The Art of Witnessing by Michael Iarocci;

Author:Michael Iarocci;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Goya, Francisco, 1746–1828. Disasters of war, 1746–1828 – Criticism and interpretation, War in art
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

30

Estragos de la guerra

A new heap of bodies. In contrast to previous images, where the dead appear in exterior settings, they now come into view within the rubble of a collapsed building. Some thirty prints into the series, Goya registers yet another form of wartime violence. Scholars have noted that the scene most likely depicts the results of artillery fire. Bombardment was a common military tactic of the imperial army during the siege of Spanish cities, and Goya saw the destructive results of such attacks during his visit to Zaragoza in October of 1808. Military authorities of the day had called for artists to visit the city in order to commemorate its heroic defence against the French, and Goya travelled from Madrid in order to record what had happened. As we have seen repeatedly, however, heroic commemoration could not be further from the agenda Goya subsequently pursued. In this image we initially encounter a chaotic jumble of bodies, collapsed beams, some brickwork, and the remnants of household furniture. The armchair in the upper right and the civilian status of the victims suggest that the building was a private residence, and in this sense the image registers the impersonal, indiscriminate nature of the killing. It may in fact be the first image in the history of European art to depict the effects of bombardment on a civilian population. The casualties are what today’s military culture would no doubt describe as “collateral damage.” It is unlikely that they were expressly targeted by artillerymen. They are a byproduct of the warfare, and for viewers familiar with the history of bombardment of civilian centres in the wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, there is something disturbingly prescient about what Goya has depicted here. It is yet another example of the uncannily contemporary reach of many of the Disasters.

Within the chaos, tonal contrast again plays an important role in bringing the victims into relief. As with so many of the dead in the Disasters, most of the bodies here are rendered in lighter tones that stand out within the gloom. At least five bodies are clearly distinguishable in the foreground, but the partial view of other body parts suggests that the number is higher. Particularly striking, because of the way her body has come to rest so unnaturally, is the woman perched upside-down in the middle upper half of the image. The pose could scarcely be more awkward, and the detail of her extended hands suggests that she died trying to break her fall. While her ungainly pose registers the effects of the violence, many have also seen in her the emblem of a world that, morally speaking, has been turned on its head. She is in this sense a token of the way war violently reorders bodies, places, and things.

Below her lie three adult bodies and the body of an infant. On the left, a man’s mangled corpse rests on the ground. His lifeless countenance is reminiscent of other faces of the dead (see Prints 21, 22, and 23), and numerous limbs surround his body.

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