Art review

Francisco Goya – The third of may 1808

Francisco Goya was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important
Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings
reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century
painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.

The Third of May 1808 is a painting completed in 1814, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. In the
work, Goya sought to commemorate Spanish resistance to Napoleon's armies during the occupation
of 1808 in the Peninsular War. The painting's content, presentation, and emotional force secure its
status as a groundbreaking, archetypal image of the horrors of war. As I remember this work has
inspired a number of other major paintings, including Édouard Manet.

The subject of this art work is an execution scene where French soldiers are about to shoot their
Spanish captives. Soldiers are lined up on the right side of the picture with their backs to the viewer.
We don’t see their faces, but we do see the faces of the Spanish men opposite them on the left side
of the picture, including one in white who has his hands raised in the air. The scene takes place at
night, just outside the city,with the light source being a lamp at the foot of the soldiers. The guns of
the soldiers create horizontal lines while the edge of the mountain above the captives creates a
strong diagonal line from the top of left of the picture towards the center. Goya has used dark values
and limited the use of colors. Shapes are emphasized over form, particularly in the soldiers. Space is
primarily created by the use of overlapping shapes with a defnite separation between foreground
and background. There seems to be little use of actual texture, but there is noticeable lack of texture
on the uniforms of the uniforms of the soldier.

Goya has chosen to place 2 groups of figures opposite each other and just of center. The main
subject of the picture, a man in white, is seen facing the viewer with his arms raised in surrender. He
wears a bright white shirt to create a focal point and to balance the dark colored soldiers on the right
of the picture. The shapes of the soldiers are repeated and their colors muted, creating one large
mass. The captives are shown in a variety of poses expressing their impending deaths with emotion.

In making this picture, it is clear that the artist was expressing support of his Spanish country men.
The French soldiers are shown as a faceless mass of machine-like killers, whose emotional victims
plead for their lives even as some lay dead already. The innocence and purity of the captives are
particularly seen in the white shirt of the man in the middle and in the pose of the priest begging for
mercy. The point is further made as the scene takes place at night, outside the city, to emphasize the
dirtiness of the deed and allude to the idea that evil is done in secret. With this emotional work of art
Goya has used his artistic ability to show patriotism for his country and support the cause of his
people.

This picture works wonderfully on several diferent levels. Firstly, it is visually appealing because of
the subject matter of war and the dramatic moment of execution that draws the viewer in. Secondly,
Goya has carefully used the elements of art to add signifcance to the scene, from his use of dramatic
lights and darks to the white colored shirt to suggest innocence and purity. Thirdly, this art work
stands as a record of history to show an event that reveals the atrocities of war between two nations,
albeit from one particular view point.

Finally, Goya has achieved all of the above with such simplicity that the average viewer may be
tempted to overlook the level of sophistication within the picture.