Art Institute of Chicago

This is What You Were Born For, plate twelve from The Disasters of War

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Date

1810/12, published 1863

Medium

Etching, lavis, drypoint and burin on ivory wove paper with gilt edges

Culture

Spain

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

In Francisco de Goya’s series The Disasters of War , 10 of the 80 etchings are devoted to piles of dead bodies, aggressively cementing this subject’s narrative importance. Goya seems to have been engrossed in the artistic possibilities that these groupings allowed. The bodies are portrayed in varied compositions and techniques—some with aquatint, some with traditional etching. Some only depict the dead (alternately naked or clothed), and others, like This Is What You Were Born For , mingle the dead and barely alive.

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