Violence in all its different forms, as a manifestation of human injustice, is one of the most notable subjects of Goya's work. It was the events of the Peninsular War (Spain's War of Independence) from 1808 to 1814 that gave rise to Goya's innovative and highly critical reflection on war, its causes, its most barbaric manifestations and its consequences.

The genius of Goya's work, so often repeated, lies not only in its (obvious) qualities, but also in the vast distance that separates it from all other art of his time. Goya, more than any of his contemporaries, reflected on the use of technical media, the composition of his scenes and the ethical weight of his images. In sharp contrast to the heroic and flattering depictions of war, Goya presents violence and death in their purest expressions. One needs only see his paintings of the events of 2 and 3 May 1808 to understand how little commemorative success he enjoyed in a popular environment that was in thrall to a mood of overriding patriotism and unbounded adulation. Goya's war works do not depict the military or popular heroes who fought against the French — well known from the publications and galleries of printed portraits that were widely disseminated in the Spain of his time. They do not even show any particular events that took place in specific places. On the contrary, basing himself on real events, Goya shows us the essence of those events, the universal representation of heroism, brutality, hunger, despair and destruction, but, above all, of death. And the central characters are the nameless common people, the real victims of the war. These are the people he showed attacking the Mamelukes in Madrid in his Second of May, or those facing the repressive French firing squads in the Third of May.

The population, the combatants —in short, of ordinary human beings— being at the fore is an equally essential aspect of his Disasters. Through his almost exclusive use of etching, he manages to make the lines of the figures stand out forcefully against almost empty backgrounds, with hardly any tonal nuances, thus accentuating the drama of the horror and death shown in these scenes. The anonymous figures in indeterminate spaces stand out. In terms of the composition, he frequently uses pyramidal arrangements in which the combination and contrast of black and white have dramatic and symbolic values, directing the viewer's eye towards the key aspects of the subject depicted. Thus, he significantly reduces the distance between viewer and protagonist, achieving a proximity that does not merely stop at the visual level, but transcends through to the emotional level, in order to involve and move the viewer/reader of these prints.

Between 15 June and 14 August 1808, General Palafox, the defending commander at the siege of Zaragoza, called on Goya and other artists (as Goya himself recalled a few years later), 'to view and examine the ruins of that city, in order to paint the glories of its natives, a task from which I cannot excuse myself on the grounds of my great interest in the glory of my homeland'. The ruin and desolation that Goya observed during his sojourn in Zaragoza clearly left a deep impression on him. The fact that the themes of many of the early Disasters coincides closely with printed accounts of the events in the city and other prints inspired by the same circumstances — such as the series of prints of the Ruins of Zaragoza, by Gálvez and Brambila, who were with Goya in Zaragoza — evidences the artist's interest in these events; not so much in recording specific episodes, but in capturing their essence. It is unsurprising that the first plates of the Disasters are dated 1810 (the date is engraved on three of them) — in other words, just one year after his visit to Zaragoza.

Undoubtedly, the series takes as its source the events that Goya experienced during those years. However, this should not be taken to mean that he personally witnessed every one of the events depicted in the series. Even when the titles of two successive prints tell us 'Yo lo vi' (I saw this) (44), and 'Y esto también' (And this too) (45), these should be seen as ways of vouchsafing the veracity of the events depicted, by making himself an eyewitness. In this way, Goya places himself on a plane that is contiguous to the action, taking part in the event as no artist had previously done. Hence too the proximity of the monumental figures featured in each of the Disasters, very close to our plane of vision, leaving little room for any anecdotal touches in the backgrounds.

However, it might be a mistake to try to trace any specific episodes that inspired the plates in the series. The events of those years were on everyone's lips — in the street, in the press, in pamphlets, in literature and even in the theatre. Goya was able to create entirely new images from these or similar events. Some of them he undoubtedly saw for himself, but others he heard of indirectly. He took reality as his starting point and transformed it into new images, with no formal precedent, images that were to become universal referents for the disasters caused by war. Just as the prints in his Caprices series (1799) show universal human behaviour, the Disasters are the maximum expression ever achieved by an artist of the irrationality of violence and its terrible human consequences. Indeed, one could go so far as to say that it would be possible to illustrate any of today's wars using exclusively the images drawn by Francisco de Goya two hundred years ago. The essence of these works is their intention to universalize the theme of violence, to show the essence of the evil it entails, and to provide us with images to which we cannot remain indifferent — merely to contemplate these prints should act as a blow to our conscience. One can reasonably presume that ultimately, this was the reason why the series was not published during Goya's own lifetime. After the years of suffering, it appears that nobody was willing to buy such politically incorrect images. Not only did they fail to commemorate any heroic deed, they were a stark reminder of the suffering endured by soldiers and civilians on both sides. Moreover, in the repressive political atmosphere of King Ferdinand's reign, any criticism of the victors and any depiction of the disastrous consequences of his absolutist policies would not have been viewed favourably.

The titles of the prints comprise another essential aspect of the series. As with the Caprices, the laconic phrases at the bottom of the pictures are a far cry from the descriptive texts that commonly accompanied others published during the war or later commemorative prints. Sometimes, Goya manages to summarise the idea expressed in the image in a single word, and at the same time deliver a moral judgement.

The first print, entitled Sad Forebodings of What is to Happen (Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer), like Christ on the Mount of Olives, serves as a prophetic introduction to the collection of horrors and misfortunes we are about to see. The series can be divided into three parts by theme. The first group (Prints 2 to 47) depicts different aspects of the violence of war; the second (Prints 48 to 64) shows the sufferings of the population as the result of famine; and the third and final group (from Print 65 on), known as the Emphatic Caprices (Caprichos enfáticos) shows in allegorical fashion, different aspects of the repression of the Fernandine forces following the end of the war.

However, as in the case of the earlier Caprices, Goya did not organize the eighty prints according to any rigorous system. Despite the fact that two sets of numbers are given on the plates, it is not possible to determine with any certainty what criteria Goya applied in ordering the series. While, as mentioned, one can distinguish three broad groups, within each one the themes are repeated and alternate with one another; there are brief series of linking images, whose association is reinforced by their titles, but Goya does not always follow a methodical order, in which all the prints on the same theme are grouped together. It is almost as if as if the artist wanted to reflect the randomness of war, where one never knows what is going to happen next. Nevertheless, it is possible to establish theme-based groups, which help to understand the different aspects addressed. One must always bear in mind that the undisputed protagonist of these works is death, in all its different guises, around which all else revolves. And when we analyse each of the prints, we see that death results in absolute dehumanization, with the body becoming a mere object, deprived of all its dignity. This is one of the aspects that makes Goya so modern, radically setting him apart from his contemporaries.

José Manuel Matilla Rodríguez