Metaphors in the Art of Goya: A Theory of Unconscious Development

The Dream (preparatory drawing) by Francisco de Goya

The Dream (print) by Francisco de Goya

"The dream of reason produces monsters." Francisco de Goya (source)

The purpose for exhibiting the creative process of a master painter as Francisco de Goya, showing his initial sketch, and final print, runs parallel to a theory I have in relation to the role of the unconscious, and its impacts on the life of both the sleeper and the awake. 

Firstly, my theory is founded on lived experience. The foundation is as follows: If a person follows their natural sleep-awake patterns, without conscious intervention, the body cycles through an internal clock more expansive than the twenty-four hour day. Incrementally, each day one wakes later, sleeps later, and eventually earlier. In the course of over a year of practicing this experiment of consciousness, I have found the twenty-four hour clock to be limiting and a mere fixed point around which my sleep and waking cycles orbit, as a celestial body around its true source of gravity. 

Is this an effect of seasonal, environmental, or psychological pressures? The theoretical part now kicks in. With the exhibition of Goya's creative process in visual representing the night of Man, he is accosted by a host of demons, and in turn, upon waking, those demons become monsters of reason. So, if we allow the regenerative natural patterns of sleeping and waking to unfold, with complete abandon and in lieu of the normative twenty-four hour clock, we give way to a natural creative energy sourced deep within our unconscious, that nourishes our very life-breath with the heartbeat of self-knowledge. 

With this, the world of dream is merely a doorway, as is a metaphor or a myth, towards a more holistic regenerative consciousness of self-awakening. 

See related post: In Defence of Sleep: Regenerative Sleep Cycles of Archaic Man

__________

After hours downtown mall. Winter night. Midwestern city. The street is dim, and I stand, as to wait for a companion, or a bus home. Alone, my eyes scan the glass exit doors with a longing nostalgia for company. As I consider my absolute solitude, two prostitutes brush up against me. They closed in out of nowhere. After a moment of disdain, I begin to hear an inner curiosity.

Cocotte on the Road by E.L. Kirchner

"How much?" I ask, imploringly. "500 dollars" she says with a soft smirk. "I don't have that much." I respond, with dry humour, having never intended to act on my curious insides. Surprisingly, my wife steps through the hall behind us and into the background. She sets up her instrument and begins to play. I drift, flying towards the awake. Her unconscious body, her subtle spirit had called me forth, from the fantastic night of isolation.

___________

What of human sound,
The frequent lust to prepare noise in strength of intellectual wonder
and produce unfathomable beauty
            of the entire body
                        descending to and from the ear’s tragic centering
In our musical society, and what to compare “human music” to the grandiose law of nature, expressed in the mere calls of bird and beast revolving their unchallenged voices around the veil of a gross acoustic hall,
            whose rendering dreams an unforgiving welcome to the Earth’s living
            hall,
                        led to a thoughtless demeanor
                                    yet within the mind of man
...

to find a source,
                                                not necessarily of communication
                                                            between human, bird and god,
                                                but a direct connection
                                                            that spells mystery
                                                                        from an inspired gift to all
her sound.

excerpts from "Of human sound"