What courage!
Ca. 1810. Red chalk on laid paper.Not on display
In this drawing and the These, too (D04345), Goya presents one of his harshest criticisms. At first glance, both seem to depict village people picking up the war wounded and carrying them to the hospital to be cured—an unquestionably charitable and patriotic gesture. And that could well be the subject of these works were it not for their titles. With what Lafuente Ferrari (1952, pp. 61 and 152) called “bitter irony”, Goya took aim at the opportunistic charity and tragic outcome of man’s exploitation of others. And Mélida had already recognized the artist’s intentions nearly a century earlier, observing that “what should have moved our parents to gather and care for the wounded should not have been this selfish interest, but rather the charity those soldiers so rightly deserved after risking their lives for their country; but Goya paid little heed to that”. And, as Lecaldano put it: “here, the peasants have arrived in time to save Spanish soldiers wounded in combat. They will hide them and treat them, and who knows if they will survive? But this is no humanitarian gesture; it reflects the idea that, if they can somehow be revived, they will continue to be useful for fighting”. The concatenation of prints between “They can still serve” and the following, “These, too”, brings out the sequential character of these images and their titles, and this repetition strengthens the expressive charge that Goya sought to transmit. In the first, a group of civilians rescues various soldiers who are recognizable through their uniforms. The tragedy they have suffered is suggested by the weapons lying on the ground—an unmistakable sign of defeat, just as they would be in his much later canvas, The Second of May. The scene continues in the following print, where the soldiers seem to be recovering from their wounds. But this is not really the case, as a closer look reveals that they are no more than a group of bodies—some are even lying lifeless on the floor—as useless as the sack in the foreground. The differences between the preparatory drawing and the subsequent print include a more precise rendering, with more detailed faces, gestures and clothing. The faces, as well as the shadow in which the scene is set, contribute to the sadness of an atmosphere in which we can barely imagine anything except the cries of the wounded, some of whom receive no attention from anyone except themselves. The one in the foreground, for example, is bandaging his leg while others, with worried expressions, clumsily apply a tourniquet to a semi-nude man whose bottom is almost shamefully turned towards the viewer. (Text from: Matilla, J.M.: Aún podrán servir, in Goya en tiempos de guerra, Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008, p. 288)
