A Heroic Feat! With Dead Men!, plate 39 from The Disasters of War
1812/15, published 1863
Medium
Etching, lavis and drypoint on ivory wove paper with gilt edges
Dimensions
Image: 13.8 × 18.7 cm (5 7/16 × 7 3/8 in.); Plate: 15.5 × 20.5 cm (6 1/8 × 8 1/8 in.); Sheet: 24 × 34 cm (9 1/2 × 13 7/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124886
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This harrowing image mocks any notion of the possibility of heroic or admirable consequences of war. Yet much later, Vargi Aivazian of the TASS Window studio turned horror into humor by using this very image as inspiration for his sardonic TASS 634, Holiday Tree Ornaments.
About the Artist
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes · 1746–1828
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, in the small Aragonese village of Fuendetodos, Spain, to José Benito de Goya, a master gilder, and Gracia de Lucientes. The fourth of six children in a modest lower-middle-class family, Goya received a basic education before beginning his artistic training at age 14 under the local painter José Luzán y Martínez in Zaragoza, where he sp...