Art and memory: Goya’s Duel with Clubs

This morning I posted about how artists have remembered war and about how their work should serve to remind us about war too. Don’t miss Tony Judt in the New York Review of Books on history, war and memory.

Goya lived through almost non-stop national strife: Both internal civil conflict in Spain and wars with Great Britain and France. Most memorably he lived through the French occupation of Spain. If there was ever an artist well-positioned to understand war it was Goya.

This is Duel with Clubs from the Prado, one of Goya’s Black Paintings. Goya presents the slog of conflict as simple and futile. The lesson in the painting is applicable to lots of circumstances, but when I look at it today I think of Iraq: Americans against Iraqis, Sunnis against Shia.