- Cronología
- Ca. 1812 - 1815
- Dimensiones
- 155 x 205 mm
- Técnica y soporte
- Etching, lavis and drypoint
- Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
- Undisputed work
- Ficha: realización/revisión
- 24 Nov 2010 / 02 Jun 2023
- Inventario
- 225
See Sad presentiments of what must come to pass.
The second surviving state proof shows touches of drypoint on the soldiers on the right-hand side of the image and the lavis, or open-bite etching, has been applied right up to the edges of the print. This impression was made in greyish-brown sepia ink.
The title was handwritten by Goya on the first and only print run that we know to have been made at the time, and which the painter gave to his friend Agustín Ceán Bermúdez. The title was engraved on to the copperplate at a later date, and no other modifications were made to the image for the first edition of the Disasters of War. This edition was printed by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, in 1863.
No preparatory drawings for this print have been conserved.
In With or without reason a pair of Spanish soldiers confront three French soldiers, who are lined up like a firing squad. One of the Spaniards, bleeding profusely from his nose, wields a dagger in one hand and holds his head up defiantly. The other, standing slightly further back, looks out at the viewer, with an expression that betrays a mixture of pain and fear, whilst he holds up a spear. As all this is going on, in the background we see a number of figures locked in a bitter struggle, perhaps trying to avoid the same fate as those who about to be executed in the foreground.
As it is, the weapons wielded by the Spaniards can do little or nothing against the rifles and bayonets of their opponents, which are clearly outlined in the etching. Goya thus shows us, in this image and in many others in the Disasters of War series, how, facing the well-armed French army, the Spanish mob had to make up for what they lacked in war material with sheer courage.
Just as in other prints in this same series and in the painting entitled Third of May 1808, Goya shows the executioners with their backs to the viewer and their faces concealed. This is most likely a way of alluding to the universal nature of violence, going beyond any specific features that might serve to identify the individuals concerned. This idea of universality is further underlined by the lack of any elements that belong to a particular landscape or a concrete physical space which might allow us to identify where these events are taking place.
This print is related to no. 3 in the series, The same. Goya establishes an analogy between the present scene and that which follows and which depicts the opposite situation: Spaniards brutally slaughtering a group of French soldiers. Through these images, which are simultaneously consecutive and parallel to one another, the artist expresses his inability to justify these two acts or to exonerate these two equally unacceptable examples of violence.
The etching plate is conserved in the National Chalcography Museum (cat. 253)
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Francisco de GoyaMuseo d'Arte ModernaLugano1996exhibition celebrated from September 22nd to November 17th.cat. 2
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Francisco de Goya: Maleri, Tegning, GrafikkNasjonalgallerietOslo1996from 10th to April 14th 1996cat. 163
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Francisco Goya. Sein leben im spiegel der graphik. Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux. 1746-1996Galerie KornfeldBern1996from November 21st 1996 to January 1997cat. 91
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Ydioma universal: Goya en la Biblioteca NacionalBiblioteca NacionalMadrid1996from September 19th to December 15th 1996cat. 223
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Goya's RealismStatens Museum for KunstCopenhagen2000from February 11th to May 7th 2000cat. 38
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Francisco Goya. Capricci, follie e disastri della guerraSan Donato Milanese2000Opere grafiche della Fondazione Antonio Mazzottacat. 81
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Goya en tiempos de guerraMuseo Nacional del PradoMadrid2008consultant editor Manuela B. Mena Marqués, from April 14th to July 13th 2008cat. 81
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Goya et la modernitéPinacothèque de ParisParís2013from October 11st 2013 to March 16th 2014cat. 41
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Goya, grabadorMadridBlass S.A.1918cat. 104
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Vie et ouvre de Francisco de GoyaParísOffice du livre1970cat. 995
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Vicisitudes de algunas láminas grabadas por Francisco de Goya: Los desastres de la guerra, Los disparates, La tauromaquiaGoya1978-1979p. 286
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Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca NacionalMadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional1996cat. 184
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ParísPinacoteca de París2013p. 120
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ZaragozaGobierno de Aragón y Fundación Bancaria Ibercaja2017p. 247
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AgenSnoeck2019p. 161