

In the middle, a young, strong man is depicted naked; furiously gesturing, insisting and threatening, he argues with an unseen opponent. Other half-naked people can be seen, they have crowns on their heads, bull horns and colorful feathers, like the Indians. They sit, stand, lie, crouched under a looming stone vault. But there is a lot of air and light in the picture.

Related Paintings

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