‘He Wakes Up Kicking’; a man on the floor kicking his legs after waking from a nightmare c. 1819 - 1823

Francisco Goya captured this man awaking from a nightmare in an undated ink wash drawing titled ‘He Wakes Up Kicking’. The figure's flailing limbs and contorted face speak to a universal human experience: the jarring return to consciousness from the depths of a disturbing dream. This motif of the body in distress is an ancient one. We see it echoed in depictions of the damned in medieval Last Judgement scenes, their bodies twisted in eternal torment. Consider, for instance, the writhing figures in Michelangelo’s depiction of hell. Goya presents us not with a grand, allegorical scene, but with a private moment of anguish, raw and unfiltered. The rapid strokes of the ink wash amplify the sense of unease, of a mind struggling to regain control. This primal scream, captured in ink, taps into our own collective memory of night terrors, those moments when the subconscious unleashes its fury. It is a chilling reminder of the darkness that lurks within us all.