Les Grandes Misères de la guerre

The Great Miseries of War

French: Les Grandes Misères de la guerre
File:Hanging from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg La Pendaison (The Hanging), the 11th and most famous plate in the series
Artist	Jacques Callot
Year	1633
Material	etching
Dimensions	8.3 cm × 18 cm (3.3 in × 7.1 in)

Les Grandes Misères de la guerre (French: [lɛ ɡʁɑ̃d mizɛʁ də la ɡɛʁ]; English: The Great Miseries of War or The Miseries and Misfortunes of War) are a series of 18 etchings by French artist Jacques Callot (1592–1635), titled in full Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre. Despite the grand theme of the series, the images are in fact only about 83 mm × 180 mm each, and are called the "large" Miseries to distinguish them from an even smaller earlier set on the same subject.

The series was published in 1633, is Callot's best-known work, and has been called the first "anti-war statement" in European art. It can also be considered as an early prototypical French comic strip, within the text comics genre, since the illustrations are accompanied by a descriptive text beneath the images.

Description

File:Pillaging from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

Plate 5, Le pillage, the soldiers pillage a house

Les Grandes Misères depict the destruction unleashed on civilians during the Thirty Years' War; no specific campaign is depicted, but the set inevitably recalls the actions of the army that Cardinal Richelieu sent in 1633 to occupy Callot's native Lorraine before annexing it to France. Callot was living in the capital, Nancy, at the time, though the prints were published, like most of his work, in Paris, with the necessary royal licence. The plates still exist, in a museum in Nancy, as do seven drawings of whole compositions, and many tiny studies for figures, with a large group in the Hermitage Museum.

The series begins with a florid title page, followed by an enrollment parade and a battle scene. Plates 4–8 show bands of the victorious soldiers successively attacking a farm, convent, and coach, and burning a village. In plates 9–14 they are rounded up and subjected to various methods of public torture and execution. Plate 15 shows crippled soldiers in a grand neo-classical hospital, Plate 16 unemployed soldiers dying in the street, and Plate 17 the peasants taking revenge on a group they have captured, killing them with flails. Plate 18 shows an enthroned king distributing rewards to the victorious generals.

Each print has a six-line verse caption below the image, written by the famous print-collector Michel de Marolles. All show wide panoramic views, with many tiny figures, as is typical of Callot's work. The technique of using multiple bitings of acid on the plate, with different areas "stopped-out", was perfected by Callot. This method allows gradations in the strength of the line, with distant parts of the scene usually lighter.

Legacy

The central image of the wheel of fortune in William Hogarth's early engraving Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme is a parody of La Pendaison. Francisco Goya probably owned a set of Callot's etchings, and they are believed to have influenced his similar series, Los Desastres de la guerra (The Disasters of War), almost two centuries later.

Gallery

• 

  Plate 1: Frontispiece

• Enrolling from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 2: L'enrôlement des troupes (Enrolling the troops)

• Battle from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 3: La bataille (The battle)

• Raid from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 4: La maraude (The raid)

• Pillaging from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 5: Le pillage (Pillaging a house)

• Looting a monastry from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 6: Dévastation d'un monastère (Looting a monastery)

• Looting a village from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 7: Pillage et incendie d'un village (Looting and burning a village)

• Robbery from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 8: Vol sur les grandes routes (Highway robbery)

• Arerst of offenders from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 9: Découverte des malfaiteurs (Arrest of the offenders)

• 

  Plate 10: L'estrapade, or Strappado

• 

  Plate 11: La pendaison (The Hanging)

• 

  Plate 12: L'arquebusade, or Firing squad

• Stake from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 13: Le bûcher, or Burning at the stake

• Wheel from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 14: La roue, or Breaking wheel

• Hospital from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 15: L'hôpital (The hospital)

• Beggars and dying from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 16: Les mendiants et les mourants (The beggars and the dying)

• Peasant revenge from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 17: La revanche des paysans (The peasants fight back)

• The awards from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg

  Plate 18: Distribution des récompenses (Distribution of rewards)

References

Bibliography

• DP Becker in KL Spangeberg (ed), Six Centuries of Master Prints, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1993. ISBN 0-931537-15-0
• Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of War, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, 1990. ISBN 0-944722-04-0
• Ann Sutherland Harris, Seventeenth-century art & architecture, Laurence King Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-85669-415-1

External links

• Zoomable image of The Hanging at Christies

• Becker, 155
• Sutherland Harris, 258
• Becker, 155, & illustrations pp. 185–188
• Becker, 154