3-101-517 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Lo mismo, (The same), Plate 3, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A Spanish peasant, wielding an axe, attacks a group of soldiers with a powerful swing. The enemy soldiers - wearing fur caps and armed with sharp scimitars - fail to defend themselves against the fearsome woodsman. To the left, a comrade vigorously stabs the soldier he is grappling with. This act of retaliation - following a scene where foreign soldiers lorded it over the locals - loses its heroic quality, serving instead to underscore that, ultimately, it makes no difference whether one is in the right or not. Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates (between 1810 and 1815), art historians see them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent cruel war that ended in Spanish victory in the Peninsular War of 1808-1814, and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814. From "Los Desastres de la Guerra: colección de ochenta láminas inventadas y grabadas al agua fuerte por Don Francisco de Goya", (The Disasters of War: collection of eighty plates made and etched by Don Francisco de Goya), [Madrid, 1863].