The Disasters of War The Disasters of War ( Spanish : Los Desastres de la Guerra ) are a series of 82 prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya ( 1746 – 1828 ) . Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates , art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising , the subsequent Peninsular War of 1808 – 14 and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814 . During the conflicts between Napoleon ' s French Empire and Spain , Goya retained his position as first court painter to the Spanish crown and continued to produce portraits of the Spanish and French rulers . Although deeply affected by the war , he kept private his thoughts on the art he produced in response to the conflict and its aftermath . He was in poor health and almost deaf when , at 62 , he began work on the prints . They were not published until 1863 , 35 years after his death . It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticising both the French and restored Bourbons . In total over a thousand sets have been printed , though later ones are of lower quality , and most print room collections have at least some of the set . The name by which the series is known today is not Goya ' s own . His handwritten title on an album of proofs given to a friend reads : Fatal consequences of Spain ' s bloody war with Bonaparte , and other emphatic caprices ( Spanish : Fatales consequencias de la sangrienta guerra en España con Buonaparte , Y otros caprichos enfáticos ) . Aside from the titles or captions given to each print , these are Goya ' s only known words on the series . With these works , he breaks from a number of painterly traditions . He rejects the bombastic heroics of most previous Spanish war art to show the effect of conflict on individuals . In addition he abandons colour in favour of a more direct truth he found in shadow and shade . The series was produced using a variety of intaglio printmaking techniques , mainly etching for the line work and aquatint for the tonal areas , but also engraving and drypoint . As with many other Goya prints , they are sometimes referred to as aquatints , but more often as etchings . The series is usually considered in three groups which broadly mirror the order of their creation . The first 47 focus on incidents from the war and show the consequences of the conflict on individual soldiers and civilians . The middle series ( plates 48 to 64 ) record the effects of the famine that hit Madrid in 1811 – 12 , before the city was liberated from the French . The final 17 reflect the bitter disappointment of liberals when the restored Bourbon monarchy , encouraged by the Catholic hierarchy , rejected the Spanish Constitution of 1812 and opposed both state and religious reform . Since their first publication , Goya ' s scenes of atrocities , starvation , degradation and humiliation have been described as the " prodigious flowering of rage " as well as the " work of a memory that knew no forgiveness . " The serial nature in which the plates unfold has led some to see the images as similar in nature to photography . Historical background . Napoleon I of France declared himself First Consul of the French Republic on 18 February 1799 , and was crowned Emperor in 1804 . Because Spain controlled access to the Mediterranean , it was politically and strategically important to the French . The reigning Spanish sovereign , Charles IV , was internationally regarded as ineffectual , and his position at the time was threatened by his pro - British heir , Crown Prince Ferdinand . Napoleon took advantage of Charles ' s weak standing by suggesting the two nations conquer Portugal — the spoils to be divided equally between France , Spain and the Spanish Prime Minister , Manuel de Godoy , who would take the title " Prince of the Algarve " . Seduced by the French offer , Godoy accepted , failing to detect the true motivations of either Napoleon or Ferdinand , who both intended to use the invasion as a ploy , to seize power in Spain . Under the guise of reinforcing the Spanish armies , 23 , 000 French troops entered Spain unopposed in November 1807 . Even when their intentions became clear the following February , the occupying forces faced little resistance besides isolated actions in disconnected areas . In 1808 , a popular uprising — incited by Ferdinand ' s supporters — saw Godoy captured and left Charles with no choice but to ; he did so on 19 March 1808 , allowing his son to ascend the throne as Ferdinand VII . Ferdinand had been seeking French patronage , but Napoleon and his principal commander , Marshal Joachim Murat , believed that Spain would benefit from rulers who were more progressive and competent than the Bourbons . They decided that Napoleon ' s brother , Joseph Bonaparte , should be king . Under a pretext of mediation , Napoleon summoned Charles and Ferdinand to Bayonne , France , where they were coerced into relinquishing their rights to the throne in favour of Joseph . Like other Spanish liberals , Goya was left in a difficult position after the French invasion . He had supported the initial aims of the French Revolution , and hoped its ideals would help liberate Spain from feudalism to become a secular , democratic political system . There were two conflicts being fought in Spain : the resistance against the French threat , and a domestic struggle between the ideals of liberal modernisation and the pre - political incumbent ruling class . The latter divide became more pronounced — and the differences far more entrenched — following the eventual withdrawal of the French . Several of Goya ' s friends , including the poets Juan Meléndez Valdés and Leandro Fernández de Moratín , were overt : the supporters ( or collaborators , in the view of many ) of Joseph Bonaparte . He maintained his position as court painter , for which an oath of loyalty to Joseph was necessary . However , Goya had an instinctive dislike of authority , and witnessed first - hand the subjugation of his countrymen by French troops . During these years he painted little aside from portraits of figures from all parties , including an allegorical painting of Joseph Bonaparte in 1810 , Wellington from 1812 to 1814 , and French and Spanish generals . Meanwhile , Goya was working on drawings that would form the basis for " The Disasters of War " . He visited many battle sites around Madrid to witness the Spanish resistance . The final plates are testament to what he described as " " — the dismemberment of Spain . Plates . Art historians broadly agree that " The Disasters of War " is divided into three thematic groupings — war , famine , and political and cultural allegories . This sequence broadly reflects the order in which the plates were created . Few of the plates or drawings are dated ; instead , their chronology has been established by identifying specific incidents to which the plates refer , and the different batches of plates used , which allow sequential groups to be divined . For the most part , Goya ' s numbering agrees with these other methods . However , there are several exceptions . For example , was among the last to be completed , after the end of the war . In the early plates of the war grouping , Goya ' s sympathies appear to lie with the Spanish defenders . These images typically show patriots facing hulking , anonymous invaders who treat them with fierce cruelty . As the series progresses , the distinction between the Spanish and the imperialists becomes ambiguous . In other plates , it is difficult to tell to which camp the distorted and disfigured corpses belong . Some of the titles deliberately question the intentions of both sides ; for example , " Con razon ó sin ella " can mean " with or without reason " , " rightly or wrongly " , or " for something or for nothing " . Critic Philip Shaw notes that the ambiguity is still present in the final group of plates , saying there is no distinction between the " heroic defenders of the Fatherland and the barbaric supporters of the old regime " . There have been a variety of English translations offered for the plate titles . In many instances , the satirical and often sardonic ambiguity and play on Spanish proverbs found in Goya ' s carefully worded original titles is lost . War . Plates 1 to 47 consist mainly of realistic depictions of the horrors of the war fought against the French . Most portray the aftermath of battle ; they include mutilated torsos and limbs mounted on trees , like " fragments of marble sculpture " . Both French and Spanish troops tortured and mutilated captives ; evidence of such acts is minutely detailed across a number of Goya ' s plates . Civilian death is also captured in detail . Spanish women were commonly victims of assault and rape . Civilians often followed armies to battle scenes . If their side won , women and children would search the battlefield for their husbands , fathers and sons . If they lost , they fled in fear of being raped or murdered . In , " No quieren " ( " They do not want to " ) , an elderly woman is shown wielding a knife in defence of a young girl who is being assaulted by a soldier . The group begins with " " ( " Gloomy premonitions of what must come to pass " ) , in which a man kneels in the darkness with outstretched arms . The following plates describe combat with the French , who — according to art critic Vivien Raynor — are depicted " rather like Cossacks , bayoneting civilians " , while Spanish civilians are shown " poleaxing the French . " Plates 31 to 39 focus on atrocities , and were produced on the same batch of plates as the famine group . Others are based on drawings Goya had completed in his " Sketchbook - journal " , in studies where he examined the theme of the grotesque body in relation to the iconography of the tortured or martyred one . In his India ink wash drawing " We cannot look at this " ( 1814 – 24 ) , he examined the idea of a humiliated inverted body with pathos and tragedy , as he did to comical effect in " " ( 1791 – 92 ) . Unlike most earlier Spanish art , Goya ' s rejects the ideals of heroic dignity . He refuses to focus on individual participants ; though he drew from many classic art sources , his works pointedly portray the protagonists as anonymous casualties , rather than known patriots . The exception is , " Que valor ! " ( " What courage ! " ) , which depicts Agustina de Aragón ( 1786 – 1857 ) , the heroine of Zaragoza , who brought food to the cannon eers at the city defensive walls during the siege in which 54 , 000 Spaniards died . When all the cannoneers had been killed , Agustina manned and fired the cannons herself . Although it is agreed that Goya could not have witnessed this incident , Robert Hughes believes it may have been his visit to Zaragoza in the lull between the first and second phases of the siege that inspired him to produce the series . Famine . The second group , plates 48 to 64 , detail the effects of the famine which ravaged Madrid from August 1811 until after Wellington ' s armies liberated the city in August 1812 . Starvation killed 20 , 000 people in the city that year . In these plates , Goya ' s focus is directed away from the generalised scenes of slaughter of anonymous , unaligned people in unnamed regions of Spain ; he turns towards a specific horror unfolding in Madrid . The famine was a result of many factors . For example , French invaders and Spanish guerrillas and bandits blocked paths and roads into the city , hampering the provision of food . Goya does not focus on the reasons for the shortage , nor does he apportion blame to any one party . Instead , he is concerned only with its effect on the population . Although the images in the group were based on the experience of Madrid , none of the scenes depict specific events , and there are no identifiable buildings to place the scenes . Goya ' s focus is on the darkened masses of dead and barely alive bodies , men carrying corpses of women , and bereaved children mourning for lost parents . Hughes believes , " Madre infeliz ! " ( " Unhappy mother ! " ) , to be the most powerful and poignant of the group . He suggests that the space between the small girl sobbing and the corpse of her mother represents " a darkness that seems to be the very essence of loss and orphanhood " . This group of plates was probably completed by early 1814 . A scarcity of materials during the famine may have accounted for the freer application of aquatint in these prints ; Goya was sometimes forced to use defective plates or reuse old plates after they were burnish ed . Bourbons and clergy . Plates 65 to 82 were named " caprichos enfáticos " ( " emphatic caprices " ) in the original series title . Completed between 1813 and 1820 and spanning Ferdinand VII ' s fall and return to power , they consist of allegorical scenes that critique post - war Spanish politics , including the Inquisition and the then - common judicial practice of torture . Although peace was welcomed , it produced a political environment that was in ways more repressive than before . The new regime stifled the hopes of liberals such as Goya , who used the term " fatal consequences " to describe the situation in his title for the series . Hughes refers to the group as the " disasters of peace " . After the six years of absolutism that followed Ferdinand ' s return to the throne on 1 January 1820 , Rafael del Riego initiated an army revolt with the intent of restoring the 1812 Constitution . By March , the king was forced to agree , but by September 1823 , after an unstable period , a French invasion supported by an alliance of the major powers had removed the constitutional government . The last prints were probably not completed until after the Constitution was restored , though certainly before Goya left Spain in May 1824 . Their balance of optimism and cynicism makes it difficult to relate them directly to particular moments in these rapidly moving events . Many of these images return to the savage burlesque style seen in Goya ' s earlier " Caprichos " . " Farándula de charlatanes " ( " Troupe of charlatans " ) shows a priest with a parrot ' s head performing before an audience of donkeys and monkeys . In , a pope walking a tightrope was " prudently reduced " to a cardinal or bishop in the print published in 1863 . Some prints showing animal scenes seem to draw from a satirical verse fable by Giovanni Battista Casti , published in Italian in 1802 ; the " Animal Farm " of its day . In plate 74 , the wolf , representing a minister , quotes from the fable — " Miserable humanity , the fault is thine " — and signs with Casti ' s name . The print " lays the blame for their rulers ' barbarity on the victims ' own acceptance of it " . A number of plates in this group reveal a scepticism towards idolatry of religious images . There are instances in the group where early Christian iconography , in particular statues and procession al images , are mocked and denigrated . , " Esta no lo es menos " ( " This is no less curious " ) , shows two statues carried by two stooped members of clergy . One statue is recognisable as the " Virgin of Solitude " . In Goya ' s image , the statue is not carried vertically in processional triumph , rather it lies flat and undignified on the backs of the two almost crouched men . Shown horizontal , the object loses its aura , and becomes a mere everyday object . Art critics Victor Stochita and Anna Maria Coderch wrote , " It is in effect a deposed , toppled image , stripped of its powers and its connotations . " Goya is making a general statement : that the Church ' s attempts to support and restore the Bourbons were " illusory , since what they proposed was nothing more than the adoration of an empty form " . The published edition of " The Disasters of War " ends as it begins ; with the portrayal of a single , agonized figure . The last two plates show a woman wearing a wreath , intended as a personification of Spain , Truth , or the Constitution of 1812 — which Ferdinand had rejected in 1814 . In , " Murió la Verdad " ( " The Truth has died " ) , she lies dead . In , " Si resucitará ? " ( " Will she live again ? " ) , she is shown lying on her back with breasts exposed , bathed in a halo of light before a mob of " monks and monsters " . In plate 82 , " Esto es lo verdadero " ( " This is the true way " ) , she is again bare - breasted and apparently represents peace and plenty . Here , she lies in front of a peasant . Execution . Many of Goya ' s preparatory drawings , mostly in red chalk , have survived and are numbered differently from the published prints . He produced two albums of proofs — among many individual proof impressions — of which only one is complete . The full album consists of 85 works , including three small " Prisioneros " ( " Prisoners " ) made in 1811 which are not part of the series . Goya gave the copy of the full album , now in the British Museum , to his friend Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez . It contains a title - page inscription in Goya ' s hand , is signed at the page edges , and has numbers and titles to the prints written by Goya . These were copied on the plates when the published edition was prepared in 1863 . By then , 80 had passed from Goya ' s son , Javier — who had stored them in Madrid after his father left Spain — to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando ( Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando ) , of which Goya had been director . Numbers 81 and 82 rejoined the others in the Academy in 1870 , and were not published until 1957 . As the series progressed , Goya evidently began to experience shortages of good quality paper and copper plates , and was forced to take what art historian Juliet Wilson - Bareau calls the " drastic step " of destroying two depicting landscapes , from which very few impressions had been printed . These were cut in half to produce four of " The Disasters of War " s prints . Partly because of the material shortages , the sizes and shapes of the plates vary somewhat , ranging from as small as 142 × 168 mm ( 5 . 6 × 6 . 6 in ) to as large as 163 × 260 mm ( 6 . 4 × 10 . 2 in ) . Goya completed 56 plates during the war against France , and these are often viewed as eye - witness accounts . A final batch — including plate 1 , several in the middle of the series , and the last 17 plates — are likely to have been produced after the end of the war , when materials were more abundant . The titles of some plates , written beneath each , indicate his presence : " I saw this " ( ) and " One can not look " ( ) . While it is unclear how much of the conflict Goya witnessed , it is generally accepted that he observed first - hand many of the events recorded in the first two groups . A number of other scenes are known to have been related to him second hand . It is known that he used a sketchbook when visiting battle sites ; at his studio , he set to work on copper plate once he had absorbed and assimilated meaning from his sketches . All drawings are from the same paper , and all the copper plates are uniform . The titles of a number of scenes link pairs or larger groups , even if the scenes themselves are not related . Examples include plates and ( " With or without reason " and " The same " ) , and ( " The woman are courageous " and " And they are fierce " ) , and , and ( " They do not want to " , " Nor these " and " Or these " ) . Other plates show scenes from the same story or incident , as in plates and ( " This is bad " and " This is how it happened " ) , in which a monk is murdered by French soldiers looting church treasures ; a rare sympathetic image of the clergy , who are generally shown to be on the side of oppression and injustice . The Bermúdez album was borrowed by the Academy for the 1863 edition . The original titles or captions were etched onto the plates , even with Goya ' s spelling mistakes . One title was changed , one plate had work added , and the printing was carried out with much more ink on the plates ( producing " surface tone " ) than in the proofs , in accordance with mid - century taste . The Bermúdez set is considered " uniquely important . . . because it shows the series as Goya must have intended to publish it , and the way he intended the plates to be printed " . There is therefore a distinction between the published edition of 1863 , with 80 plates , and the full series in the album , which contains 82 ( ignoring the three small " Prisioneros " ) . " The Disasters of War " was not published during Goya ' s lifetime , possibly because he feared political repercussions from Fernando VII ' s repressive regime . Some art historians suggest that he did not publish because he was sceptical about the use of images for political motives , and instead saw them as a personal meditation and release . Most , however , believe the artist preferred to wait until they could be made public without censorship . A further four editions were published , the last in 1937 , so that in total over 1 , 000 impressions of each print have been printed , though not all of the same quality . As with his other series , later impressions show wear to the aquatint . The 1863 edition had 500 impressions , and editions followed in 1892 ( 100 ) before which the plates were probably steel - faced to prevent further wear , 1903 ( 100 ) , 1906 ( 275 ) , and 1937 . Many sets have been broken up , and most print room collections will have at least some of the set . Examples , especially from later editions , are available on the art market . In 1873 , Spanish novelist Antonio de Trueba published the purported reminiscences of Goya ' s gardener , Isidro , on the genesis of the series . de Trueba claims to have spoken to Isidro in 1836 , when the gardener recalled accompanying Goya to the hill of Principe Pio to sketch the victims of the executions of 3 May 1808 . Goya scholars are sceptical of the account ; Nigel Glendinning described it as a " romantic fantasy " , and detailed its many inaccuracies . Technique and style . Detailing and protesting the ugliness of life is a common theme throughout the history of Spanish art , from the dwarves of Diego Velázquez to Pablo Picasso ' s " Guernica " ( 1937 ) . Reflecting on " The Disasters of War " , biographer Margherita Abbruzzese notes that Goya asks that the truth " be seen and . . . shown to others ; including those who have no wish to see it . . . And the blind in spirit stay their eyes on the outward aspect of things , then these outward aspects must be twisted and deformed until they cry out what they are trying to say . " The series follows a wider European tradition of war art and the examination of the effect of military conflict on civilian life — probably mostly known to Goya via prints . This tradition is reflected especially in Dutch depictions of the Eighty Years ' War with Spain , and in the work of 16th - century German artists like Hans Baldung . It is believed Goya owned a copy of a famous set of 18 etchings by Jacques Callot known as " Les Grandes Misères de la guerre " ( 1633 ) , which record the devastating impact on Lorraine of Louis XIII ' s troops during the Thirty Years ' War . The dead man in plate 37 , " Esto es peor " ( " This is worse " ) , forms a mutilated body of a Spanish fighter spiked on a tree , surrounded by the corpses of French soldiers . It is based in part on the Hellenistic fragment of a male nude , the " Belvedere Torso " by the Athenian " Apollonios son of Nestor " . Goya had earlier made a black wash drawing study of the statue during a visit to Rome . In " Esto es peor " he subverts the classical motifs used in war art through his addition of a degree of black theatre – the branch piercing the body through the anus , twisted neck and close framing . The man is naked ; a daring factor for Spanish art in the 19th century , during the time of the Spanish Inquisition . Art critic Robert Hughes remarked that the figures in this image " remind us that , if only they had been marble and the work of their destruction had been done by time rather than sabres , neo - classicists like Menges would have been in aesthetic raptures over them . " Goya abandons colour in the series , believing that light , shade and shadow provide for a more direct expression of the truth . He wrote , " In art there is no need for colour . Give me a crayon and I will ' paint ' your portrait . " He uses line not so much to delineate shape but , according to art historian Anne Hollander , " to scratch forms into existence and then splinter them , as a squinting , half blind eye might apprehend them , to create the distorting visual detritus that shudders around the edge of things seen in agonized haste . . . This ' graphic ' kind of clarity can be most sharp when it is most jagged . " The immediacy of the approach suited his desire to convey the primitive side of man ' s nature . He was not the first to work in this manner ; Rembrandt had sought a similar directness , but did not have access to aquatint . William Blake and Henry Fuseli , contemporaries of Goya ' s , produced works with similarly fantastical content , but , as Hollander describes , they muted its disturbing impact with " exquisitely applied linearity . . . lodging it firmly in the safe citadels of beauty and rhythm . " In his 1947 book on Goya ' s etchings , English author Aldous Huxley observed that the images depict a recurrent series of pictorial themes : darkened archways " more sinister than those even of Piranesi ' s " Prisons " " ; street corners as settings for the cruelty of the disparities of class ; and silhouetted hilltops carrying the dead , sometimes featuring a single tree serving as gallows or repository for dismembered corpses . " And so the record proceeds , horror after horror , unalleviated by any of the splendors which other painters have been able to discover in war ; for , significantly , Goya never illustrates an engagement , never shows us impressive masses of troops marching in column or deployed in the order of battle . . . All he shows us is war ' s disasters and squalors , without any of the glory or even picturesqueness . " " The Disasters of War " is the second of Goya ' s four major print series , which constitute almost all of his most important work in the medium . He also created 35 prints early in his career — many of which are reproductions of his portraits and other works — and about 16 lithographs while living in France . Goya created his first series , the 80 - plate " Caprichos " , between 1797 and 1799 to document " the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society , and . . . the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom , ignorance , or self - interest have made usual . " " Caprichos " was put on sale in 1799 , but was almost immediately withdrawn after threats from the Inquisition . In " The Disasters of War " s first two groups of prints , Goya largely departs from the imaginative , synthetic approach of " Caprichos " to realistically depict life - and - death scenes of war . In the last group , the " Caprichos " sense of the fantastic returns . Between 1815 and 1816 , Goya produced the " Tauromachia " , a series of 33 bullfighting scenes , during a break from " The Disasters of War " . " Tauromachia " was not politically sensitive , and was published at the end of 1816 in an edition of 320 — for sale individually or in sets — without incident . It did not meet with critical or commercial success . In France , Goya completed a set of four larger lithographs , " " ( " The Bulls of Bordeaux " ) . His final series , known as " Los Disparates " ( " The Follies " ) , " Proverbios " ( " Proverbs " ) , or " Sueños " ( " Dreams " ) , contains 22 large plates and at least five drawings that are seemingly part of the series but which were never etched . All these were left in Madrid — apparently incomplete and with only a handful of proofs printed — when Goya went to France in 1823 . One plate is known to have been etched in 1816 , but little else is established about the chronology of the works , or Goya ' s plans for the set . Goya worked on " The Disasters of War " during a period when he was producing images more for his own satisfaction than for any contemporary audience . His work came to rely less on historical incidents than his own imagination . Many of the later plates contain fantastical motifs which can be seen as a return to the imagery of the " Caprichos " . In this , he is relying on visual clues derived from his inner life , rather than anything that could be recognised from real events or settings . Interpretation . In " The Disasters of War " , Goya does not excuse any purpose to the random slaughter — the plates are devoid of the consolation of divine order or the dispensation of human justice . This in part a result of the absence of melodrama or consciously artful presentation that would distance the viewer from the brutality of the subjects , as found in Baroque martyrdom . In addition , Goya refuses to offer the stability of traditional narrative . Instead , his composition tends to highlight the most disturbing aspects of each work . The plates are set spaces without fixed boundaries ; the mayhem extends outside the frames of the picture plane in all directions . Thus , they express the randomness of violence , and in their immediacy and brutality they have been described as analogous to 19th - and 20th - century photojournalism . According to Robert Hughes , as with Goya ' s earlier " Caprichos " series , " The Disasters of War " is likely to have been intended as a " social speech " ; satires on the then prevailing " hysteria , evil , cruelty and irrationality [ and ] the absence of wisdom " of Spain under Napoleon , and later the Inquisition . It is evident Goya viewed the Spanish war with disillusionment , and despaired both for the violence around him and for the loss of a liberal ideal he believed was being replaced by a new militant unreason . Hughes believed Goya ' s decision to render the images through etchings , which by definition are absent of colour , indicates feelings of utter hopelessness . His message late in life is contrary to the humanistic view of man as essentially good but easily corrupted . He seems to be saying that violence is innate in man , " forged in the substance of what , since Freud , we have called the id . " Hughes believed that in the end there is only the violated emptiness of acceptance of our fallen nature : like the painting of Goya ' s dog , " whose master is as absent from him as God is from Goya . " " The Disasters of War " plates are preoccupied with wasted bodies , undifferentiated body parts , castration and female abjection . There are dark erotic undertones to a number of the works . Connell notes the innate sexuality of the image in plate 7 — Agustina de Aragón ' s igniting a long cannon . The art historian Lennard Davis suggests that Goya was fascinated with the " erotics of dismemberment " , while Hughes mentions in " Los disparates " , which shows a woman carried in the grip of a horse ' s mouth . To Hughes , the woman ' s euphoria suggests , among other possible meanings , orgasm . Legacy . Despite being one of the most significant anti - war works of art , " The Disasters of War " had no impact on the European consciousness for two generations , as it was not seen outside a small circle in Spain until it was published by Madrid ' s Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1863 . Since then , interpretations in successive eras have reflected the sensibilities of the time . Goya was seen as a proto - Romantic in the early 19th century , and the series ' graphically rendered dismembered carcasses were a direct influence on Théodore Géricault , best known for the politically charged " Raft of the Medusa " ( 1818 – 19 ) . Luis Buñuel identified with Goya ' s sense of the absurd , and referenced his works in such films as the 1930 " L ' Âge d ' Or " , on which he collaborated with Salvador Dalí , and his 1962 " The Exterminating Angel " . The series ' impact on Dalí is evident in " Soft Construction with Boiled Beans ( Premonition of Civil War ) " , painted in 1936 in response to events leading to the Spanish Civil War . Here , the distorted limbs , brutal suppression , agonised expressions and ominous clouds are reminiscent of , " Grande hazaña ! Con muertos ! " ( " A heroic feat ! With dead men ! " ) , in which mutilated bodies are shown against a backdrop barren landscape . In 1993 , Jake and Dinos Chapman of the Young British Artists movement created 82 miniature , toy - like sculptures modelled on " The Disasters of War " . The works were widely acclaimed and purchased that year by the Tate gallery . For decades , Goya ' s series of etching served as a constant point of reference for the Chapman brothers ; in particular , they created a number of variations based on the plate " Grande hazaña ! Con muertos ! " . In 2003 , the Chapman brothers exhibited an altered version of " The Disasters of War " . They purchased a complete set of prints , over which they drew and pasted demonic clown and puppy heads . The Chapmans described their " rectified " images as making a connection between Napoleon ' s supposed introduction of Enlightenment ideals to early - 19th - century Spain and Tony Blair and George W . Bush purporting to bring democracy to Iraq .