3-101-548 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Estragos de la guerra, (Ravages of war), Plate 30, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). The print has been viewed as a precursor to 'Guernica' due to its compositional chaos, the mutilation of bodies, the fragmentation of objects and items scattered throughout the scene, the severed hand of one of the corpses, the dismemberment of bodies, and the figure of the dead child with an inverted head - reminiscent of the child held by his mother in Picasso's anti-war painting. 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].