Customer Reviews

The Disasters of War (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

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Consistently all things published by Dover are of the highest and most comprehensive quality technically and academically, and yet at a very low and democratic price, as if they actually wish to place high culture into the hands of the common man and the poorest person, rather than charging top dollar for instantly disposable art and airport lounge short-lived literature. Dover rather presents for our constant use high quality and durable books: Our Daily Book.

And thus this book which we need to see and weep every night as we grow dull with constant war and violence. We see here why war must wage nevermore, in this brave new era of total and indiscriminate and disproportionate yet profitable colonialist warfare.

When allowed by our media we may now see the same or similar images to these which Goya so accurately depicts, both realistically and fantastically. Goya, so well known as a painter of the Spanish courts, but also of Saturn consuming his children, here shows us grotesquely and coldly the true meaning of war, the true fruits of warfare, the moral and the spiritual causes and effects of war: the disasters of war.

As I pride myself as bilingual and am certified superlatively fluent in Spanish with some English besides, as well as a few other tongues, I found occasion here to wince at Dover's translations of Goya's carefully scripted captions, or to shout aloud more probable interpretations, yet I find this the only possible objection to this excellent and gratefully received volume, which must be on the table of every American home, lacking as we are the graphics from Fallujah or Gaza. Read this book and pray for peace. Read this book and study war no more. Read this book with Mark Twain's War Prayer, and turn aside from the ever more rugged war path surging with the blood of innocents.

Even more than Barefoot Gen, more than the immortal Guernica, more even than Speigelman's Maus series, this realistic, classical and careful draftsmanship of the great Goya brings home to us across the centuries the true horrors and disasters of war, with poignant captions. Please read this book in this excellent, scholarly and complete presentation by Dover Editions, now at an even lower price here upon the amazon. Here must we see that the victims of our violence are human beings, our brothers and sisters, children and elders, and not some dehumanized uncounted collateral statistic alienated into separate labels of faith or of nation. We strike our own family in these disasters of war. This is a powerful book which must be seen today, and most gratefully Dover offers it still upon this amazon.

The Disasters of war is a difficult book to read, containing the most impressing pictures of war and its consequences. The black/white drawings are as real as life itself, and sometimes even more!

Goya depicts tortures made on public squares, people starving to death, and warriors fighting. But the most amazing is the vividness and actuality of the pictures. The Disasters of war is like a poetry book, it has no time, and no defined significance; it can be interpreted in infinite different ways and it is always an up-to-date work.

In my view, one of the best ways to fight war is using art. War leads on to war, art leads on to art. Understanding what and how war happens is essential in order to fight it (I excluded Why since I believe there is no explanation for it). This book shows the What perfectly. I have written a review of the book 'Why?' by Nikolai Popov which is about the How.

Like most dover press books, we have here a wonderful bargain: clear reproductions and good paper stock. Goya was a court painter trying to please his patrons, but in this series of etchings, he indulged his twisted soul in the first recorded anti war propaganda. These etchings are both lovely in their technique and horrifying in their imagery.

A very useful book, the complete series is reproduced in actual size. The first 80 prints reproduced are fine, early impressions from the first published edition of 1863. My only complaint is that they are nowhere credited, so we do not know which museum collection was photographed. Given that the introduction is by Philip Hofer, formerly at the Harvard Library, it's natural to assume that these are Harvard's prints, or maybe the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. But they are not. Surprisingly, Harvard owns only a later, inferior copy of this series (third edition). And the MFA's copy is even earlier than the one reproduced (Harris III.1a instead of 1b, i.e., before the publishers edited some of the captions). My best guess is that this book principally reproduces a book that was issued in 1921 in Munich using the etchings in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. "Les desastres de la guerra, von Goya: zweiundachtzig Faksimile-Wiedergaben in Kupfertiefdruck nach den Vorzugsdrucken des Kupferstichkabinetts in Berlin" was published in 1921, and therefore is in the public domain.

As an artist and print maker I can admire Goya's mastery of the media.This book allows people who may not be familiar with Goya's etchings a sense of how powerful and timely these prints are even after 200 years. I was fortunate to see the complete series of these etchings last summer at Syracuse University.I'm sure Goya would see the brutality of war that America is currently engaged in.

While reading the amazing book "The Serial Killer Files", I discovered several mentions to some "famous series of engravings...with it's horrific images of rape, castration, and dismemberment..." Being a moral person, I had to see what all the hype was about! So I went a few weeks later to my college library and I looked at all the images...and I was shocked. To say that these images are unnerving and gruesome is the understatement of the century!! But there's something about them that makes them essential viewing for all...it's the most honest depiction of war I've ever seen in still image. Rather than try to justify the horror of his images with the idea of a greater good served or divine justice delivered, Goya simply portrays things how they were and lets us despair without any manipulation on his part.

I'm sure others have gone through the series of plates with this book so I'll simply list a few of the plates that I think are the most affecting: "Sad Presentiments of what must come to pass", "This is what you were born for", "Why?", "What more can one do?", "This is worse", "Great deeds-against the dead!", "Unhappy Mother!", "The Consequences". Also, something that must be mentioned, aside from 2 or 3 prefaces, the only thing in this book is the 80 or so images themselves.

While these images are of a war that happened hundreds of years ago in a foreign land, what they portray is something whose long claws cast their shadow across distance and time...the insanity and cruelty of man manifest in the horrors of war. For those who want an honest look into the results of war, you need look no further. But be forewarned that, in the words of Nietzsche, "...if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

When I look at these prints, I am reminded of: the "contractors" whose dismembered bodies were hung from the bridge in Fallujah; the lynching postcards that were commonly mailed around the USA only a few generations ago to celebrate the murder of black men; Auschwitz; All Quiet on the Western Front; Sherman's March; the Trojan War; you get the idea. Unfortunately these powerful images are and shall remain contemporary. There is some topical political comment here, but you're mostly looking at the human condition, and with a few changes of costume and props, these prints are applicable to almost any conflict, anywhere. Good for the kids' room.

This is a great over view of Goya's collection of war images. It may be too graphic for some people. But this bookis a great addition to one's collection of Goya's art.