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Overview
The Disasters of War (Spanish: Los desastres de la guerra) is a series of 82 etching/aquatint prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the famous Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya (1746-1828). Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates, art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent Peninsular War of 1808-14 and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814. During the conflicts between Napoleon's French Empire and Spain, Goya retained his position as first court painter to the Spanish crown and continued to produce portraits of the Spanish and French rulers. Although deeply affected by the war, he kept private his thoughts on the art he produced in response to the conflict and its aftermath. He was in poor health and almost deaf when, at 62, he began work on the prints. They were not published until 1863, 35 years after his death. It is likely that only then was it politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticising both the French and restored Bourbons. In total over a thousand sets have been printed, though later ones are of lower quality, and most museum print room collections have at least some of the set; currently this is Te Papa's sole example.
This is plate 57 from the series and is likely to be the fifth state of the etching, according to its former owner, Sir John Ilott's, note, and dates from the early 20th century. Plates 48 to 64 record the effects of the famine that hit Madrid in 1811-12, before the city was liberated from the French. The old woman, cloaked and hooded at center resembles a traditional personification of Death; she stands supporting a child wrapped in rags who clearly approaches his end. To the left, two more boys wait patiently for their turn to die. To the right of the old woman, an man, looking almost sepulchral already, waits his turn as well. Immediately to the left of the old woman, a mother tenderly holds her young child, who is almost back into a fetal position. In the background at right, two more cloaked figures, one in white, the other in black, walk by in the sunlight. The 'healthy' figures are the cloaked ones and the 'sick' ones are starving, naked and draped in rags; Goya is surely hinting that the healthy figures could be nuns, facing the 'disaster' of the impending deaths of innocent wartime victims. He had almost certainly witnessed such traumas first hand, and his harrowing recording of it is timeless in its power and relevance. The preparatory drawing for this print is in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War
Spaightwood Gallery, http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Goya_Desastres6.html
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art July 2017