Art Institute of Chicago

Three Men Carrying a Wounded Soldier, from the Images of Spain, Album F

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Date

1812/20

Medium

Brush with brown ink and brown and gray wash over traces of black chalk, on cream laid paper

Culture

Spain

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Goya’s bold watercolor is very far from the emphasis on pure line of the restrained Classicism that characterizes many of the works from this period. Goya applied his washes with an abandon that verged on the abstract. Indeed, it can be difficult to separate the knot of individual figures, three of them carrying a fourth, in a scene that recalls images of the Deposition of Christ. Probably produced during the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleonic France (1808–14), Goya’s drawing unflinchingly treats the senseless violence and social chaos that defined the period.

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