3-101-578 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Que locura!, (What madness!), Plate 68, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A friar holding a spoon is surrounded by sacred images, votive offerings and masks. Hooded figures are in procession behind. This scene seems to illustrate the expression "eating the soup" - living off the backs of others, referring to the shameless way in which certain members of the clergy lived at the time. It may also be seen as a criticism of the many false healers who promised help or salvation in exchange for financial reward. 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].