Goya was a Spanish artist of the eighteenth century. He had initially painted in the style of Velasquez, a painter who Dalí also admired, but after an illness which left him deaf, Goya began to use more personal and social themes in his works. Los Caprichos (1798) was a series of etchings. They were banned in Spain because of their anti-clerical stance, but they were popular elsewhere.
    Following his illness, Goya's work was dominated by a palette of gray, brown, and black, emphasized by red. Dalí has mimicked this palette for his interpretation, as well as the cartoon-like quality that some of Goya's work had. Whilst firmly in the style of Goya, there are still the Dalínian touches to the drawing. The shape of the man's head on the left, with its eyes shut, long lashes, and a frown on the forehead, is reminiscent of the huge heads seen in paintings such as The Enigma of Desire (1929).
    The donkeys in this drawing are characterized as human; they write letters and wear clothes - a visual metaphor for the foolishness of mankind.

    The Joker is Dalí's rendition of the traditional subject of the joker, from within the constrained field of playing cards. Although Dalí has kept most aspects of the standard portrayal of the joker, he has added some of his Surrealistic trademarks to the drawing. Dalí would often include a repetitive Surrealist image, such as the crutch, in his commissioned works; their inclusion performed a visual reference to him, ensuring that the viewer understood this to be a work by Dalí. One of these repeated images is the figure of a medieval jester, or joker. They can often be seen in the background, such as in the 1949 painting, Rome.
    The colors in the drawing are restricted to the bold, mainly primary colors that are usually seen in playing cards. The joker is standing in an impossible position, performing a handstand with his legs bending over his head, twisting back the wrong way. Out of his chest, a drawer appears with a crutch balanced inside it. The crutch supports the elongated skull, an image that Dalí included in a series of paintings. It is an image that obviously refers to mortality but becomes strangely sexual because of its elongated, phallic, appearance.