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Francisco Goya (Spanish 1746-1828) from
the series-
PC1969.17
PC1971.86
PC1969.18
c1808-10
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| At the age of 62, Goya was
a witness to one of the nineteenth century's most horrid wars, the Peninsular
War between Spain and France. The war was triggered in 1808 by the establishment
of a puppet regime led by Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon. In
reaction, the citizens of Spain rose up to protest his action. Eventually,
the conflict developed into a struggle not only between the two nations,
but also between opposing factions in Spain along ideological and social
lines. The nation was split between reactionaries, enlightened middle class
citizens, and a poor and angry pueblo class.
The war, lasting nearly six years, also involved the countries of England and Portugal. During this time, Spain was ravaged by all types of brutalities: rapes, tortures, and famine. Bands of guerrilla fighters, a new type of soldier, roamed the countryside, lending to the chaotic and senseless nature of conflict. Even after the end of the war, when Ferdinand VII stepped in with a reactionary monarchy in 1814, the inhumanities continued. It was these human atrocities that Goya depicted in the Disasters of War. Such an experience obviously had a great impact upon him. When someone asked Goya why he could endure the atrocities and sketch such brutal images of war, he simply replied, "To have the satisfaction of saying to men, forevermore, that they could not be savages." Goya was not able, however, to spread his message to people of his time. Fearing the same type of reaction that he received with the controversial Caprichos series, Goya did not immediately publish the prints. He gave a copy titled Capricho to a friend. This set included the prints in their intended order, along with an additional five prints. In 1863 the series was reworked and finally published by the Royal Academy of San Fernando as 80 prints with a frontispiece. The Academy gave it the name it is known by today, The Disasters of War. The whole series can be divided into three parts. The first part, prints 2-47, deals with the "horrors of war." The second part, prints 48-64, contains subjects dealing with the Madrid famine of 1811-1812. The last group, prints 65-80, is known as the "enfanticos". The exact date of the prints is not known, but it is believed that Goya finished all of them before 1820, the year that he presented a copy to his friend, Ceán Bermúdez. Goya continued working on them continuously throughout the years 1810-1820, enduring shortages of supplies as well as the dangers of the war. Number 87 in the collection, Thanks to the Millet, was #51 in the publication of 1863. It belongs to the group of prints based on the devastating famine that lasted from September 1811 until August 1812 in the city of Madrid and surrounding areas. At the end of the famine, when the British Duke of Wellington entered the city, nearly 20,000 people had died. Deserted bodies were a common sight along the streets of Madrid. In this print, the title refers to the only staple that was remotely available in the months of the famine. Millet porridge constituted the diet of most people and was the only thing that kept them alive. The huddled mass of people in the center of the print is typical of the poor and starving of the famine. Number 86 belongs to a group of prints known as the "enfanticos." Most of these prints were added at the end of the Disasters and are closely related in theme to the Caprichos series. In these prints, the subjects are represented in bestial fashion and refer specifically to the clerical reaction that took place after the year 1814 when Ferdinand took the throne. This specific print, entitled Troupe of Charlatans, was #75 of monstrous human forms in clerical garb: a parrot-headed creature, a humanoid creature with an ass' head, a monkey-faced person, etc. The theme is an obvious attack on clerics and their hypocritical nature. Kristin Hicks
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