3-101-586 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Que se rompe la cuerda, (May the rope break/The rope breaks), Plate 77, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A figure in ecclesiastical robes balances with arms outstretched on a knotted rope. The crowd watch in suspense, waiting for the rope to break. It is likely that the figure 'walking the tightrope' is Pius VII, secretary of the Inquisition and ambassador of the second constitutional government to the Vatican. "Pius VII...owes Napoleon Bonaparte the...peaceful possession of his chair in Rome". Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates (made 1810-1815), 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].