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Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), “Great Deeds! With Dead Men!” from “Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War),” 1906, fifth printing, book of 80 etchings, 10 by 135/8  inches, edition of 275 (unnumbered). Published by Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid.

FOR 5/16

GOYA’S ‘LOS DESASTRES DE LA GUERRA’ ON VIEW AT PETER BLUM SOHO w/ 1 cut

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NEW YORK CITY — Peter Blum Gallery presents the exhibition “Francisco de Goya Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War),” through August 1, at Peter Blum SoHo, 99 Wooster Street.

Comprising 80 aquatints, Goya’s (1746–1828) eloquent testament of man’s inhumanity toward his fellow man, precipitated by Spain’s War of Independence against Napoleon’s forces (1808–1814), and suggests the complete collapse of the Age of Enlightenment.

The original set of 85 etchings was most likely completed by Goya between 1810 and 1820, and entitled “Fatales consequencias de la sangrienta guerra en Espana con Buonaparte. Y otros caprichos enfaticos. (Fatal consequences of Spain’s bloody war with Buonaparte. And other emphatic caprices).”

The set of proofs was bound and given to his friend Juan Agustin Cean Bermudez to review, and is now in the British Museum. The prints were not published in Goya’s lifetime. In 1863, the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando published the first edition of 80 aquatints as Los Desastres de la Guerra, bound as a book.

More than 60 years old and deaf when the war began, it is unlikely Goya witnessed firsthand all of the atrocities he depicts in the series; however, his portrayal of the events under French occupation serve as profound statements on this war and on war in general.

The first half of the plates render the horrors of war and its effects; the subsequent plates illustrate famine as a consequence of war; while the last group of plates depict allegorical images referring to the trauma of the postwar period. Goya’s honest and sober representations of war speak not only of the past, but contain a timeless message that resonates today.

For more information, www.peterblumgallery.com or 212-343-0441.