Plate 20 from ‘The Disasters of War’ (Los Desastres de la Guerra): ‘Get them well, and on to the next.’ (Curarlos y á otra.)

Description

Figures tend the wounded in Get Them Well, and On to the Next, making bodily need the center of an unsettling cycle. Goya’s title gives recovery a troubling direction, suggesting that care may prepare a person for another ordeal. The immediate work of helping meets the larger demands of a conflict that has not ended.

The print combines etching with additional plate work, giving Goya a range of marks and tones suited to a closely observed human subject. The work’s force comes from the distance between the urgent need for healing and the words that hurry the process onward. Rather than offering recovery as an uncomplicated ending, the image asks the viewer to consider the circumstances into which a healed person may be returned.