The Sleep of Reason

About this painting

The title alludes to Goya's famous etching — the sleep of reason produces monsters — but the monsters here are companionable rather than menacing: a bat banking overhead, a flying fish suspended in mid-air, and two warty creatures from the margins of Bosch sharing the ledge with a bowl of pomegranates.

The still life elements — the blue-and-white Delft bowl, the pomegranates with their jewel-like seeds, the cool stone ledge — are painted in the tradition of 17th-century Flemish cabinet painting. The creatures are rendered with the same close attention to surface and light, giving them an unsettling plausibility.