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Welcome to Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193; 800-809-3343; email: sptwd@verizon.net
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Francisco Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746-1828): Etchings for The Disasters of War 1 to 11
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Robert Hughes, whose The Shock of the New introduced America to modern art when it was aired on public television and whose American Visions, a survey of American Art up to the from the Spanish invaders of the southwest and the Pilgrims in New England to Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, tells us in the opening pages of his Goya (2003) that in the midst of the Vietnam War, which tore America apart for many years, "there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that came near the achievement of Goya's Disasters de la guerra (Disasters of War), those heart-rending prints in which the artist bore witness to the almost unspeakable facts of death in the Spanish uprising against Napoleon, and, in doing so became the first modern visual reporter on warfare" (p. 7). Otto Dix's Krieg, the twentieth-century's witness to the horror of war, almost pales (although it is horrible enough to look at in itself) before Goya's depiction of the early nineteenth century's horrors of war, both civil and uncivil, between atrocities perpetrated on Spaniards by Spaniards and atrocities perpetrated by the French upon the Spanish (and vice-versa).
Select Bibliography: Rogelio Buendia Goya (NY: Arch Cape Press, 1990), Jean-François Chabrun, Goya: His Life and Work (NY: Tudor, 1965), Colta Ives & Susan Alyson Stein Goya in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995), Raymond Keaveney, Master European Paintings from the National Gallery of Ireland from Mantegna to Goya (Dublin: National Gallery Of Ireland, 1992), Fred Licht, Goya and the Origins of the Modern Temper in Art (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), Park West Gallery. Goya: Sleeping Giant (Southfield MI: Park West Gallery, n.d.), Alfonso E. Perez Sanchez, and Eleanor Sayre, Goya and the Spirit of the Enlightenment (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989), Maurice Raynal, The Great Centuries of Painting: The Nineteenth Century. New Sources of Emotion from Goya to Gauguin (Geneva: Skira, 1951), Richard Schickel, The World of Goya 1746-1828 (NY: Time-Life Books, 1968), The Royal Academy of Arts in London, Goya and his times (London: Royal Academy, 1963), Janis A. Tomlinson, Goya in the Twilight of the Enlightenment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), Juliet Wilson-Bareau & Manuela B. Mena Marqués, Goya: Truth and Fantasy. The Small Paintings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).
Works on Prints: The standard catalogue raisonnés of Goya's prints by Loys Delteil and Thomas Harris are both out of print but should be available in major libraries and in museums. The most convenient edition of The Disasters of War is the edition published by Dover Books in 1967 with a very short introduction by Philip Hofer of the Department of Graphic Arts at the Harvard University Library. Also likely to be available in used condition: Aldous Huxley, ed. The Complete Etchings of Goya (NY: Crown, Publishers, 1943). See Nigel Glendinning, Goya: La Década de los Caprichos. Retratos 1792-1804 (Madrid: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Francisco, 1992), Verna Posever Curtis and Selma Reuben Holo, La Tauromaquia: Goya, Picasso and the Bullfight (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1986), Anthony H. Hull, Goya: Man Among Kings (NY: Hamilton Books, 1987), Aldous Huxley, ed., The Complete Etchings of Goya (NY: Crown Publishers, 1943; Huxley incorporates Goya's own comments on the Caprichos from a manuscript now in the Prado in Madrid, many of which I have incorporated in my descriptions), R. Stanley Johnson, Goya: Los Caprichos (Chicago: R. S Johnson, 1992; Johnson usefully cites remarks of an early commentator on Goya from a manuscript preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, many of which I have incorporated in my descriptions), Elie Lambert, Goya: L'oeuvre grave (Paris: Alpine, n.d.), Roger Malbert, ed. Disasters of War: Callot, Goya, Dix (London: Cornerhouse Publications, 1998), Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, & Julián Gállego, Goya: The Complete Etchings and Engravings (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1995), Nicholas Stogdon, Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos: Twenty Proofs and a New Census (London: N. G Stogdon, Inc, 1988), Janis A. Tomlinson, Graphic Evolutions: The Print Series of Francesco Goya (NY: Columbia University Press, 1989).
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Titlepage to the 4th edition of Goya's Los Desastres de la Guerra / Colección de ochenta láminas inventadas y grabadas al agua-forte / Por / Don Francisco Goya / Publicala in Real Academia de Belles Artes de San Fernando / Madrid / 1906. The first edition was published in 1863 in an edition of 500. The second edition was printed in the Calcografia for the Real Academia in 1892 in an edition of 100 impressions. Harris says that the plates were probably steel-faced before the making of this edition and notes that the edition is generally well printed but that the impressions are considerably inferior to those of the first edition. The third edition was also made in the Calcografia for the Real Academia and was printed in 1903 in an edition of 100 impressions, which Harris describes as "very inferior to the second" edition. The fourth edition was made in the Calcografia for the Real Academia in 1906 and issued in a black and white marbled board cover (ours is in a box which has a tooled leather spine holding the parts together). Harris describes it as "excellently printed on very suitable papers. The impressions are generally a little inferior to those of the second edition but are better than those of the third." Unless otherwise state, all of our impressions come from the fourth edition. The sheet size is 234x315mm.
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Tristes presentimientes de lo que ha de accontecer / Sad presentiments of what must come to pass (Disasters, pl. 1, Harris 121, Delteil 120). Original etching, burin, drypoint, and burnisher. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. Image size: 175x220mm. Price: $5000.
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Con razon ô sin ella / Rightly or wrongly (Disasters, pl. 2, Harris 122, Delteil 121). Original etching, lavis, drypoint, burin, and burnisher. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. Image size: 155x205mm. Price: $3000.
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Lo mismo / The Same (Disasters, pl. 3, Harris 123, Delteil 122). Original etching, lavis, drypoint, burin, and burnisher. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. Here two better-armed soldiers are about to be overwhelmed by two Spaniards, one armed with a knife, the other with an ax; at least two other bodies are visible, one a Spaniard, the other a partisan. Image size: 160x220mm. Price: $2500.
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Las mugeres dan valar / The woman give courage, pl. 4, Harris 124, Delteil 123). Original etching, burnished aquatint, lavis, drypoint, and burnisher. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. Here two women are struggling with two French soldiers: the one on the left seems about to stab the soldier, but the woman on the right seems about to perish: the soldier has one hand in her hair and is pulling her head back while his other hand is pushing her towards the ground. Courage is not enough! Image size: 155x205mm. Price: $2500.
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Y son fieras / And they are like wild beasts (Disasters of War, plate 5, Delteil 124, Harris 125). Original etching, burnished aquatint, and drypoint, c. 1808-1814. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. The scene here is a general melee: in the foreground, a woman holding her baby on her hip is killing a soldier with a sword. Behind him, another soldier is engaged in single combat with a woman holding a sword. This action appears to be taking place over the fallen bodies of at least one soldier and two partisans. Behind them, a soldier is aiming point blank at a body obscured by the women while yet another women is getting ready to hurl a large stone at the soldier. In the left foreground, a woman holding a knife is looking up at the heavens as she expires. Image size: 155x230mm. Price: $2500.
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Bien te se esta / It serves you right (Disasters of War, plate 6, Delteil 125, Harris 126). Original etching, lavis, and burin, c. 1808-1814. Signed "Goya" lower left corner. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. In the foreground, the French soldiers appear to be trying to tend their wounded and dead; in the background the battle seems to be continuing. Image size: 140x210mm. Price: $2500.
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Que valor! / What courage! (Disasters of War, plate 7, Delteil 126, Harris 127). Original etching, aquatint, drypoint, burin, and and burnisher, 1808-1814. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. Hughes comments: This "is the only conventionally 'heroic' plate in the whole series—heroic in that the artist presents a character as entirely courageous and worthy of admiration, neither a helpless victim, nor a person driven by terror to involuntary acts of courage, nor a bestial and atrocious intruder: in short, a citizen in full command of her humanity. This person was already a legendary heroine when Goya reached Zaragoza: she was Augustina of Aragón, a young Zaragozan woman who, with complete disregard for her own safety, had clambered over the bodies of slain defenders on the ramparts of the city (a pile said to have contained the corpse of her lover) in order to fire a twenty-six-pound cannon at the advancing French" (Hughes, Goya, p. 288). She is, however, standing upon a heap of corpses. However heroic she might be, the scene itself depicts a disaster. Image size: 155x210mm. Price: $5000.
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Siempre sucede / It always happens (Disasters of War, plate 8, Delteil 127, Harris 128). Original etching and drypoint, 1808-1814. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. The scene shows three French cavalrymen on their horses. The one up front is about to perish, the one in the mid-ground looks with concern at this fallen comrade; the one furthest back gallops on heedlessly. In battles, horses and men die. Image size: 175x220mm. Price: $2000.
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No quieren / They don't like it (Disasters of War, plate 9, Delteil 128, Harris 129). Original etching and drypoint, 1808-1814. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. A French soldier is about to rape a young woman (she won't like that and is trying to push him away and scratch his face); behind the soldier, an older woman (mother? aunt?) is about to stab the soldier (he won't like that). Image size: 155x210mm. Price: $3000.
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Tampoco / Nor [do these] either (Disasters of War, plate 10, Delteil 129, Harris 130). Original etching and burin, 1808-1814. Signed "Goya" in reverse lower right corner. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. Looking at this work, one cannot help wondering whether General William T. Sherman was familiar with Goya's Disasters: war is indeed hell, nor are any of these people out of it! Looking at this work, it is hard to even disentangle the bodies from each other. Hughes sees this plate "a brutish and incoherent tangle of bodies, where three French soldiers (their sabers laid almost demurely aside as their penises, by implication, take over) struggle on the bare ground with their women victims, under the lowering murk of the evening sky." I think this sees a far more orderly picture than the work offers. The very large figure on the left has bare feet and white trousers; the two French soldiers on the right, their white belts crossed, are wearing boots and dark pants. The figure at right has one arm circling the body of a squirming woman and his other hand seems to be reaching out toward her face, which is turned away from him, perhaps to turn her over. Someone, perhaps the half naked figure at left, seeems to be pushing the head of rearmost figure away from the woman with whom the soldier on the right is grappling.The result for me a a depiction of that war of each against all the Hobbes described as life in the state of nature. Image size: 150x215mm. Price: $2500.
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Ni por esas / Neither do these (Disasters of War, plate 11, Delteil 130, Harris 131). Original etching, lavis, drypoint, and burin, 1808-1814. Signed "Goya" lower left corner. After the first edition, the plates were probably steel-faced and consequently do not degrade as quickly as they otherwise might. Our impression is from the 4th edition (1906) published from Goya's original plates in the Royal Academy in San Fernando, Spain. A French soldier is about to rape a young woman, whose baby has been torn from her and thrown onto the ground; behind another soldier is pulling at another woman, ignoring her efforts to bat him away, to the right of her, but obscured by the first soldier, yet another woman's body can be see on the ground, the head of yet another soldier is visible bending over her, whether before raping her or rising from the rape, while to the extreme right, yet another woman is on her knees, her body twisted, her hands not visible (perhaps tied behind her). The action is taking pace in the shadows of an archway; behind the shadowed area, a small church can be seen, complete with a bell in its steeple, gray against the lighted background. Hughes (p. 292) suggests that this scene—"compositionally the most developed of the three rape scenes . . . shows to a sublime degree what power Goya could develop when his talent for showing awful events in terms of utter compositional starkness was fully at work." Image size: 160x210mm. Price: $3000.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@verizon.net.
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