Plate 58 from 'The Disasters of War' (Los Desastres de la Guerra): 'It's no use crying out.' (No hay que dar voces.)
Original title: Plate 58 from 'The Disasters of War' (Los Desastres de la Guerra): 'It's no use crying out.' (No hay que dar voces.)
kurzbeschreibung
A man lies on the ground while others kneel and stand around him. Plate 58 from Goya's 'The Disasters of War', made in 1811–12, bears witness to the hardship and hopelessness of the Spanish War of Independence. The etching with aquatint gathers a group in a bare, gloomy setting.
Description
In the foreground a wounded or dying man lies on the ground; several people stand and kneel around him. A woman holds a child, a man clutches a knife, others appear to pray or offer help. Nearly everything stays in shades of grey, the bodies rendered with terse, sketch-like strokes. The layout feels asymmetrical, the reclining figure its pivot; light falls dimly from above and deepens the shadows.
Context
Goya made this print during the Spanish War of Independence (1808–1814), which he recorded in his series 'Los Desastres de la Guerra'. It belongs to a set of 82 plates that were not published until 1863, long after his death. At the time Goya was court painter in Madrid and witnessed the horrors of war at close range.
Impact
The dark tonality and expressive, sketchy lines summon a mood of grief and misery. Because the light is so sparse and the arrangement asymmetrical, the eye is drawn entirely to the suffering at the center, producing an immediate emotional effect.
Technique
Executed as a proof impression, the plate combines etching with burnished aquatint, burin and burnisher. From the interplay of acid work and manual reworking of the plate come the delicate lines and gradations of shadow.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)