The Disasters of War

Today marks the death of Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker who is considered the most important Spanish artist of late 18th and early 19th centuries . This print is from his series ‘The Disasters of War’ ( Los desastres de la guerra)  a series of 82 prints created between 1810 and 1820. Art historians regard 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 after the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814. This particular one, Plate 37, is titled – Esto es peor (This is worse). In the aftermath of battle, the mutilated torsos and limbs of civilian victims were mounted on trees, like “fragments of marble sculpture”.