Byrne represents the cruelty and savage mockery of the original works in a series of poems that reconfigure the ghastly actions, and disingenuousness of their subjects. In these poems Goya’s images shimmer against the mirror of our own times, bringing with them, for the contemporary reader, the added glare of MeToo, nationalist rhetoric and political corruption. For Byrne these are not images he has a ‘liking’ for, as he explains in his introduction, but rather, ones that he came to feel were ‘haunting’ him.

These etchings and their twin poems are dark, starkly expressive of a baser expression of human nature warped by societal structure. Those with youth and beauty are coerced into prostitution, powerful individuals become corrupted and debased, those who want to sell hope, salvation are revealed to be venal and ignorant. Byrne meticulously analyses the images, summoning fears and anxieties that still resonate.