* Francisco de Goya, Tio Paquete (1820) (If the object of search is a laughing face, what conjures up immediately is a series of grinning, genial aristocrats’ portraiture produced by Frans Hals. It takes rather a deviated scrutiny if one stretched so much to point out any maliciousness within Hals’ artless faces, but there are those faces that seem to command all the evil spirits the instance you see them. Goya’s is such a face. What enhances the painting’s threatening danger is the presumably deliberate hollowed-out of the eyes and the seemingly bottomless mouth. Lacking of any manifold colours can be an oppressive effect to the viewer, and everything can suddenly seem all-encompassingly menacing.) It would be a comforting wonder if everyone was an actor in his play; to treat the stage of world all his dialogues were reduced to what was written in the book, and some cues were needed before he uttered. Within that roughly-fabricated image do we miss the audience? Fortunately the play ...