Francisco De Goya - 'Disasters of War' Print Report
Francisco De Goya (born in 1746 and died in 1828) was a Spanish artist whose magnificent drawings, paintings and engravings influenced important 19th and 20th Century painters.
Goya is well known for scenes of violence, such as his series of etchings named "Les Desastres de la Guerra" meaning; Disasters of War, those etchings convey the horrors of the Napoleonic invasion. He did not print these etchings in his lifetime, they were not published until 1863, there were 80 etchings from this series all together.
This etching is one from the 'Disasters of War' series:
This image is a great representation of the war, there is action and there is emotion. Goya got influenced by what was happening around him at that time. The Spanish, fighting back have determination and hatred in their eyes and body language, they are dirty and hurt. However, the French invaders are turned with their backs facing us, from that we can see they are clean and fancy looking just there to kill, then go elsewhere and do the same. The whole of Spain was feeling dreadful when all that was taking place, as well as Goya. Goya then decided to get those feelings out into a series of etchings.
The composition in this etching is interesting, as underneath the legs of the Spanish fighters, there are the faces of the ones whom they are fighting for, their kids and wives and the innocent, they all look frightened.
Goya used thin sharp lines, close together for all the dark parts of the etching, dots and minimal scratches for the lighter elements. All the detail in the background is done using a lighter press on the etching to keep the focal point in the fight. The dark lines in parts of the etching are exaggerated which makes the action part of it more dramatic.
0 comments:
Post a Comment