Created between 1810 and 1814, though published decades later, The Disasters of War is one of the most powerful and unflinching representations of wartime violence. In these 82 prints, Goya documents the atrocities of the Peninsular War and their consequences on civilians.
Far from glorifying heroism, the artist depicts suffering, brutality, and the dehumanizing effects of conflict. The scenes, direct and uncompromising, eliminate specific references, transforming historical events into a universal experience of horror. Goya’s masterful use of etching and aquatint heightens the dramatic intensity and somber atmosphere.
With this series, Goya introduced a modern vision of war—not as epic narrative, but as human tragedy. The Disasters of War transcend their historical context and become a timeless denunciation of violence and barbarism.
Goya was a direct witness of that war and its horrors, which he captured in images in The Disasters of War. The series consisted of 80 prints that Goya prepared between 1810 and 1814, coinciding with the prosecution of the war. He worked in secret, for fear of reprisals by the French who occupied Madrid until June 1813. Subsequent political circumstances, including the restoration of absolutism after the return of Ferdinand VII in 1814, blocked their publication, and The Disasters of War were not published until 1863 by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.
Goya did not exalt military exploits in The Disasters of War, but made a plea against war in general and against violence. It is a bitter, raw and disenchanted reflection on man, immersed in a situation of war that causes cruelty, rape, devastation, death, misery and hunger. It lashes out against the atrocities committed by both sides, French and Spanish. Goya experienced highly dramatic situations that he reflected in his etchings like a reporter or photojournalist today. The Disasters of War demonstrated the failure of reason in which so many of the enlightened classes trusted. It is a chronicle of human failure.
Second edition (1892), Calcografía Nacional.