Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) There is no record of Goya's thoughts during this period. He completed the series during a period recuperating from illness, possibly lead poisoning, when he was in considerable mental and physical pain, and withdrew from public life. "Witches' Sabbath" is believed to be a rather bitter, but silent, protest against the royalists and clergy who had retaken control of Spain after the Peninsular War of 1807–14. Advocates of the Enlightenment had sought to redistribute land to the peasants, to educate women, publish a vernacular Bible and, by replacing superstition with reason, put an end to the Inquisition. Witch hunting, seen
Spanish art Subias (1734–1795), a skilled fresco painter, and of Mariano Salvador Maella (1739–1819) who both developed in the direction of the severe Neoclassicism of Mengs. Another important avenue for Spanish artists was portraiture, which was an active sphere for Antonio González Velázquez (1723–1794), Joaquín Inza (1736–1811) and Agustín Esteve (1753–1820). But it is in the genre of the still life that royal patronage was also successfully found, in the works by artists such as the court painter Bartolomé Montalvo (1769–1846) and Luis Egidio Meléndez (1716–1780). Continuing in the Spanish still life tradition of Sánchez Cotán and Zurbarán, Meléndez produced a series