page_title: The Third of May 1808
section_title: Sources
hierarchical_section_title: The Third of May 1808 / Sources
caption_attribution_description: Copy of the painting now in the Louvre made in 1786 to the Comte de Vaudreuil
context_page_description: The Third of May 1808 is a painting completed in 1814 by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, 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. Along with its companion piece of the same size, The Second of May 1808, it was commissioned by the provisional government of Spain at Goya's suggestion.
  The painting's content, presentation, and emotional force secure its status as a groundbreaking, archetypal image of the horrors of war. Although it draws on many sources from both high and popular art, The Third of May 1808 marks a clear break from convention. Diverging from the traditions of Christian art and traditional depictions of war, it has no distinct precedent, and is acknowledged as one of the first paintings of the modern era. According to the art historian Kenneth Clark, The Third of May 1808 is "the first great picture which can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word, in style, in subject, and in intention".
context_section_description: The most likely sources for The Third of May were popular imagery, prints, and broadsides. Depictions of firing squads were common in Spanish political imagery during the Napoleonic War, and Goya's appropriations suggest that he envisaged paintings of heroic scale that would appeal to the general public. Miguel Gamborino's 1813 devotional print The Assassination of Five Monks from Valencia is thought to have served as a source for Goya's composition. Points of similarity include a victim in a posture of crucifixion, whose white garment sets him apart from his companions; a tonsured monk with clenched hands who kneels to his left; and an executed corpse lying in the foreground.
  The geometry of the composition may be an ironic comment on the French painter Jacques-Louis David's 1784 work Oath of the Horatii. The outstretched arms of David's three Roman Horatii in salute are transmuted into the rifles of the firing squad; the upraised arms of the Horatii's father become the victim's gesture as he faces his executioners. While David painted his figures' expressions with a neoclassical luster, Goya's reply is fashioned from brutal realism. Goya may also have been responding to a painting by Antoine-Jean Gros; the French occupation of Madrid is the subject of Gros's Capitulation of Madrid, The Fourth of December 1808.
caption: Jacques-Louis David's paintings, Oath of the Horatii is considered a likely source for elements of Goya's The Third of May 1808.[50]
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