Inspiration from visual art

I'm reading a book on Goya, another artist whose work I saw in El Prado when I was in Spain. Some of that will certainly be worthy of including here, especially once I get to the so-called Black Paintings, if I decide to do another visual art post in the next week or two. But what jumped out at me this week was just a small image in the margins or a page about what was going on around Europe at the time of Goya.

The picture seemed vaguely familiar, though whether I'd actually seen it before or just fantastical works that had been inspired by it, I'm not sure. Either way, it turned out to be one of the etchings from Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Imaginary Prisons.

The whole series looks pretty amazing, and I requested a book from my library so I can look at them more closely and in more detail. Now I'm excitedly waiting for it to arrive.