By Juan Gabriel Fernández García, Óscar Leira Díaz, Pablo Loureiro Cela, Kevin Moreno Bello, Saúl Sedes Ricoy, Daniel Seoane López and Rubén Suárez Díaz. With the collaboration of History teacher Victoria Diehl.
4º DC - IES de Catabois - Ferrol (SPAIN)
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| Cover of the first edition (1863) of The Disasters of War |
In 1808 the Spanish rose up against the Napoleonic troops stationed in Spain because of the Fontainebleau Treaty. That’s the way the so called Spanish War of Independence, as it would later be named in History, started. It would keep the Peninsula bleeding for six years (till 1814). The students in 4th year (curricular diversification) have studied this terrible episode of our past, terrifying ourselves before the hard images that the amazing painter Francisco de Goya captured in his series of etchings ‘The Disasters of War’ or in two capital oil paintings in the history of art such as The Second of May 1808: The Charge of the Mamelukes or The Third of May 1808.
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| The Disasters of War, No. 5: "And they are beasts" |
The painting about the executions by firing squad was signed in 1814, which means six years after the actual events had taken place. We can notice the severe repression the French army is imposing on the rebels (mass executions by fire squad) in a setting which is both recognizable and real (Price Pío Mountain), but slightly defined: The author doesn’t seem to be so interested in setting a fact as in disturbing the audience depicting cruelty on its own. Those who carry the arms have no face, it could be anybody, just as anybody could be the central figure, who opens his arms to symbolise the vast vulnerability of the human being. His shirt is like a flash which soon, very soon, will get soaked in blood. The characters who are contemplating the scene are covering their faces, which two centuries later, are still able to convey all the despair, all the grief of Man when facing the horrors of war.
The fast brush stroke, the game of lights and half-shadows are combined so as to avoid any image of heroism. There is no victory nor triumph. There are jus losers, but, who are the losers?
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| The Third of May by Francisco Goya |
While looking for topics and information for the Erasmus + Project we became aware of an amazing but tragic truth: The most astonishing photographs that were illustrating the news about wars –Syria, Irak, Congo…, so many-, were connected with Goya’s message, 200 years ago, and this fact allowed us to answer the question we mentioned before. Who are the losers at war? Humanity.
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| Author: Rodrigo Abd. Year: 2013 Country: Syria |
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| Author: Manu Brabo. Year: 2013. Country: Syria. |
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| Author: Mohamed Muheissen. Year:2012 . Country: Syria. |
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| Author: Samuel Aranda Year: 2012 Country: Yemen |
We’d like to pay tribute to all war photographers and we want to share a special remembrance to honour the television camera José Couso, who came from Ferrol, and died under ‘friend firing’ during the war in Irak (2003).
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