The Inquisition Tribunal

The Inquisition Tribunal, also known as The Court of the Inquisition or The Inquisition Scene, is an oil-on-panel painting produced by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya between 1812 and 1819. The painting belongs to a series which also includes The Bullfight, The Madhouse and A Procession of Flagellants, all reflecting customs which liberals (of whom Goya was then one) objected to and wished were abandoned, but their reform was opposed by the absolutist policy of Ferdinand VII of Spain. The painting depicts an auto-da-fé "act of faith" by a tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition, being held inside a church. The four accused people are wearing tall, pointed coroza or Capirote (a three-foot tall pointed dunce cap) on their heads and clad in sanbenitos describing their offences. Ringed around the accused are the clerics and Inquisitors and farther back a sea of invited guests fill the church interior, witnessing the drama. Every figure in the foreground is in the light, individualised and well-characterised, whereas the background is occupied by an anonymous mass of people shut in by darkness and a claustrophobic Gothic architecture