This article by Jenny Farrell first appeared in Unity, the weekly publication of the Irish Communist Party.
AT the threshold of the imperialist era, when the Enlightenment’s promises gave way to war, repression, and new forms of domination, new aesthetics of terror emerged – a response to an age that shattered traditional meaning and exposed individuals to unprecedented violence. Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) stands as one of its decisive figures.
Rising from modest origins to become court painter, Goya gained intimate knowledge of the structures of power he would later critique. His cycle The Disasters of War (1810–1820), created in response to the Spanish War of Independence, transcends mere documentation. It confronts a society already destabilised by political stagnation, economic fragility, and social division. War appears as the culmination of a deeper crisis.
In these etchings, Goya merges documentary precision with existential intensity. Violence is systematically de-heroised. Breaking with the conventions of history painting, he presents terror as the direct result of human action. The horrors of war are neither glorified nor allegorically softened; they are shown with unflinching immediacy.
Plate 1, “Dark Forebodings”, sets the tone. A kneeling figure confronts a sky filled with shadowy, monstrous forms, an externalisation of dread and impending catastrophe. Terror is both historical and psychological. Subsequent plates depict escalating brutality. In “With or Without Reason”, peasants resist French soldiers; in “The Same”, they retaliate with equal ferocity. Goya refuses moral simplification: violence dehumanises perpetrators and victims alike. Scenes of rape, mutilation, execution, and slaughter reveal a spiral of brutality in which humanity itself seems to dissolve.
Yet, Goya’s focus extends beyond physical destruction. Terror becomes a psychological and existential condition. Through gestures and gazes, viewers are drawn into the moral vortex of events. Plates titled “I saw it” assert eyewitness testimony, collapsing the distance between artist and observer. In “One cannot watch”, figures beg for mercy from unseen soldiers beyond the image’s edge. The plate captures not only violence but existential shock.
From Plate 48, the cycle turns to famine. In Plate 55, a skeletal group gathers around a dead woman, forming a downward, earthbound triangle. Their physical closeness suggests solidarity, yet their unity lies in shared annihilation. Opposed to them stands a well-dressed woman turning away toward a distant French figure. Goya renders visible not only hunger but the collapse of social cohesion.
This trajectory culminates in Plate 69, “Nothing”. A decaying body inscribes the word “Nada”. In earlier versions, an allegory of reason confronted darkness; in the final state, the light is nearly extinguished. Justice’s scales lie overturned. The aftermath of war has brought restoration and repression. Terror condenses into nihilism: a world stripped of meaning.
The cycle shifts to political allegory as Goya exposes the systemic violence of the Restoration. In Plate 74, a wolf enthroned as judge blames “wretched humanity” for its suffering, while a monk assists him. Hypocrisy and clerical complicity are laid bare. The promise of liberal reform, briefly embodied in the Constitution of Cádiz (1812), is crushed by reactionary forces.
Yet, from “Nada,” Goya develops a counter-vision. In “Truth has died”, Truth is buried by clergy yet continues to radiate light. The final plate, “This is the truth”, presents her as an earthly, peasant-like presence associated with labour, fertility, and renewal. Truth is grounded in solidarity and productive life.
The Disasters of War thus establishes an aesthetics of terror that refuses reconciliation. Hope and despair, liberation and repression remain unresolved. Yet hope persists as a fragile possibility.
Goya’s work anticipates modern artists who confronted the violence of their times. In the face of terror, his art offers no consolation. It insists instead on making truth visible.