3-101-554 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Bárbaros!, (Barbarians!), Plate 36, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). Two Napoleonic arquebusiers prepare to shoot a man who has been tied to a tree trunk, a common method of execution for traitors. In the background, the rest of the detachment observes the scene. The cruelty of this scene is perhaps even greater than in others, considering that the soldiers are executing someone from their own army, and doing so from behind. 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. The prints were not published until 35 years after Goya's death, probably because only then was it considered politically safe to produce a series of artworks criticising both the French and the restored Bourbons. 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].