Dictatorships, Ideologies And Art: Francisco de Goya's The Third of May ( 1808)

In 1808, the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was in the process of conquering Europe. By March of that year, Madrid was occupied by French forces, and the Spanish monarchy had ignobly collapsed. On May 2nd, the people of Madrid rebelled against their captors. The uprising was ruthlessly suppressed and on May 3rd , French firing squads executed hundreds of Spaniards.

Goya himself was in an uneasy position. He had been in favour of the French Revolution and hoped its ideals would spread throughout Europe. Moreover, he had no love for his royal masters. However, he soon realised what an army of occupation meant and was clearly appalled by it.

Goya's political views do appear to be ambiguous. It is important to recognise that he made his living by working for royalty and the establishment. Nevertheless. In my view, it can be argued that he possessed an innate distrust of tyranny in all its ugly forms.

With this in mind, I would like to offer a detailed analysis of Goya's response to the aforementioned atrocity- simply titled – The Third of May ( 1808). It is one of a pair of paintings that focuses on the brutal suppression and subsequent mass executions of Spanish civilians who had risen against Napoleon Bonaparte's rule in 1808. Only when King Ferdinand VII was finally restored to power in 1813 did Goya promptly send him a petition asking to commemorate the noble and heroic actions of the glorious insurrection against tyranny.

From my perspective, the painting is only partly patriotic. It seems that it is not just the French that Goya is condemning, but humanity's shared cruelty. Moreover, it is humankind that holds the rifle, but humankind without a conscience.. The victims clearly represent common, vulnerable humanity. Consequently, the dual aspects of human nature are represented here:

' Goya manages to make us feel that we are both executioners and executed, as if the dual potential for good and evil that we all possess were animated before us. Intensity of fear, pain and loss on one side, and the extremity of brutality on the other: which fate is the worse? Who is really destroyed in this terrible painting, the depersonalised French or the individualised Spanish?. Behind the dying rises a hillock, bright with light; the soldiers stand in a sinister no-man's land.'

( Beckett, 1994, p.472)

Looking closely at the painting, one can see that the firing squad is eerily cloaked in darkness. The soldiers are portrayed as faceless automatons. Their bodies are locked together, suppressing individual humanity. Also, the soldiers are standing incredibly close to their victims. Clearly, this depiction emphasises the brutal and tragically ludicrous, nature of the scene. It crudely mirrors and parodies Oath of the Horatti ( 1784), a Neoclassical painting, by the French artist Jacques- Louis David. While David's soldiers represent unity of will, Goya's represent the mindless anonymity of the war machine. In addition to this, the upraised arms of the Horatti brothers' father are similar to the victim in The Third of May, as he faces his executioners. In marked contrast, to David's Neoclassical sheen, Goya's painting is brutally realistic.

In Goya's painting the man appears to be pleading for his life. One's attention is immediately drawn to him, as he kneels with outstretched arms, before he is about to be shot at point blank range. In my opinion, this brings to mind the Crucifixion. Indeed, this deeply moving gesture typifies the overwhelming sense of despair and mortal terror that is evident all around him. Furthermore, he has stigmata- like markings on his right hand. One knows that his white shirt, brightly lit by the soldiers' lamp, will soon be splattered with blood:

' The man about to be shot faces martyrdom in a clean white shirt, throwing out his arms in a gesture that recalls the Crucifixion, flinging out life in defiance. The coarse, swarthy, dilated face- all vitality.' ( Hughes, 2003)

In order to heighten the emotional impact, Goya painted him much larger than the figures around him. He is kneeling, but if he stood up he would clearly dwarf the firing squad. This seems to create a claustrophobic effect.

The tragic significance of the events depicted in the painting are highlighted due to being juxtaposed against a dark, barren hill beneath a heavy night sky. The only source of light emanates from a lantern positioned between the victims and their executioners. This lantern casts an eerie light across the faces of the heroic victims, highlighting their anguished expressions:

' Here in glowing whites, golds and scarlets against the sombre blacks, greys and browns of the background, the doomed are immmortalised. ( Symmons, 1998, p.263)

The lantern as a source of illumination was widely used by Baroque artists and perfected by Caravaggio. Traditionally, a dramatic light source and the resultant chiaroscuro were deployed as metaphors for the presence of God. However, in The Third of May, the lantern does not possess a transcendent quality. Indeed, the only light it affords is so that the firing squad can complete its cold, calculated task. Goya seems to be suggesting that the notion of light representing the spiritual has been cynically subverted.

From my perspective, Goya reveals the futility of war in his powerful painting. The dead man, lying face down in a pool of blood, is placed disturbingly at the foreground. His depiction has been crudely foreshortened and appears twisted and mangled. It can be argued that Goya subverts the notion of the glory of war with the masterpiece that is The Third of May. Tellingly, he breaks away from traditions of Christian art and traditional depictions of war:

' Most of the victims have faces, The killers do not. This is one of the most often noted aspects of The Third of May, and rightly so: with this painting, the modern image of war as anoymous killing is born, and a long tradition of killing as ennobled spectacle comes to an overdue end.' ( Hughes, 2003, p.317)

According to Richard Schickel The Third of May is an, ' unforgettable confrontation between naked power and the defenceless individual.' ( Schickel, 1971, p.155.)

Indeed, it inspired Picasso's Massacre in Korea ( 1951) which depicts civilians being killed by anti- Communist forces, in a similar way to the Third of May, but in a modern context where war has become more robotic.

The way Goya paints The Third of May is also revealing:

' The surface is ragged: no smooth finish. The blood on the ground is a dark alizarin crimson smeared on thick and then scraped back with a palette knife, so that it looks crusty and scratchy, just like real blood smeared by the twitches of a dying body. You can't ' read' the wounds that disfigure the face of the man on the ground, but as signs of trauma in paint they are inexpressibly shocking- their imprecision conveys the thought that you can't look at them.' ( Hughes, 2003)

It seems that The Third of May has a timeless quality which renders its subject matter of universal significance:

'The Third of May, has become even more famous, haunting the covers of history books, appearing on postage stamps and postcards. It has been used to epitomise the art of Goya, as well as the spirit of Spanish revolutionary heroism.' ( Symmons, 1998, p.263.)

In contemporary society, which is increasingly saturated with superficial images and post- modern theories which promote the death of the author, Goya's work, with its singular vision, is still truly authentic and radical in my view:

' Some aspects of Goya are remote from our ironised world. We cannot believe that art can change the moral focus of the world. Goya did...he wanted to make images that compel a moral understanding of ordinary and terrible things. In this, he is unlike practically any artist that is alive now.' ( Hughes, 2003)

Reference List:

Beckett, W. ( 1994) The Story of Painting. London: Dorling Kindersley

Hughes, R. ( 2003) Goya. New York: Kopf

Hughes, R. ( 2003) 'The Unflinching Eye' .October 4th. The Guardian,

Schickel, R. ( 1971) The World of Goya. Amsterdam: Time Life International.

Symmons, S. ( 1998) Goya. London: Phaidon Press