Charity (Caridad)

In order to avoid the spread of diseases in times of war, corpses were buried in mass graves. This is exactly what Goya shows in this print, in which we can see various men throwing decapitated, totally naked bodies into a grave. On the edge of the pit other naked corpses are piled up, ready to be thrown into the grave.

The title of the print is loaded with a strong sense of irony, since there is little charity in this gesture: on the contrary, it is an act of selfishness, as was the concern to attend to the wounded in order to ensure that they could later go forth into battle once more.

In the background we can see a standing figure who stares into space with a preoccupied expression. This might be a self-portrait of Goya himself witnessing the scene. It is likely that the artist would have seen some scenes of this kind in person and that he would have made studies in the moment of the action. However, the dominant trend in this series of avoiding characterizing figures or giving specific geographical references suggests that the majority of the images in The Disasters of War were the fruit of a mental process of composition based on events that the artist had seen.