Francisco Goya

From the Black Border Album (E), page 50.
After a sustained period of instability and conflict during the Peninsular War (1807-14), Goya again began receiving royal commissions in 1814. With the funds provided by royal patronage, he procured fine-quality paper and ink and began the drawings in his Black Border Album. Many of these sheets defy clear and easy interpretation. In They Go Well Together, the deaf artist depicted a couple, both apparently blind, making music and singing. --Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"
Music played a central role for Goya and his patrons. This sheet, the last known page from his Black Border Album, depicts a blind couple singing a cante jondo, a genre of Andalusian folk music. Following a grave illness in 1793, Goya permanently lost his hearing. The "close harmony" in the caption implies not only the musical accord of voices and guitar but also the compassion with which Goya treated the protagonists, given his own physical impairment. Moody and melancholic, this sheet foreshadows Goya's Black Paintings and the looming threat of the Inquisition. -- Exhibition Label, from "Visions and Nightmares: Four Centuries of Spanish Drawings"