3-101-560 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Y esto tambien, (And this too), Plate 45, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). People fleeing their homes; a woman carries a child on her shoulders and a second in her arms, another woman holds a child under one arm and a chicken in her other hand - the family pig that accompanies them in their flight. On the right, a man hefts a large, heavy bundle on his shoulders. These civilians are probably running away from French troops about to pillage their town. 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 do so. 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].