3-100-769 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Se resucitará?, (Will it be resurrected?/Will it rise again?), Plate 80, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A glowing woman is awakening from sleep. On the right, a monk, ambiguously, holds a stone and an aspergillum. Animal-headed figures look on. The scene may pose the question of what would happen if the Constitution were to be reintroduced. The depiction of a woman, rather than a man, coming back to life demonstrates the secularisation of a sacred theme which, in this case, is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 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].