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‘Yo lo vi’. Goya witnessing the disasters of war: an appeal to the sentiment of humanity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Paul Bouvier
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Editor's note

The humanitarian mission maintains its ultimate objective of preventing and alleviating human suffering in situations of extreme crisis. In a different vein from the main subject of this edition- the future of humanitarian action – and using the power of images, Paul Bouvier, ICRC Senior Medical Advisor, brings us back exactly two centuries, to the ‘Peninsular War’ between French, Spanish and British, among the fiercest of the Napoleonic Wars.

The artist Francisco de Goya produced a series of etched plates known as The Disasters of War, which offered a hitherto uncommon view of war. By showing the horror and devastation of armed violence, the resulting dehumanization, and the distress and suffering of the victims, he denounced the consequences of war and famine and the ensuing political repression. Goya's lucid, compassionate, yet uncompromising depictions of war and its consequences are not only unique but also highly relevant today. His work is also an outcry and a plea for acts of humanity in the turmoil of armed violence, and anticipates the initiative that Henry Dunant would be prompted to take sixty years later, in Solferino. In a way, Goya announced Dunant.

Walking us through a selection of Goya's sketches, Paul Bouvier looks at victims, perpetrators, and eye-witnesses, and discusses how these images relate to the contemporary experience of humanitarian workers faced with the extreme violence of war. The author decrypts Goya’s sketches and relates them to the essence of humanitarian action as a response to human suffering.

Type
In Folio
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 93 , Issue 884: The future of humanitarian action , December 2011 , pp. 1107 - 1133
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2012

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References

1 We would like to thank the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Calcografía Nacional, Madrid, which generously provided the reproductions of engravings in the series The Disasters of War, and the Archivo Oronoz, Madrid, for the reproductions of Figures 1 and 2.

2 For an introduction to the life and work of Goya, see Baticle, Jeannine, Goya: Painter of Terrible Splendor, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 1994Google Scholar.

3 An excellent edition may be found in Balsells, Sandra, Bordes, Juan, and Manuel Matilla, José (eds), Goya, Chronicler of War: Los Desastres and the Photography of War, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Calcografía Nacional, Madrid, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), Cabildo de Gran Canaria, 2009Google Scholar. Reproductions are available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Los_desastres_de_la_guerra (last visited December 2011).

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6 Carlos Serrano, ‘Que la Guerre était jolie!’, in Jean-Paul Duviols and Annie Molinié-Bertrand (eds), La violence en Espagne et en Amérique (XVe–XIXe siècles), Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, 1997, p. 105.

7 The numbers in the captions reflect the numbering of the plates in the series The Disasters of War by Francisco de Goya.

8 C. Serrano, above note 5, p. 105.

9 Juliet Wilson-Bareau, ‘“Aprende a ver”: hacia un mejor entendimento del inventario de 1812 y de la obra de Goya’, in Manuela B. Mena Marqués (ed.), Goya en tiempos de guerra, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 2008, pp. 31–33.

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36 Sophie Renouart de Bussierre, ‘Rembrand-Goya’, in Maryline Assante di Panzillo and Simon André-Deconcha (eds), Goya: Graveur, Paris-Musées et Nicolas Chaudun, Paris, 2008, p. 63.

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