郊游野餐

In the 1780s Goya was turning out cheerful designs of Spanish everyday life to be woven into tapestries for the royal palaces. This small picture belongs to that world. A few young men in the flashy dress of Madrid's majos lounge on the ground with women, a wine bottle out, on open ground outside the city. One man leans in and talks while the others watch, and the mood is easy and a little flirtatious. Scenes like this were exactly what Charles the Third wanted on his walls, ordinary Spaniards at their leisure rather than gods and battles. A pale range of hills closes off the distance behind them.