Plate 4 from ‘The Disasters of War’ (Los Desastres de la Guerra): ‘The women give courage. (Las mugeres dan valor’.)

Description

In The women give courage, women and other civilians fight armed soldiers, bringing people outside the organized military into the center of the conflict. Francisco Goya’s The Women Give Courage makes their participation an active force rather than a passive consequence. The crowded encounter allows fear and determination to coexist within the same physical space.

Made in 1810 and published in 1863, plate 4 of The Disasters of War uses etching and tonal work to distinguish the participants without turning their struggle into a distant ceremonial victory. Goya gives courage a bodily expression through the willingness to enter danger. The image’s intensity lies in that immediacy, where resistance emerges from people whose ordinary lives have already been invaded. Their action matters precisely because it remains exposed to the violence it confronts.

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