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Disasters of the War #26

ingless. His hypocrisy supported him & enabled him to continue his defamation of the court, his cry against the uselessness of war, & his admiration of the staunchness of the people. 

By 1809 he had painted two great pictures of the horrors of the French invasion & the bravery of the Spanish people. In 1810 he began the designs for the 80 odd etchings of the Disasters of the War which were to depict the futility, the barbarism, the courage, the desperation, the hypocrisy & the famine that coursed through Spain between 1808 & 1814, during the Napoleonic regime. 

The etching of the plates was done principally [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] retirement to Boudreaux in 1820 & they were not published as a series until 1863. This is number 26 of the great & brutal series. "That is not to be looked at," is the title & it is one of Goya's instances of compassion for the society for which he had so little respect. Yet he still does not show them so favorably as he shows the courageous people in other plates. The noble in the foreground weakly pleads. The monk protects the child but remains concealed & defenseless. The woman without male protection throws herself on the mercy of the attackers. 

Goya's compassion in such instances carried an irony. Here the charity the pity one can give is not to watch the suffering, the lack of courage in these superior beings. We should not see them less than noble. 

The plates depict all forms of war horror against stark dramatic backgrounds. Near the end the religious element dominates but, like