How does Fight with Cudgels elucidate its Interpretations?
The traditional interpretation has been as fight of two commoners fighting in a desolate place trapped knee-deep.
The British researcher Nigel Glendinning had already remarked on the differences between the final detail of the Black Paintings and the detail documented by Jean Laurent, before the transfer from the wall of Goya's home. By the end of 2010, another study of the Laurent images by Carlos Foradada, a painter and teacher of Art History, restated that Goya painted the duelists standing in high grass rather than knee deep in mud. The failure in the transfer caused the loss of large areas of the painting, which was then concealed below the knees. This favored the interpretation of the interred legs.According to Francisco-Xavier de Salas Bosch, Goya may have been referencing an allegory (number 75) that appears in the work by Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, the emblem book Empresas Políticas [Political Maxims], Idea de un príncipe político cristiano, which contained a hundred short essays on the education of a prince.  The allegory referred to the Greek myth of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth. By the instructions of Athena, Cadmus sowed the dragon's teeth in the ground, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called Spartoi ("sown"). By throwing a stone among them, Cadmus caused them to fall upon one another until only five survived, who assisted him to build the Cadmea (citadel) of Thebes.
Saavedra used this imagery to discuss how some rulers stir up discord in order to ultimately establish peace in their kingdoms. Goya's use of this allegory may have referred to the policies and politics of Ferdinand VII.
Black Paintings Athena Nigel Glendinning Diego de Saavedra Fajardo Thebes dragon's teeth Cadmus Ferdinand VII emblem book Spartoi Jean Laurent