Francisco de Goya

Great deeds! With dead bodies! (Grande hazaña! Con muertos!)

Clasificación
Great deeds! With dead bodies! (Grande hazaña! Con muertos!)
Datos Generales
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
Inscripciones

Goya (lower left-hand corner), 51 (lower left-hand corner of the plate)

Historia

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.

Análisis artístico

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.

Conservación

The plate is stored in the National Chalcography (cat. 290) .

Exposiciones
  • Goya. Drawings, Etchings and Lithographs
    Goya. Drawings
    London
    1954
    from June 12th to July 25th 1954
  • Goya and his times
    The Royal Academy of Arts
    London
    1963
    cat. 66
  • Goya. Das Zeitalter der Revolucionen. Kunst um 1800 (1980 – 1981)
    Hamburger Kunsthalle
    Hamburg
    1980
  • Goya y el espíritu de la Ilustración
    Museo Nacional del Prado
    Madrid
    1988
    from 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. Sayre
  • Francisco de Goya
    Museo d'Arte Moderna
    Lugano
    1996
    exhibition celebrated from September 22nd to November 17th.
  • Francisco de Goya: Maleri, Tegning, Grafikk
    Nasjonalgalleriet
    Oslo
    1996
    from 10th to April 14th 1996
  • 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
  • Francisco Goya. Capricci, follie e disastri della guerra
    San Donato Milanese
    2000
    Opere grafiche della Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta
  • 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
  • Goya: Order and disorder
    Museum of Fine Arts
    Boston
    2014
  • Madrid
    2019
  • Expérience Goya
    Lille
    2021
Bibliografía
  • BERUETE Y MONET, Aureliano de
    Goya, grabador
    MadridBlass S.A.
    1918
    cat. 141
  • HARRIS, Tomás
    Goya engravings and lithographs, vol. I y II.
    OxfordBruno Cassirer
    1964
    cat. 159
  • GASSIER, Pierre y WILSON, Juliet
    Vie et ouvre de Francisco de Goya
    ParísOffice du livre
    1970
    cat. 1055
  • PÉREZ SÁNCHEZ, Alfonso E. y SAYRE, Eleanor A. (directores) and MENA, Manuela B. (comisaria)
    Goya y el espíritu de la Ilustración
    MadridMuseo del Prado
    1988
    cat. 89
  • PAZ, Alfredo de
    Goya. Arte e condizione umana
    NaplesLiguori editore
    1990
    lam. 198
  • SANTIAGO, Elena M. (coordinadora)
    Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    MadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional
    1996
    cat. 244
  • BLAS BENITO, Javier and MATILLA, José Manuel
    El Libro de los Desastres de la Guerra
    MadridMuseo del Prado
    2000
    II, pp. 80-82
  • GALLEGO GARCÍA, Raquel
    Goya. Los desastres de la guerra, l
    BarcelonaLa Central
    2011
    pp. 35, 38
  • OROPESA, Marisa and RINCÓN GARCÍA, Wilfredo
    ParísPinacoteca de París
    2013
    p. 139
  • WILSON BAREAU, Juliet
    Goya. In the Norton Simon Museum
    PasadenaNorton Simon Museum
    2016
    pp. 114-151
  • MATILLA, José Manuel y MENA, Manuela B. (comisarios)
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado
    2019
    p. 204
  • COTENTIN, Régis
    Expérience Goya (cat. expo)
    LilleRéunion des Musées Nationaux
    2021
    pp. 169-170
Enlaces externos
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