Goya's Caprichos from the Brooklyn Museum

Through his candid portraits of 18th-century Spanish royalty, Francisco Goya had become the most celebrated painter of his day when, at age 51, shortly after serious illness had left him deaf, he began work on a series of 80 daring etchings that would influence artists and writers into the 20th century.

The series known as Los Caprichos, which, loosely translated, means "the caprices," shows Goya's rancor at the unpredictability of life, combining acerbic commentary on the Spanish aristocracy, the clergy and human nature itself with images of monsters, ghouls and other supernatural figures. At the same time, Goya achieved stunning tonal effects through his experimental use of aquatint.

First published in 1799, the prints were a financial failure at the time but later would influence the French Romantics, Symbolists and Decadents in the 19th century, and Paul Klee and Georg Grosz in the 20th. On loan from the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum, the prints are on view at Columbia University's Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery.

Believed to be the earliest trial proof set of the series, the Brooklyn Museum etchings were produced before the copper plates showed any signs of wear, and, therefore, present a rare opportunity to fully appreciate the beauty and innovation of Goya's printmaking techniques, according to Andrew Schulz, curator of the Wallach exhibition.

Mr. Schulz writes in an introductory statement to the exhibition that Goya achieved sharp highlights by protecting portions of the plate with an acid-resistant varnish, a technique known as "stopping-out." In addition, he "created a wide range of half-tones by burnishing, through which selected areas of aquatint are polished to reduce the amount of ink they hold," he writes. Goya probably worked on the plates over an 18-month period, spring 1797 to fall 1798 -- "a remarkable short time-span given the stylistic and technical diversity they exhibit."

Although the series dates from a period of intense social, political and aesthetic upheaval, the extent to which Goya shared the reforming spirit of literary contemporaries with whom he is so often linked is open to scholarly debate, said Mr. Schulz.

The prints convey the artist's disillusionment with the gamut of human weaknesses, from vanity to gluttony. "Until Death," for example, shows a wizened old woman fixing her hair while three young figures point and laugh at her aging concern for her appearance. "They are Hot" shows monks stuffing themselves with food, satisfying earthly rather than spiritual desires.