The contemporary commentaries on Goya's Caprichos - Edition, translation, interpretation

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Helmut C. Jacobs
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies ; Art History
• Term: from 2009 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 108830524

Along with Picasso, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) is regarded to be one of the most eminent Spanish painters. For a broad public he represents the Spanish art of the 18th and early 19th century. The Caprichos, a cycle of 80 etchings, published in 1799, are among Goya's most important and internationaly noted works. Many of these etchings are highly ambiguous und fraught with hidden allusions, which inspired many of his coevals to handwritten interpretations and commentaries on his Caprichos. Like these they were circulated on the quiet and distributed via transcriptions. The numerous variants of these manuscripts are regarded as the demonstrably earliest reception of the 80 Caprichos. The corpus of over 50 handwritten commentaries and more than 50 typescripts of the 19th and early 20th century will be critically edited, translated into German and interpreted for the first time.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants