BRATISLAVA (SITA) An exhibition of graphic works by Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Caprichos, opened within the cycle "Vision and Fantasy" in Mirbach Palace last Thursday. The exclusive exhibition, organized by the Gallery of Bratislava City (GMB) and containing a series of 40 graphics borrowed from the Szepmuveszeti Museum in Budapest, will end on September 6. The Spaniard painted this series in the 1790s after a serious illness that left him permanently deaf, and it was a milestone in his artistic perception and thinking. Isolated from others by his deafness, he became increasingly occupied with the fantasies and inventions of his imagination and with critical and satirical observations of mankind. He evolved a bold, free, new style close to caricature. In 1799 he published the Caprichos (Whims), a series of 80 etchings satirizing human folly and weakness. His portraits became penetrating characterizations, revealing their subjects as Goya saw them. In his religious frescoes he employed a broad, free style and an earthy realism unprecedented in religious art. Up to this time his works were characterized by conventionality ensuing from his position of a court painter. In 1799 he stopped the sales of these graphics because of anxiety from inquisition.