3-101-573 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Muertos recogidos, (Harvest of the dead), Plate 63, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). Corpses lie piled in a jumble on the ground, stripped of their dignity. The sprawling postures of the bodies, the expressions on their lifeless faces and the way in which they have been thrown haphazardly reflects the insalubrious conditions in which bodies accumulated in cities, alluding to the scarcity of resources for decent burials in wartime. 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].