Resumen de Insanity and the sublime: aesthetics and theories of mental illness in Goya's "Yard with Lunatics" and related works
Francisco Goya's 1793–94 painting Yard with Lunatics is discussed. Though at first the painting seems to fit perfectly into the context of enlightened criticism of the inhuman conditions in mental institutions of the time, Goya's depiction is in stark contrast to the conditions then found in Spanish asylums, which were more humane than most other comparable institutions in Europe, particularly at the Saragasso asylum, to which Goya claimed his painting referred. It is questionable, then, why he chose a scene of violence and cruelty such as rarely happened there. He may have suspected the operation of irrational and potentially creative powers in manic insanity, which could have been useful in his art, especially having recovered from an illness he may have been linked with madness. Moreover, it seems likely that his cabinet pictures, including Yard with Lunatics, were inspired by some of Claude-Joseph Vernet's paintings, which mainly interested him because of their association with the “terrible sublime” of the powerful forces of unchained nature and its human victims.
