No se puede mirar. (One cannot look.)
Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, Spanish, 1746 - 1828
1810-1820
Etching, aquatint and scraping on paper
First edition, made prior to all corrections
Plate: 5 9/16 × 8 1/8 in. (14.2 × 20.7 cm)
Sheet: 9 5/8 × 12 3/4 in. (24.5 × 32.4 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Adolph Weil Jr., Class of 1935
PR.991.50.1.26
Portfolio / Series Title
Number 26 of 80 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War)
Publisher
Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, Spain
Geography
Place Made: Spain, Europe
Period
19th century
Object Name
Research Area
Not on view
Inscriptions
Inscribed, in plate, lower center: No se puede mirar.; inscribed, in plate, upper left: 2d; inscribed, in plate, lower left: 27; inscribed, in graphite, upper right: 26 Watermark: HGO/Palmette
Label
The disasters of war occur not only to the soldiers fighting and their direct victims, but also to the survivors and witnesses of the conflict’s immediate aftermath. In these prints, Goya depicts moments of sorrow as well as cruelty. Goya suggest that looking upon war can be its own torture: Looking over a pile of dead bodies, a man in Plate 12 can only vomit. In Plate 26, huddled men and women shrink away from advancing bayonets, anticipating their deaths. A child is left orphaned in Plate 50, crying as she follows the men who cart her mother’s body away. Ravaged by fighting, Spain suffered severe famine, represented in Plate 61. Upon seeing their skeletal countryman, two rich men instead turn their backs. The visceral reactions upon seeing horror that these images represent seem intended to provoke a similar response in the viewer.
From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming
Course History
SART 27, Printmaking I: Intaglio, Louise Hamlin, Spring 2012
SART 27, SART 28, Printmaking I: Intaglio, Printmaking II, Louise Hamlin, Winter 2013
SART 27, SART 28, SART 74, Printmaking I, II, III, Louise Hamlin, Spring 2013
FILM 47, From The Fall of the Wall to 9-11: Understanding the New World Disorder, Mark Williams, James Nachtwey, Spring 2013
SART 27, SART 28, Printmaking I: Intaglio, Printmaking II, Louise Hamlin, Winter 2012
ANTH 12.3, WGST 42.5, The Ethnography of Violence, Chelsey Kivland, Fall 2013
SART 27, SART 28, Printmaking I-Intaglio, Printmaking II, Louise Hamlin, Winter 2014
SPAN 31, Introduction to Hispanic Studies II: 18th and 19th Centuries, Jose del Pino, Winter 2014
SPAN 31, Introduction to Hispanic Studies II: 18th and 19th Centuries, Txetxu Aguado, Winter 2014
SART 27, SART 28, SART 74, Printmaking I, Printmaking II, Printmaking III, Louise Hamlin, Spring 2014
COLT 73.4, Violence, Ayo Coly, Winter 2015
ARTH 50, Romanticism, Kristin O'Rourke, Spring 2015
ARTH 50, Romanticism, Kristin O'Rourke, Spring 2015
ARTH 16.17, Rembrandt, Joy Kenseth, Spring 2016
ARTH 41.03, European Art 1750-1850, Allan Doyle, Winter 2019
Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Anthropology, Charis Ford Morrison Boke 1, Summer 2023
Studio Art 27.01/28.01/74.01, Printmaking I/II/III, Josh Dannin, Summer 2023
Facilitated Experience: Special Tour - From Goya to Photojournalism, Summer 2023
Exhibition History
A Gift to the College: The Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weil Jr. Collection of Master Prints, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 17-December 20, 1998.
Alfredo Jaar, The Eyes of Gutete Emerita, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 8-September 3, 2006.
European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 30, 2008-March 8, 2009.
Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of War, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 8-December 9, 1990.
Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 23-December 9, 2023.
Representations of the Body in Space from the Renaissance to the Present: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Art History 2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 3-March 15, 1998.
Publication History
Timothy Rub, Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Kelly Pask, "A Gift to the College: The Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weil Jr. Collection of Master Prints", Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1998, p.73, ill. p.72, listed, p.98, no. 127.
Hilliard T. Goldfarb and Reva Wolf, Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of War, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1990, p. 63, ill. XI.
Katherine W. Hart, Alfredo Jaar, The Eyes of Gutete Emerita [brochure], Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2006, ill. p. 2.
T. Barton Thurber, European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2008, pp. 178-179, ill. p.178, no. 110.
Provenance
Date unknown, in the collection of Felix Somary (1881-1956), Vienna and Zurich; sold Sotheby's, New York, May 3, 1978, lot 2; purchased by Adolph Weil, Jr., Montgomery, Alabama; 1991 given to Dartmouth College by Adolph Weil, Jr., Class of 1935.
Catalogue Raisonne
Delteil 145; Harris 146
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