Boys playing soldiers

In 1778 Goya was still a young court painter with no fame yet, turning out designs for the royal tapestry works, and this was one of them, a cartoon meant to be woven and hung in the bedroom of the prince and princess who would become Carlos IV and his queen. He painted four boys playing at war on top of a low rise, seen from below so they loom against the sky. One beats a drum, one carries a little bell tower, two shoulder toy rifles, and a small soldier at the front turns and looks straight out at you, pleased with himself. The colours are bright and warm, the mood light and funny, children imitating grown men without any of the weight. It is easy to forget, standing in front of it in the Prado, that the same painter would spend his old age making the darkest images of real war ever put on canvas. Here the whole army is knee-high.