Goya's great series of etchings, The Disasters of War, came about as a consequence of the Spanish War of Independence. Between 1810 and 1823, the artist created a series of prints, such as this one, which reveals the devastating side of war—the agony, irony, and bitter pessimism. Goya's prints had an indelible impact on Ernest Hemingway, who shared the artist's antiwar sentiment and ability to portray human suffering. In his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Hemingway gives excruciating accounts of the devastation suffered on both sides during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). Some of the writer's passages read much like the images depicted by Goya in The Disasters of War.

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