DAY 155

A PICTURE’S WORTH 1000 200 WORDS

The Third of May, 1808

FRANCISCO GOYA, 1814

Francisco Goya’s painting, often called The Third of May, is not only a work of art, but a tribute to a time of courageous political resistance and bloodstained heroes. To fully understand Goya’s masterpiece would require a course in Spanish history; we have time only to briefly reflect upon the event.

When Napoleon became emperor of France in 1804, he made immediate plans to conquer and occupy neighboring Spain because of its strategic access to the Mediterranean Sea. At the request of Napoleon, Spain’s king, Charles IV, naïvely allowed French troops into his country. The French promptly seized control of Spain, and in 1808, Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte was crowned king. On May 2, the people of Madrid rebelled against this foreign occupation and a brutal battle ensued. Before dawn on May 3, hundreds of captured Spanish rebels were mowed down by Napoleon’s firing squads.

In capturing this scene of death and carnage, Goya combines stunning imagery, deep symbolism, and raw treatment of brushstroke and composition to paint one of the world’s most provocative war pieces ever created. —DDG