In Los Desastres de la Guerra (Disasters of War), a series of 82 etchings created between 1810 and 1820, Goya depicted the violence, hardship, and hunger of the Dos de Mayo Uprising and the Peninsular War against the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. While most of these images of violence are almost unbearably realistic, towards the end of the series, the visual language becomes more symbolic and allegorical, preparing the way for the imagery of Los Disparates, begun around 1815. Sad Forebodings belongs to this later group of the Disasters of War, known as Caprichos enfáticos(Emphatic Caprichos), and was selected as the opening image when the series was finally published in 1863, 35 years after Goya’s death. The resigned figure kneeling in the dark foresees unfathomable pain and chaos. (TD 2024, translation Büro LS Anderson, Berlin)
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