Plate 16 from "The Disasters of War" (Los Desastres de La Guerra): They make use of them (Se aprovechan)

Art Historical Context

In Francisco de Goya's haunting *Plate 16: They make use of them ( aprovechan)* from his seminal series *The Disasters of War* (Los Desastres de La Guerra), created around 1810 amid the Peninsular War (1808–1814), we witness the unsparing brutality of conflict. This etching captures soldiers exploiting the bodies of the dead—evident from tags like "Soldiers," "Male Nudes," "Death"—serving as a raw indictment of war's dehumanizing horrors during Spain's fight against Napoleon's invading forces. Goya, a master of Romanticism, documented these atrocities privately, as the series remained unpublished until 1863, decades after his death, due to its unflinching critique of violence on all sides. Goya's technical prowess shines in the mixed-media etching, employing lavis (a wash-like tone), drypoint for expressive lines, burin for fine details, and burnisher for subtle highlights. These techniques on a modest plate (6 5/16 × 9 1/4 in.) amplify the emotional intensity, transforming stark black-and-white into visceral testimony. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department (gift of Mrs. Grafton H. Pyne, 1951), this print exemplifies Goya's shift from court painter to moral witness, influencing later war artists. Today, it reminds visitors of war's timeless savagery, urging reflection on humanity's darkest impulses.

About the Artist

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) · 1746–1828

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) was a Spanish painter and printmaker considered the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Rising from modest provincial origins to become First Court Painter to Charles IV, Goya's career spanned the Enlightenment's optimism and the brutal Napoleonic invasion that shattered it. A mysterious illness in 1793 left him permanently deaf and ...