Tu Que no Puedes (Thou Who Canst Not) by Francisco Goya (Interpretation and Analysis)

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Tu Que no Puedes by Francisco Goya
Tu Que no Puedes
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Today, I want to return to the subject of Francisco Goya’s Caprichos series. Goya published Los Caprichos in 1799, a series of etchings that depict the social ills of contemporary Spanish culture.

This print from the series, entitled Tu Que no Puedes (Thou who canst not) presents a criticism of idle, useless aristocrats. The print depicts two donkeys being carried on the shoulders of two men; the satirical implication here is that the donkeys, who, in the natural order of things, should be carrying the men, are so useless that the men have to carry them. The men, dressed in rags, represent the everyday, ordinary people of Spain, who must support the lazy, extravagant aristocracy.

According to historian Richard Herr, Enlightened Spanish thinking was centered around an “ideal landscape” in which “idle aristocrats...were out of place, and poverty-stricken laborers would disappear.” Goya espouses these ideals in many of his Caprichos. In the visual world of his prints, there is no room for a lazy nobleman who serves no practical purpose in society; to Goya, the idea that “the useful classes of society bear all the weight, or the true asses on their backs” (as is described in The Ayala Commentary of Goya’s Caprichos) is completely ridiculous. Instead, the hereditary nobility, like the donkeys in this print, should do what they are supposed to, support others. As Herr notes, in the case of the nobility this “entail[s] service to society and compassion for inferiors.” The print calls upon the aristocracy to take up their true place in the enlightened world.

According to art historian Eleanor Sayre, this print is a play on an idiom of Goya’s time: “crazy is the one who goes on foot for the convenience of his horse,” implying that the working classes of Spain have no reason to economically and socially support the hereditary privileges of those who oppress them. Goya seeks to harness the ludicrousness of the image of a man carrying a donkey to convey the insupportable position of the nobility.

Disclaimer: I’m not an art historian or an expert on this topic. The above is my opinion, based on my interpretation of my foreknowledge of art and history. If I’ve done any additional research, I’ll note it above.

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