3-101-536 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Duro es el paso!, (The way is hard!/It's a difficult step!), Plate 14, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). Man being forced up the steps to a scaffold where two bodies already swing. 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].