Plate 58 from ‘The Disasters of War’ (Los Desastres de la Guerra): ‘It’s no use crying out.’ (No hay que dar voces.)

Description

In It’s no use crying out, suffering people gather in postures of distress, their cries offering no visible means of changing their circumstances. Francisco Goya’s It’s No Use Crying Out gives the scene a caption that removes the reassurance of being heard. The figures’ closeness makes their need immediate, while the title leaves that need painfully unanswered.

Made in 1811–12 and published in 1863, plate 58 of The Disasters of War uses etching and burnished aquatint to lend gravity to the exhausted company. Goya treats suffering as a condition lived by particular bodies rather than an abstract consequence of conflict. The image’s severity lies in the failure of appeal: expressing pain does not guarantee that assistance will arrive. Its emotional force persists in that interval between a human call and a world unable or unwilling to respond.

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