3-101-534 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Para eso habeis nacido, (This is what you were born for), Plate 12, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). One living person among a pile of corpses. The postures of the bodies and their inanimate expressions add to the horror. The survivor is vomiting blood so may very soon form part of this mass of lifeless bodies. The scene takes place in an inhospitable, sweeping landscape; there are no trees or bushes, nor any homes in which to shelter. 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].