taken from: title of de goya's 1797-1798 etchingoriginal text:

El sueno de la razon produce monstruosabout the quoted person:Spanish painter and etcher.see francisco de goya for a comprehensive biography.

Goya's observation of the world led him to believe that the eighteenth century philosophers' dream of Reason only produced monsters. His etching, entitled 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters', shows a student asleep over his books while the air around him is filled with screech owls and bats.

This etching has been given various interpretations, but it is generally thought that the work represents the "triumph of nightmare." Does the cat represent Goya's belief that Reason, with its inherent power to end the nightmare, sits back and does nothing?