3-100-689 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Al cementerio, (To the cemetery), Plate 56, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). Two men are carrying a body - the head of the corpse slumps forward, obscuring the face. In the background another lifeless body waits to be taken to the cemetery, and behind this a woman holds a child in her arms. The scene refers to the massive increase in deaths caused by the famine of 1811 to 1812. For public health reasons, it was prohibited to take corpses to churches or chapels - the dead were buried in public cemeteries. 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].