THE THIRD OF MAY, 1808 by Francisco Goya, 1814, Oil on canvas, 268 cm × 347 cm (106 in × 137 in)
THIS PAINTING IS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AS A HANDMADE OIL REPRODUCTION FROM 1ST ART GALLERY: www.1st-art-ga...
ABOUT THIS PAINTING: When you think of the great Spanish painters who comes to mind: Velasquez, Dali, Picasso and of course, Francisco Goya.
Goya was nothing if not brutally honest in his paintings, using his brush like a cudgel, a blunt instrument exposing the ugliness and barbarism of his time.
I’m referring specifically to this work entitled, The Third of May, 1808. Based on real events it depicts the mass execution of Spanish irregulars by a French firing squad.
French troops under Napoleon wrangled their way into Spain ostensibly to help the Spanish conquer Portugal. With 23,000 French soldiers positioned within the country a coup was fait de complet. In response the Spanish people rebelled.
This painting illustrates the French response to the uprising.
In the early hours of May 3, 1808 French troops began executing the rebels. Here Goya makes the visual distinction between the disciplined and regulated soldiers performing their duty with regimental precision, and opposite a citizen army, a rag-tag militia being herded to their death, exhibiting various emotions: anguish, fear, despair, defiance, resignation.
At the center of this painting, among a pile of dead bodies, a man on his knees, illuminated by the single lantern, implores his executioners for mercy. He is representative of all the victims, begging for compassion. It should be noted he’s wearing the papal colors of white and yellow. And if you look carefully you see the sign of the stigmata on this hand.
This wasn’t the first time Goya had tackled this subject. Starting in 1810 he began a series of etchings called The Disasters of War, illustrating the atrocities in graphic detail of the conflict between the French and Spanish.
Throughout history there has been a multitude of painting representing the carnage of war, but none so cruel and merciless as this painting.
So potent was it’s message it inspired another Spaniard, Pablo Picasso, to paint his masterpiece, Guernica over a century later.
6 сен 2024
