Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) whose full-length portrait appears in the same series. As with the other "Black Paintings", Goya began with a black background which he painted over with lighter pigments, then with broad, heavy brushstrokes of grey, blue and brown. The darker areas were achieved by leaving the black under-paint exposed; this is most obvious in the figure of the Devil. Like the other works in the series, "Witches' Sabbath" is worked up through heavy, slashing brushstrokes. The plaster was underlaid with thick carbon black before the paint was applied in hues of white lead, Prussian blue, vermilion of mercury, and crystals of
The Witch-Cult in Western Europe "s'esbattre", meaning "to frolic". Most historians disagree, arguing instead that the organizers of the witch trials adopted terms predominantly associated with Judaism, including "Sabbath", in order to denigrate witches as the equivalent to Jews, who were also highly denigrated in mainstream European culture during this period. In fact, many witch trial accounts used not only "Sabbath" but also "synagogue" in reference to gatherings of witches. The idea of a witch cult that until early modern times managed to survive was quickly dismissed by historians. From the 1920s on, Murray's theory was assailed by critics such as George Lincoln Burr, Hugh