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106. Y no hai remedio (And There's Nothing to Be Done)

Y no hai remedio, fromo Los Desastres de la Guerra, plate 15 
Francisco de Goya. 1810-1823 C.E. (publised 1863). Spain.
Etching, drypoint, burin, and burnishing

The artist was sent to the general's hometown of Saragossa to record the glories of its citizens in the face of French atrocities.
The sketches that Goya began in 1808 and continued to create throughout and after the Spanish War of Independence and
other emphatic caprices. Focused on the widespread suffering experienced in wartime and the brutality inflicted by both sides
during periods of armed conflict.

Complete Identification:

  • Y no hay remedio (And there’s nothing to be done) (plate 15)

    • From Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disaster of War)

  • Francisco de Goya

  • 1810-1823 (published 1863)

  • Etching, drypoint, burin, and burnishing

  • Spanish Romantic

  • Spain


Form:

  • Black and white

  • Man wearing light-colored or white tied to a pole by his hands (behind his back)

    • He is blindfolded

  • The landscape has some depth and the scene is dark

  • There is a firing squad behind the central figure facing similarly bound people (also tied to poles)

  • On the central figure’s right side → there is a body contorted on the floor → likely dead

  • There are rifle barrels pointed at the central figure coming out from the right side of the painting

    • The people holding them are occluded


Function:

  • Meant to protest the French occupation and the brutality against the Spanish people

  • “Y no hay remedio” belongs to the first group of plates

    • Show conflicts between French troops and civilians → consequences

  • Showing that war brings out the inhuman in people


Content:

  • A man is tied to a pole → Alter Christus → an “other Christ”

  • Behind him are other poles with men tied onto them and firing squads either firing or ready to fire

  • The body on the ground is grotesque, mangled, with blood and brains leaking

    • Eyes are gone, body is contorted

    • Possibly showing that he was recently shot

  • The rifles coming from the right side of the print are aimed at the central figure tied to the pole


Context:

  • Disasters of war was created from 1810-1820

    • 82 images meant to protest against the French occupation of Spain by Napoleon Bonaparte

      • Napoleon tricked the king of Spain into letting his troops cross the border → then he usurped the king and put his brother on the throne

      • There was an uprising and a lot of Spaniards died

    • The French were pushed out after the Peninsular war → very bloody conflict

    • Also satirizing Spanish socio-economy → which caused people to live in poverty

  • First plates → effect of conflict

  • Middle plates → effect of famine

  • Last plates → disappointment and demoralization of Spaniards

    • Their new monarch was also a tyrant and would not institute political reform

  • Process of making the images

    • Etch the plate → cover the metal plate with wax, carve out the shapes, dip in acid so that the acid goes into the incisions, melt off the wax and the incisions remain

    • Drypoint → scratch lines on the surface with a stylus → create a less even line

    • Then the artist pours ink on the plate and wipes it off so that it only remains in the spots where the acid burned or the artist etched

    • Moist paper is put on the plate → run through a press


  • Goya

    • Worked as a painter for the French and Spanish royalty

    • His work was so controversial

    • Prints intended to install Spanish nationalism

    • Went deaf and became a recluse


Cross-Cultural Connections:


Themes:

  • Power and authority

  • The human psyche

    • Psychology, human monsters, the inhuman in humans

  • Violence and terror

  • Art as a form of protest


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