Los Desastres de la Guerra

Los Desastres de la Guerra is a series of eighty-one prints by Francisco de Goya produced between 1810 and 1820 that documents, interprets, and condemns the violence of the Peninsular War and its aftermath. The series synthesizes techniques from Rembrandt van Rijn, Albrecht Dürer, Honoré Daumier, Jacques Callot, and Peter Paul Rubens into a distinctive visual critique related to the events surrounding the Spanish War of Independence (1808–1814), the occupation by Napoleon, and the political turmoil of the Bourbon restoration. Goya's work circulated in collectors' circles and later influenced artists and movements including Édouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, Francisco de Zurbarán, Émile Zola, and Diego Rivera.

Background and creation

Goya conceived the series during the period of the Peninsular War and the subsequent reign of Ferdinand VII of Spain, drawing on first-hand exposure to the sieges of Madrid, the executions at Málaga, the massacres after the Dos de Mayo Uprising, and the broader collapse of order under Napoleon Bonaparte's imperial project. He worked in Madrid and at his country residence in Quinta del Sordo, combining etching and aquatint techniques learned from contemporaries and predecessors such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Charles Le Brun. The prints date from roughly the same years as Goya's Disasters of War, Black Paintings, and the painted tapestry cartoons for the Royal Palace of Madrid, situating the series within Goya's late creative period and his engagement with political and moral subjects that resonated across Madrid, Bordeaux, and European artistic centers.

Description and themes

The series presents scenes of battlefield carnage, famine, summary executions, and civilian suffering that evoke incidents like the reprisals after the Battle of Bailén, the devastation of Vitoria-Gasteiz, and the sack of Cádiz. Goya deploys chiaroscuro, grotesque figuration, and compressed spatial organization reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, Gustave Courbet, and Caravaggio to emphasize dehumanization, cruelty, and the collapse of legal protections such as those nominally promised by the Spanish Constitution of 1812. Recurrent motifs—blindfolded prisoners, mangled corpses, and anonymous heads—connect to Enlightenment critiques voiced by figures like Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, while also prefiguring realist and expressionist concerns later taken up by Gustave Flaubert, Thomas Carlyle, and Karl Marx's commentary on violence. The moral ambiguity and absence of clear heroic subjects make the series a critique not merely of specific actors such as Joseph Bonaparte or Marshal Ney but of systemic atrocity.

Plate series and notable prints

The eighty-one prints include titled and untitled plates that circulate under catalogue numbers Goya assigned posthumously by scholars; notable examples include plates known popularly as "The Third of May 1808" (rendered in an etching variant echoing the painted The Third of May 1808), "This is Worse", "The Disasters of War 3", and "I Saw It". Certain plates allude to events like the Siege of Zaragoza, the execution of guerrilleros linked to Francisco Espoz y Mina, and episodes involving French commanders tied to Marshal Soult. Several prints use captions that reference legal and theological language associated with institutions like the Spanish Inquisition and juridical texts such as the Fuero. The imagery of motherhood, famine, and rape echoes contemporary reports from correspondents in El Diario de Madrid and the diplomatic dispatches of representatives at courts in Paris, London, and Lisbon.

Production, publication, and reception

Goya produced the plates using etching, aquatint, and drypoint, techniques transmitted through printmakers associated with Madrid Academy of San Fernando and workshops frequented by students of José Luzán and followers of Anton Raphael Mengs. The plates remained unpublished in Goya's lifetime; they were first issued posthumously in the 1860s and 1870s through intermediaries in Paris and Madrid with editorial involvement from collectors linked to the Museo del Prado and private dealers who handled estates of figures like Mariano Goya's heirs. Early reception among artists such as Édouard Manet and critics from journals like La Revue des Deux Mondes was ambivalent, while later exhibitions at institutions including the Tate Modern, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston canonized the series as foundational to modern graphic protest.

Historical context and influence

The series sits at the intersection of events including the Peninsular War, the abdications at the Bayonne conferences, the return of Ferdinand VII, and the broader collapse of Napoleonic hegemony after the Battle of Waterloo. Its raw depiction of suffering influenced 19th- and 20th-century artists and intellectuals across Europe and the Americas: Honoré Daumier and Théodore Géricault in France, Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo in Italy, Émile Zola in literature, and later political artists such as Pablo Picasso (notably in Guernica), José Clemente Orozco, and Wassily Kandinsky who drew on Goya's moral urgency. The prints have been cited in histories of human rights debates linked to the Geneva Conventions and in scholarly work on visual testimony by historians at institutions like Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the University of Oxford. Museums, monographs, and exhibitions continue to reassess the series' role in discussions involving romanticism, realism, and the politics of representation.

Category:Print series Category:Francisco de Goya