Plate 14 from The Disasters of War’ (Los Desastres de la Guerra): ‘It’s a Hard Step!’ (Duro es el paso!)”

Description

A figure is dragged toward a ladder or scaffold in It’s a Hard Step. The forced movement gives the title’s ordinary language a grave and threatening meaning. Rather than treating a step as a simple choice, Goya places the body under the control of others, making the threshold ahead feel charged with irreversible consequence.

Etching, drypoint and burin provide Goya with several kinds of worked line, allowing bodies and setting to remain distinct within a compact print. The image’s power comes from the relationship between the ordinary language of a step and the circumstances that make it so difficult. It asks the viewer to consider how conflict transforms familiar actions into moments charged with fear, necessity and irreversible change.

Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Goya collection.