Against the Common Good, plate 71 from The Disasters of War
1815/20, published 1863
Medium
Etching and burnishing on ivory wove paper with gilt edges
Dimensions
Image: 14.7 × 19.3 cm (5 13/16 × 7 5/8 in.); Plate: 17.3 × 22 cm (6 13/16 × 8 11/16 in.); Sheet: 24 × 33.7 cm (9 1/2 × 13 5/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124924
Art Historical Context
**Against the Common Good (plate 71 from *The Disasters of War*)**Francisco Goya's haunting etching captures the raw brutality of war in this plate from his seminal series *The Disasters of War* (1810–1820). Created amid the Peninsular War (1808–1814), when Napoleon's forces invaded Spain, Goya the unimaginable horrors of conflict, famine, and political repression. This work, titled *Contra el bien general* ("Against the Common Good"), exemplifies unflinching critique of violence that undermines society, blending stark realism with emotional intensity characteristic of his late Romantic style....
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...