- Cronología
- Ca. 1812 - 1815
- Dimensiones
- 156 x 208 mm
- Técnica y soporte
- Etching, lavis and drypoint
- Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
- Undisputed work
- Ficha: realización/revisión
- 08 Dec 2010 / 24 May 2023
- Inventario
- 225
Goya (lower left-hand corner), 51 (lower left-hand corner of the plate)
See Sad presentiments of what must come to pass (Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer).
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 are no surviving preparatory drawings for this print.
Great deeds! With dead bodies! is the last image in the series The Disasters of War in which Goya depicts a scene of terrible violence. In the middle of a wasteland, three corpses have been tied to a tree. The figure suspended upside down has had his arms and head cut off. The head has been nailed to a branch, while his missing limbs hang from the tree, tied at the wrists. Next to the body is another that has been tied with a rope at the waist, arms behind his back. On the left is a third corpse whose head rests on the floor while his legs have been tied to the tree trunk.
This print is clearly related to print no. 33, What more can be done? (Qué hai que hacer mas?) in which soldiers dismember a corpse and print no. 37, This is worse (Esto es peor), showing a mutilated body impaled on a tree. These prints highlight the common practice during war of mutilating corpses to strip them of any dignity, a method that was applied particularly in the case of traitors. Accusing someone of treason was extremely serious, and those who pointed the finger at another who they suspected of being a traitor had to be very sure of their grounds for the accusation. A decree dated 3 February 1809 regulating the punishments meted out for disturbances ("Penas sobre bullicios y conmociones") stated that whoever accused a person of being a traitor had to prove it: if they could not, they could be subject to the punishments stipulated by law, which could even include the death penalty.
Goya was likely to have known about many sentences handed down to traitors, some of which would have been featured in the press at the time. One of the most debated cases was that of General Benito de San Juan, who led the Spanish troops during the Battle of Somosierra on 30 November 1808. The general retreated to Talavera where he was killed on 7 December 1808 by various soldiers who accused him of being a traitor. Not content with his death, the soldiers also stripped the body and mutilated it in a public act.
This print portrays a kind of macabre art work in the middle of nature, a curious composition in which the human remains have been distributed over a tree with almost aesthetic criteria. Despite the fact that the landscape that the painter depicts is an extremely tormented one, it also has a certain beauty. The artist depicts the mutilated body's anatomy with care in a marked classical style: the body that hangs upside down is reminiscent of the sketches Goya produced based on the Belvedere Torso in his Italian Sketchbook.
As in the case of other works in the series, the title of this print is critical. Goya exclaims "Great deeds!" but questions the merit of such a brutal gesture.
The plate is stored in the National Chalcography (cat. 290) .
-
Goya. Drawings, Etchings and LithographsGoya. DrawingsLondon1954from June 12th to July 25th 1954cat. 61
-
Goya and his timesThe Royal Academy of ArtsLondon1963cat. 66cat. 244
-
Goya. Das Zeitalter der Revolucionen. Kunst um 1800 (1980 – 1981)Hamburger KunsthalleHamburg1980cat. 88
-
Goya y el espíritu de la IlustraciónMuseo Nacional del PradoMadrid1988from October 6th to December 18th 1988. Exhibited also at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January 18th to March 26th 1989; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nueva York, May 9th to July 16th 1989, Madrid curator Manuela B. Mena Marqués, scientific directors Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez and Eleanor A. Sayrecat. 89
-
Francisco de GoyaMuseo d'Arte ModernaLugano1996exhibition celebrated from September 22nd to November 17th.cat. 39
-
Francisco de Goya: Maleri, Tegning, GrafikkNasjonalgallerietOslo1996from 10th to April 14th 1996cat. 142
-
Francisco Goya. Sein leben im spiegel der graphik. Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux. 1746-1996Galerie KornfeldBern1996from November 21st 1996 to January 1997cat. 125
-
Francisco Goya. Capricci, follie e disastri della guerraSan Donato Milanese2000Opere grafiche della Fondazione Antonio Mazzottacat. 119
-
Goya. Opera graficaPinacoteca del Castello di San GiorgioLegnano2006exhibition celebrated from December 16th 2006 to April 1st 2007p. 70
-
Goya en tiempos de guerraMuseo Nacional del PradoMadrid2008consultant editor Manuela B. Mena Marqués, from April 14th to July 13th 2008cat. 99
-
Goya et la modernitéPinacothèque de ParisParís2013from October 11st 2013 to March 16th 2014cat.78
-
Goya: Order and disorderMuseum of Fine ArtsBoston2014cat. 2
-
Madrid2019cat. 126
-
Expérience GoyaLille2021cat. 94
-
Goya, grabadorMadridBlass S.A.1918cat. 141
-
Goya engravings and lithographs, vol. I y II.OxfordBruno Cassirer1964cat. 159
-
Vie et ouvre de Francisco de GoyaParísOffice du livre1970cat. 1055
-
Goya y el espíritu de la IlustraciónMadridMuseo del Prado1988cat. 89
-
Goya. Arte e condizione umanaNaplesLiguori editore1990lam. 198
-
Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca NacionalMadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional1996cat. 244
-
El Libro de los Desastres de la GuerraMadridMuseo del Prado2000II, pp. 80-82
-
Goya. Los desastres de la guerra, lBarcelonaLa Central2011pp. 35, 38
-
ParísPinacoteca de París2013p. 139
-
Goya. In the Norton Simon MuseumPasadenaNorton Simon Museum2016pp. 114-151
-
MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado2019p. 204
-
Expérience Goya (cat. expo)LilleRéunion des Musées Nationaux2021pp. 169-170