The Third of May 1808 The Third of May 1808 ( also known as ' , or ' , or ) 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 " ( or " The Charge of the Mamelukes " ) , 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 " . " The Third of May 1808 " has inspired a number of other major paintings , including a series by Édouard Manet , and Pablo Picasso ' s " Massacre in Korea " and " Guernica " . Background . Napoleon I of France declared himself First Consul of the French Republic on 18 February 1799 , and crowned himself Emperor in 1804 . Because Spain controlled access to the Mediterranean , the country was politically and strategically important to French interests . The reigning Spanish sovereign , Charles IV , was internationally regarded as ineffectual . Even in his own court he was seen as a " half - wit king who renounces cares of state for the satisfaction of hunting " , and a cuckold unable to control his energetic wife , Maria Luisa of Parma . Napoleon took advantage of the weak king by suggesting the two nations conquer and divide Portugal , with France and Spain each taking a third of the spoils , and the final third going to the Spanish Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy , along with the title " Prince of the Algarve " . Godoy was seduced , and accepted the French offer . He failed , however , to grasp Napoleon ' s true intentions , and was unaware that his new ally and co - sovereign , the former king ' s son Ferdinand VII of Spain , was using the invasion merely as a ploy to seize the Spanish parliament and throne . Ferdinand intended not only that Godoy be killed during the impending power struggle , but also that the lives of his own parents be sacrificed . Under the guise of reinforcing the Spanish armies , 23 , 000 French troops entered Spain unopposed in November 1807 . Even when Napoleon ' s intentions became clear the following February , the occupying forces found little resistance apart from isolated actions in disconnected areas , including Saragossa . Napoleon ' s principal commander , Marshal Joachim Murat , believed that Spain would benefit from rulers more progressive and competent than the Bourbons , and Napoleon ' s brother Joseph Bonaparte was to be made king . After Napoleon convinced Ferdinand to return Spanish rule to Charles IV , the latter was left with no choice but to abdicate , on 19 March 1808 , in favor of Joseph Bonaparte . Although the Spanish people had accepted foreign monarchs in the past , they deeply resented the new French ruler . On 2 May 1808 , provoked by news of the planned removal to France of the last members of the Spanish royal family , the people of Madrid rebelled in the Dos de Mayo Uprising . A proclamation issued that day to his troops by Marshal Murat read : " The population of Madrid , led astray , has given itself to revolt and murder . French blood has flowed . It demands vengeance . All those arrested in the uprising , arms in hand , will be shot . " Goya commemorated the uprising in his " The Second of May " , which depicts a cavalry charge against the rebels in the Puerta del Sol square in the center of Madrid , the site of several hours of fierce combat . Much the better known of the pair , " The Third of May " illustrates the French reprisals : before dawn the next day hundreds of Spaniards were rounded up and shot , at a number of locations around Madrid . Civilian Spanish opposition persisted as a feature of the ensuing five - year Peninsular War , the first to be called " guerrilla war " . Irregular Spanish forces considerably aided the Spanish , Portuguese , and British armies jointly led by Sir Arthur Wellesley , who first landed in Portugal in August 1808 . By the time of the painting ' s conception , the public imagination had made the rioters symbols of heroism and patriotism . Like other Spanish liberals , Goya was personally placed in a difficult position by the French invasion . He had supported the initial aims of the French Revolution , and hoped for a similar development in Spain . Several of his friends , like the poets Juan Meléndez Valdés and Leandro Fernández de Moratín , were overt , the term for the supporters — collaborators in the view of many — of Joseph Bonaparte . Goya ' s 1798 portrait of the French ambassador - turned - commandant Ferdinand Guillemardet betrays a personal admiration . Although he maintained his position as court painter , for which an oath of loyalty to Joseph was necessary , Goya had by nature an instinctive dislike of authority . He witnessed the subjugation of his countrymen by the French troops . During these years he painted little , although the experiences of the occupation provided inspiration for drawings that would form the basis for his prints " The Disasters of War " ( ) . In February 1814 , after the final expulsion of the French , Goya approached the provisional government with a request to " perpetuate by means of his brush the most notable and heroic actions of our glorious insurrection against the Tyrant of Europe " . His proposal accepted , Goya began work on " The Third of May " . It is not known whether he had personally witnessed either the rebellion or the reprisals , despite many later attempts to place him at the events of either day . The painting . Description . " The Third of May 1808 " is set in the early hours of the morning following the uprising and centers on two masses of men : one a rigidly poised firing squad , the other a disorganized group of captives held at gun point . Executioners and victims face each other abruptly across a narrow space ; according to Kenneth Clark , " by a stroke of genius [ Goya ] has contrasted the fierce repetition of the soldiers ' attitudes and the steely line of their rifles , with the crumbling irregularity of their target . " A square lantern situated on the ground between the two groups throws a dramatic light on the scene . The brightest illumination falls on the huddled victims to the left , whose numbers include a monk or friar in prayer . To the immediate right and at the center of the canvas , other condemned figures stand next in line to be shot . The central figure is the brilliantly lit man kneeling amid the bloodied corpses of those already executed , his arms flung wide in either appeal or defiance . His yellow and white clothing repeats the colors of the lantern . His plain white shirt and sun - burnt face show he is a simple labourer . On the right side stands the firing squad , engulfed in shadow and painted as a monolithic unit . Seen nearly from behind , their bayonets and their shako headgear form a relentless and immutable column . Most of the faces of the figures cannot be seen , but the face of the man to the right of the main victim , peeping fearfully towards the soldiers , acts as a at the back of the central group . Without distracting from the intensity of the foreground drama , a townscape with a steeple looms in the nocturnal distance , probably including the barracks used by the French . In the background between the hillside and the shakos is a crowd with torches : perhaps onlookers , perhaps more soldiers or victims . The " Second " and " Third of May 1808 " are thought to have been intended as parts of a larger series . Written commentary and circumstantial evidence suggest that Goya painted four large canvases memorializing the rebellion of May 1808 . In his memoirs of the Royal Academy in 1867 , José Caveda wrote of four paintings by Goya of the second of May , and Cristóbal Ferriz — an artist and a collector of Goya — mentioned two other paintings on the theme : a revolt at the royal palace and a defense of artillery barracks . Contemporary prints stand as precedents for such a series . The disappearance of two paintings may indicate official displeasure with the depiction of popular insurrection . " The Disasters of War " . Goya ' s series of aquatint etching s " The Disasters of War " ( ) was not completed until 1820 , although most of the prints were made in the period 1810 – 1814 . The album of proofs given by Goya to a friend , however , now in the British Museum , provides many indications of the order in which both the preliminary drawings and the prints themselves were composed . The groups identified as the earliest clearly seem to predate the commission for the two paintings , and include two prints with obviously related compositions ( illustrated ) , as well as " I saw this " , which is presumably a scene witnessed during Goya ' s trip to Saragossa . ( " One cannot look at this " ) is clearly related compositionally and thematically ; the female central figure has her arms outstretched , but pointing down , while another figure has his hands clasped in prayer , and several others shield or hide their faces . This time the soldiers are not visible even from behind ; only the bayonets of their guns are seen . Iconography and invention . At first the painting met with mixed reactions from art critics and historians . Artists had previously tended to depict war in the high style of history painting , and Goya ' s unheroic description was unusual for the time . According to some early critical opinion the painting was flawed technically : the perspective is flat , or the victims and executioners are standing too close together to be realistic . Although these observations may be strictly correct , the writer Richard Schickel argues that Goya was not striving for academic propriety but rather to strengthen the overall impact of the piece . " The Third of May " references a number of earlier works of art , but its power comes from its bluntness rather than its adherence to traditional compositional formulas . Pictorial artifice gives way to the epic portrayal of unvarnished brutality . Even the contemporary Romantic painters — who were also intrigued with subjects of injustice , war , and death — composed their paintings with greater attention to the conventions of beauty , as is evident in Théodore Géricault ' s " Raft of the Medusa " ( 1818 – 1819 ) and Eugène Delacroix ' s 1830 painting " Liberty Leading the People " . The painting is structurally and thematically tied to traditions of martyrdom in Christian art , as exemplified in the dramatic use of chiaroscuro , and the appeal to life juxtaposed with the inevitability of imminent execution . However , Goya ' s painting departs from this tradition . Works that depicted violence , such as those by Jusepe de Ribera , feature an artful technique and harmonious composition which anticipate the " crown of martyrdom " for the victim . In " The Third of May " the man with raised arms at the focal point of the composition has often been compared to a crucified Christ , and a similar pose is sometimes seen in depictions of Christ ' s nocturnal " Agony in the Garden " of Gethsemane . Goya ' s figure displays stigmata - like marks on his right hand , while the lantern at the center of the canvas references a traditional attribute of the Roman soldiers who arrested Christ in the garden . Not only is he posed as if in crucifixion , he wears yellow and white : the heraldic colors of the papacy . In " The Third of May " , however , there is no attempt to find transcendence , and no sense that the sacrifice of life will lead to salvation . The lantern as a source of illumination in art was widely used by Baroque artists , and perfected by Caravaggio . Traditionally a dramatic light source and the resultant chiaroscuro were used as metaphors for the presence of God . Illumination by torch or candlelight took on religious connotations ; but in " The Third of May " the lantern manifests no such miracle . Rather , it affords light only so that the firing squad may complete its grim work , and provides a stark illumination so that the viewer may bear witness to wanton violence . The traditional role of light in art as a conduit for the spiritual has been subverted . The victim , as presented by Goya , is as anonymous as his killers . His entreaty is addressed not to God in the manner of traditional painting , but to an unheeding and impersonal firing squad . He is not granted the heroism of individuality , but is merely part of a continuum of victims . Beneath him lies a bloody and disfigured corpse ; behind and around him are others who will soon share the same fate . Here , for the first time , according to biographer Fred Licht , nobility in individual martyrdom is replaced by futility and irrelevance , the victimization of mass murder , and anonymity as a hallmark of the modern condition . The way the painting shows the progress of time is also without precedent in Western art . The death of a blameless victim had typically been presented as a conclusive episode , imbued with the virtue of heroism . " The Third of May " offers no such cathartic message . Instead , there is a continuous procession of the condemned in a mechanical formalization of murder . The inevitable outcome is seen in the corpse of a man , splayed on the ground in the lower left portion of the work . There is no room left for the sublime ; his head and body have been disfigured to a degree that renders resurrection impossible . The victim is portrayed bereft of all aesthetic or spiritual grace . For the rest of the picture the viewer ' s eye level is mostly along the central horizontal axis ; only here is the perspectival point of view changed , so that the viewer looks down on the mutilated body . Finally , there is no attempt by the artist to soften the subject ' s brutality through technical skill . Method and subject are indivisible . Goya ' s procedure is determined less by the mandates of traditional virtuosity than by his intrinsically morbid theme . The brushwork could not be described as pleasing , and the colors are restricted to earth tones and black , punctuated by bright flashes of white and the red blood of the victims . The quality of the pigment itself foreshadows Goya ' s later works : a granular solution producing a matte , sandy finish . Few would admire the work for painterly flourishes , such is its horrific force and its lack of theatricality . Provenance . Despite the work ' s commemorative value , no details about its first exhibition are known , and it is not mentioned in any surviving contemporaneous accounts . This lack of commentary may be due to Fernando VII ' s preference for neoclassical art , and to the fact that popular revolts of any kind were not regarded as suitable subject matter by the restored Bourbons . A monument to the fallen in the uprising , also commissioned in 1814 by the provisional government , " was stopped by Ferdinand VII , in whose eyes the senators and heroes of the war of independence found small favour , on account of their reforming tendencies " . According to some accounts the painting lay in storage for thirty to forty years before being shown to the public . Its mention in an 1834 Prado inventory shows that the painting remained in the possession of the government or monarchy ; much of the royal collection had been transferred to the museum upon its opening in 1819 . Théophile Gautier mentioned seeing " a massacre " by Goya during a visit to the museum in 1845 , and a visitor in 1858 noted it as well , though both accounts refer to the work as depicting the events of the second of May , perhaps because continues to be the Spanish name for the whole episode . In 1867 , Goya ' s biographer Charles Emile Yriarte considered the painting important enough to warrant its own special exhibition , but it was not until 1872 that " The Third of May " was listed in the Prado ' s published catalog , under the title " Scene of the Third of May 1808 " . Both the " Third " and " Second of May " suffered damage in a road accident while being transported by truck to Valencia for safety during the Spanish Civil War , apparently the only time they have left Madrid . Significant paint losses to the left side of the " Second of May " have been deliberately left unrepaired . Restoration work to both paintings was done in 2008 in time for an exhibition marking the bicentennial of the uprising . In 2009 , the Prado selected " The Third of May 1808 " as one of the museum ' s fourteen most important paintings , to be displayed in Google Earth at a resolution of 14 , 000 megapixels . Sources . 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 tonsure d monk with clenched hands who kneels to his left ; and an executed corpse lying in the foreground . Unlike Gamborino , however , Goya did not include angels in his scene . 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 " " . Goya may have been influenced by works of Rubens , such as versions of the " Massacre of the Innocents " and " The Horrors of War " , painted after 1638 . This supposition is supported by Goya ' s " Saturn Devouring His Son " , c . 1819 – 1823 , which suggests a familiarity with Rubens ' 1636 painting of the same name , now in the Prado . Kenneth Clark considered the battle scene " The Second of May 1808 " an " artistic failure . . . perhaps he could not shake off the memory of similar compositions by Rubens " . Goya had in fact produced a chalk drawing of the Saturn subject in 1796 – 1797 that was closer in tone to the Rubens painting than to his own later work of 1819 – 1823 . Legacy . The first paraphrasing of " The Third of May " was Édouard Manet ' s " Execution of Emperor Maximilian " , painted in several versions between 1867 and 1869 . In recording a current event to which neither he nor the emerging art of photography was witness , Manet seems inspired by Goya ' s precedent . He may have seen the work at the Prado in 1865 before beginning his own paintings , which were too sensitive to be exhibited in France in Manet ' s lifetime . He undoubtedly did see a print of it which was published in 1867 by an acquaintance . Art critic Arthur Danto compares Goya ' s work and Manet ' s : " The Third of May " also depicts an execution , an early event in the so - called Peninsular War between France and Spain . Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain in 1808 , capturing its royal family and replacing them with his brother , Joseph . The French were as unpopular in Spain as they later were in Mexico , and they encountered a fierce insurrection , which ultimately triumphed . The " Third of May " execution was an indiscriminate killing of civilians by French soldiers in reprisal for a guerrilla attack the previous day . Goya ' s painting of the massacre , which shows terrified civilians facing a firing squad , was intended to arouse anger and hatred on the part of Spanish viewers . Goya ' s is a highly romantic picture of a deeply emotional episode . " The Third of May " is cited as an influence on Pablo Picasso ' s 1937 " Guernica " , which shows the aftermath of the Nazi German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War . An exhibition in 2006 at the Prado and the Reina Sofía showed " The Third of May " , " Guernica " , and the " Execution of the Emperor Maximilian " in the same room . Also in the room was Picasso ' s " Massacre in Korea " , painted in 1951 during the Korean War — an even more direct reference to the composition of " The Third of May " . The perpetrators in this painting were intended to be the United States Army or their United Nations allies . Aldous Huxley wrote in 1957 that Goya lacked Rubens ' ability to fill the canvas with an ordered composition ; but he considered " The Third of May " a success because Goya " is speaking in his native language , and he is therefore able to express what he wants to say with maximum force and clarity " . Kenneth Clark remarked on the painting ' s radical departure from history painting , and its singular intensity : With Goya we do not think of the studio or even of the artist at work . We think only of the event . Does this imply that The Third of May is a kind of superior journalism , the record of an incident in which depth of focus is sacrificed to an immediate effect ? I am ashamed to say that I once thought so ; but the longer I look at this extraordinary picture and at Goya ' s other works , the more clearly I recognise that I was mistaken .