Los Caprichos: “Hasta la muerte”

Hasta la muerte (Until death), from the series *Los Caprichos: after Goya*.

 

Goya had a wicked sense of humor.  His Caprichos are full of puns and double-entendres, and though their subject-matter is dark, many of them are funny, too. Sometimes they included figures that people would recognize. In my own Caprichos, I spoofed the famous figure in the image above by paralleling him with Goya’s print of the same title, “Hasta la muerte”, which translates as “Unto death” (see below). Goya’s image is about an old woman’s vanity: she dwells on her own image in the mirror but doesn’t notice those who laugh at her futile preening. The original print, then, is also a mirror for Mick, whose  youthful declaration that he couldn’t picture himself singing “Satisfaction” at 45 has been amazingly transcended by a scrupulous burnishing of self-image well into the “golden years”. I’m sure he’d get a kick out of the parallel.

 

Hasta la muerte, from Goya’s 1799 album “Los Caprichos”.