The firing squad (L'arquebusade)

The miseries and disasters of war: the prints of Goya and Callot, 2010

Jacques Callot was amongst the most inventive and original printmakers of the first half of the seventeenth century, and in the last years of his life he created two series about war. The first, in a smaller format, was made around 1632, with a larger, expanded version appearing in the following year. This series, known as the ‘Large Miseries of War’ comprise the eighteen plates on display here.

Callot structured the series in a narrative, which begins with the enrolment of the troops and a battle. Rather than depicting a particular campaign, Callot focused on the universal experiences of soldiers at the time. In small, carefully drawn plates he described the crimes committed by marauding soldiers and their eventual capture and punishment. He shows the pillage of an inn, house and cloister, the destruction of a village, and the attack on innocent travellers. Another plate shows the soldiers who have committed the serious offences being punished by strappado, hanging, firing squad, pyre and wheel. The series ends by depicting the tragic fate of ‘good’ soldiers, who are sick, wounded, and dying – those are set upon by vengeful peasants. The final plate shows the distribution of awards to the ‘good’ soldiers. The prints are inscribed with verses attributed to Michel de Marolles (1600–1681), Abbé de Villeloin, a prolific poet and print collector.

Callot made the series in the context of the Thirty Years War (1618–48), perhaps in response to the invasion of his native Lorraine by the French. The war, which was fought sporadically between states and nations and ultimately redrew the map of Europe, shifted power structures and boundaries and devastated whole regions. Apart from the casualties from war, famine and disease which decimated populations in the German states, Bohemia, the Low Countries and Italy, the conflict bankrupted many of the combatant powers. It is estimated that eight million lives were lost over the thirty years of the war.

The tone of Callot’s prints is difficult to gauge. Unlike Goya’s prints, Callot does not present an obvious critique of war. Yet his full title for the series, The Miseries and Misfortunes of War, suggests a sincere rather than satirical approach.

Maria Zagala, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs