Masterpiece

Pilgrimage to St. Isidore's hermitage

The room downstairs was dominated by two huge paintings (about 4.30 metres wide and 1.40 metres high): The witches' sabbath or the great he-goat and Pilgrimage to St. Isidore's hermitage.

St. Isidore's meadow (detail)

The hermitage of St. Isidore

St. Isidore is the patron Saint of Madrid. His feast (15 May) is a local holiday. His relics are kept at the Church of St. Andrew (Madrid).

Goya has painted this subject several times. His earlier paintings depicted merry people celebrating the feast of St. Isidore.

There is no trace of merriness in Pilgrimage to St. Isidore's hermitage, despite the singing of the pilgrims. We see a strange group of people, with grotesque faces, singing, accompanied by a guitar. The joy of the people on the earlier St. Isidore paintings is gone, it has been replaced by gloom, despair, tragedy.