3-101-579 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

No saben el camino, (They don't know the way), Plate 70, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A line of men from all social classes - priests, nobles, commoners - are all linked together by a rope. Their guide appears to be a blind man, reminding us of the parable of the blind leading the blind (Gospel of Matthew). This engraving may refer to the situation of the country after the War of Independence and the coming to power of Ferdinand VII, a monarch far removed from the ideas of the Enlightenment, from the light of reason. 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].