3-101-575 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Qué alboroto es este?, (What is this hubbub?/What's the fuss?), Plate 65, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). Criticism of the regime of Ferdinand VII: a soldier stops writing to watch two women, one dressed in white and the other in black, being harassed by two furious dogs. The women, clutching their heads in desperation, may be receiving the news of their ruin, decreed by the invader who took various measures to strip the population of their crops or their money and thus obtain support for the army. 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 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].