3-101-526 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer, (Sad foreboding of what is going to happen), Plate 1, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). In the darkness of the background, one can make out a host of monsters and chimeras: these represent the French invasion and all its consequences. The wretched figure is the people, who foresaw and divined what would come to pass, while the rulers had their eyes bandaged by selfishness. 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].