Plate 77 from "The Disasters of War" (Los Desastres de la Guerra): 'May the cord break' (Que se rompe la cuerda)
Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) Spanish
Not on view
This print is from the final group in the Disasters, the caprichos enfáticos, that indirectly and symbolically addresses the social and political havoc created by the war. Here, the figure on the rope probably alludes to the renewed political ascendancy of the Catholic Church in Spain, which had been undermined during the war by the secularizing agenda of both Spanish and Francophile liberals. The decaying rope may evoke the fragility of ecclesiastical privileges regained by force after 1814. The onlooker at lower right, pointing to the rope, is possibly uttering the phrase that serves as the caption to this plate. His alarm is counterbalanced by the nonchalance of the priest, oblivious to his impending fall.
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