Seven Days…a Halloween Mini-series!
Draftsman, engraver, and painter par excellence Francisco Goya is also responsible for some of the most grotesque images in Western art history. Mucho Hay Que Chupar (There is Plenty to Suck) is from Los Caprichos, a series of eighty etching-and-aquatint prints satirizing the vices and follies of contemporary Spanish society in the guise of witches, ghosts, ogres, and other nightmarish creatures. The captions on each print tend towards the enigmatic rather than the explanatory—“there is plenty to suck” suggests a ghoulish vampirism, but whether it is that of fantastical baby-consuming monsters or of a very real noble class remains in question.
Image: Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828). Mucho Hay Que Chupar (There is Plenty to Suck) from Los Caprichos, 1799 or later. Etching with aquatint, 11 1/2 x 8 1/8 inches (29.2 x 20.6 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Gift of Frederic P. Norton, 1999.
