The Owl

In this multilayered composition, a central frame with a dark background shows an owl in front of a book of magic with blank pages, while around it the margins are busy with motifs (carriage, rigging, houses), like misty visions conjured up by the invocations of the witch at the bottom centre of the picture, remarkable for her entirely blackened eyes. With the magic lantern and the fantastic silhouettes against the full moon, we see here a portrayal of the fin-de-siècle romantic artist, an outsider, a creature of the night, giving the initiated few (pauca paucis) a whole graphic universe for the “sleep of reason” (to quote Goya's famous engraving on a similar theme).