And There Is Nothing to Be Done (Y no hai remedio)

1810, published 1863

Etching, drypoint, burin and burnisher; plate 14 × 16.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Two bodies lie in front, a firing squad shoots other prisoners behind, and a blindfolded man bound to a post waits his turn. The Met reads it as several moments of one execution in a single scene.

Plate 15 of the Disasters of War; the Real Academia de San Fernando published the first edition long after his death.
Look at the three rifle barrels poking in from beyond the right edge, held by shooters we never see.
The Met notes it was etched on the back of a plate already used for a landscape print.
Killing appears as cold routine, seen low and close among the dead and the next to die: war from the victims' side. Ilchman (MFA Boston) contrasts Jacques Callot's 1633 war prints, which keep such brutality at a distance.
Given to the Met by Mrs. Grafton H. Pyne in 1951.

Image: The Met Open Access · CC0