Scène d'école

There is an old Spanish saying, la letra con sangre entra, the letters go in with blood, meaning a child learns only under the lash. Goya took it at its word. A schoolmaster has hauled a boy up, bared his backside and is beating him with a strap. Two other children nearby have already had their turn, and in the shadows the rest bend over books too few to go around. Goya painted this small scene in the early 1780s, back in Zaragoza, the Aragonese city where he had trained, years before he became a court painter in Madrid. The little dog at the master's feet is there for a reason, an old emblem of obedience, sitting quiet while the strap comes down.