The Worst is to beg
1812 - 1814. Wash, Etching, Burnisher on wove paper.Not on display
Disasters of War, 55, The Worst is to beg. One of Goya’s most singular conceptual contributions in his series of prints, Disasters of War, is his manner of representing the role of women in the conflict. They sometimes appear as heroines, but are more often depicted as victims of abuse and violence. In his desire to convey the war’s dire consequences for all levels of the population, he made women the protagonists of many of these prints—an unprecedented approach in the history of depictions of war. Their rape by soldiers and the exaltation of their motherhood constitute the two pivotal elements in scenes that present young women who have become prostitutes or mothers being raped alongside valiant heroines who defend their children’s lives or continue the battle initiated by their deceased husbands. On most occasions, the subject is quite explicit, but sometimes it proves more ambiguous. Such is the case with the present drawing and print. The latter’s title implies a previous question in two parts: which of the two responses to hunger is worse? Prostitution and its moral damage, or mendacity, with its physical consequences? Goya’s eloquent answer—The worst is to beg—is clearly set out in this image. The woman who survives by selling her body bows her head in humiliation, but those who keep their dignity die of hunger. As also occurs in Disaster 61, Perhaps they are of another breed, the composition presents two focal points as a means of expressing that duality. On the left we see the young woman and the French soldier; and in the center and right, the starving Spaniards. A comparison of the preparatory drawing to the subsequent print shows how Goya increased the work’s tragic and emotive aspects. In the drawing, despite the fact that she is not in the center of the composition, the young woman is the protagonist. Goya manages this by dressing her in a white skirt that stands out against the intensely drawn surroundings, and he further directs the other figures’ gazes towards her, just as did many years earlier in his cartoon for The Wedding (Museo del Prado, P799), where the bride draws the attention of everyone around her in what is clearly a marriage of convenience. Here, the man lying on the ground beside her is depicted with a similar use of light and dark: white shirt and trousers and a dark vest. Thus, Goya presents the two alternative responses to hunger, one alongside the other. The clearly commercial relationship between the woman and the soldier is underlined by the former’s bowed head as the Frenchman seems to be showing her where their encounter is to take place. The figure between them is probably her procuress. This highly descriptive presentation makes it easy to follow the story in the drawing, but in the print, the narrative becomes less precise as Goya opts, instead, for increased dramatic tension. He isolates the woman by moving the French soldier further back into the middle ground, where he faces forward. His colback, a French military hat, was customarily used by Goya to identify the French participants in his most violent compositions. This change accentuates the woman’s solitude and her condition as the victim of a destiny she, herself, has chosen over death (Text from: Matilla, J.M.: Lo peor es pedir, in Matilla, J.M. and Mena, M.B.: Goya: Luces y Sombras, Barcelona, 2012, p. 200).
