The Hour of the Lynx

Francisco Goya, El sueño de la razón produce monstruos (The sleep of reason produces monsters) 1799.

"Poised alertly at Goya's feet is a lynx with pointed ears, an animal whose extraordinarily acute eyes allow it to pierce the darkness. Because of this quality the Spanish eighteenth-century dictionary gives as its common metaphoric use: 'el que tiene muy aguda la vista y gran perspicacia y sutileza para comprehender ó averiguar las cosas dificultosas' (one who has very keen vision and great sagacity and subtlety in understanding or in inquiring into very difficult matters)." – Eleanor A. Sayre