Francisco de Goya

Ravages of War (Estragos de la guerra)

Clasificación
Ravages of War (Estragos de la guerra)
Datos Generales
Cronología
Ca. 1810 - 1812
Dimensiones
141 x 170 mm
Técnica y soporte
Etching, burin, drypoint and burnisher
Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
Undisputed work
Ficha: realización/revisión
06 Dec 2010 / 02 Jun 2023
Inventario
225
Inscripciones

Goya (lower left-hand corner), 21 (lower left-hand corner).

Historia

See Sad presentiments of what must come to pass.

The first artist's proof shows how the face, chest and legs of the woman in the foreground were worked in drypoint, as were the arms of the woman who is falling and another woman on the left-hand side of the composition. The shadow of the beam below the right thigh of the woman in the foreground was rendered with burin, reinforcing the broken etched lines in the background and the head of the falling female figure.

There is an artist's proof that is housed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston which belonged to Infante Sebastian.

The title was handwritten on the print by Goya in the first and only series that is known to have been printed at the time the works were created, which the artist gave to his friend Agustín Ceán Bermúdez. Therefore, the title was etched into the plate at a later date and left unchanged as of the first edition of the Disasters of War printed by the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid in 1863, after the printing of the series in the possession of Ceán Bermúdez.

There is a surviving preparatory drawing for this print which is housed in the Prado Museum in Madrid.

Análisis artístico

In this print Goya depicts the effects of a bombardment on the interior of a house. His inspiration possibly came from one of the bombardments which took place during the first siege of Zaragoza that he would have known about, although this kind of event would have been common during the war.

Within the house everything has been destroyed by the explosion: the roof beams are falling down, the furniture is in disarray, and there are bodies piled up on the floor, as well as one figure that seems to be thrown forward by the blast.

Goya creates a dark space in this print, perhaps in order to denote that the scene takes place at night, surprising the inhabitants of the house in their nightshirts. This darkness is expressed through the heavy use of etching in dense horizontal lines while the artist employs areas of white for the bodies left by the explosion. The violent postures of the corpses, the expressions of horror on the open-mouthed faces and the chaos inside the room generate a devastating atmosphere.

This print must be related to another catastrophic scene from the Disasters of War series, nº 41, They Escape Through the Flames (Escapan entre llamas). It is also clearly reminiscent of other previous Goya works, such as the two depicting fires, The Fire at Night and Fire in a Hospital, in which the protagonists have also been surprised in the night and flee in terror in their nightshirts. In all of these works Goya deals with catastrophe and its sublime capacity to block our senses and stop reason from operating.

Conservación

The plate is stored in the National Chalcography (cat. 281)

Exposiciones
  • De grafiek van Goya
    Rijksmuseum Rijksprentenkabinet
    Amsterdam
    1970
    from November 13th 1970 to January 17th 1971
  • Goya. Das Zeitalter der Revolucionen. Kunst um 1800 (1980 – 1981)
    Hamburger Kunsthalle
    Hamburg
    1980
  • Francisco de Goya
    Museo d'Arte Moderna
    Lugano
    1996
    exhibition celebrated from September 22nd to November 17th.
  • Francisco Goya. Sein leben im spiegel der graphik. Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux. 1746-1996
    Galerie Kornfeld
    Bern
    1996
    from November 21st 1996 to January 1997
  • Ydioma universal: Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    Biblioteca Nacional
    Madrid
    1996
    from September 19th to December 15th 1996
  • Goya's Realism
    Statens Museum for Kunst
    Copenhagen
    2000
    from February 11th to May 7th 2000
  • Goya. Opera grafica
    Pinacoteca del Castello di San Giorgio
    Legnano
    2006
    exhibition celebrated from December 16th 2006 to April 1st 2007
  • Goya en tiempos de guerra
    Museo Nacional del Prado
    Madrid
    2008
    consultant editor Manuela B. Mena Marqués, from April 14th to July 13th 2008
  • Goya et la modernité
    Pinacothèque de Paris
    París
    2013
    from October 11st 2013 to March 16th 2014
  • Madrid
    2017
  • 2022
Bibliografía
  • BERUETE Y MONET, Aureliano de
    Goya, grabador
    MadridBlass S.A.
    1918
    cat. 132
  • HARRIS, Tomás
    Goya engravings and lithographs, vol. I y II.
    OxfordBruno Cassirer
    1964
    cat. 150
  • GASSIER, Pierre y WILSON, Juliet
    Vie et ouvre de Francisco de Goya
    ParísOffice du livre
    1970
    cat. 1044
  • CARRETE PARRONDO, Juan
    Vicisitudes de algunas láminas grabadas por Francisco de Goya: Los desastres de la guerra, Los disparates, La tauromaquia
    Goya
    1978-1979
    p. 288
  • SANTIAGO, Elena M. (coordinadora)
    Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    MadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional
    1996
    cat. 233
  • TRAEGER, Jörg
    Goya. Die Kunst der Freiheit
    MunichVerlag C. H. Beck
    2000
    p. 151, fig. 57
  • CALVO SERRALLER, Francisco (comisario)
    Goya, la imagen de la mujer
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado y Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado
    2001
    p. 97, fig. 37
  • OROPESA, Marisa and RINCÓN GARCÍA, Wilfredo
    ParísPinacoteca de París
    2013
    p. 134
  • WILSON BAREAU, Juliet
    Goya. In the Norton Simon Museum
    PasadenaNorton Simon Museum
    2016
    pp. 114-151
  • CALVO RUATA, José Ignacio, BORRÁS GUALIS, Gonzalo M. and MARTÍNEZ HERRANZ, Amparo
    ZaragozaGobierno de Aragón y Fundación Bancaria Ibercaja
    2017
    p. 189
  • TORAL OROPESA, María and MARTÍN MEDINA, Víctor
    Museo de Bellas Artes de Badajoz y Diputación de Badajoz
    2022
    p. 65
Enlaces externos
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