"Here
are two men – possibly brothers – are
shown fighting with heavy cudgels – slowly,
rhythmically, as though they are driving a post.
Their legs disappear into the ground, like Goya's Colossus, yet they appear wedded to the land and so their
fight must be to the death. Bitter clashes between
monarchists and liberals in northern Spain at
this time imply that Goya may have intended this
painting as an allegory of civil war."
Patricia Wright, Eyewitness Art; Goya, Dorling Kindersley, London, 1993, page 49.