Straw Burning, from Pendle Witches

Paula Rego, born in Portugal, has been described as “heiress to Goya’s Iberian darkness.” She is a master of aquatint, exploiting the medium to its most eerie and provocative ends. In this visionary image, Straw Burning, a dazed bride wanders through a hellish sea of frightening forms—menacing goat, screaming sunflower, aquiline demon, overgrown grasshoppers, sinister mice. The gradations of aquatint tone in the background set this netherworld aflame. The print comes from Rego’s Pendle Witches series, accompanied by poems by the British poet Blake Morrison.