What Does Goya's The Third of May 1808 Mean? The Execution Painting Explained

Why did Goya paint it six years later?

Goya's position during the occupation was complicated. Like other Spanish liberals, he had supported the early aims of the French Revolution, and several of his friends openly backed Joseph Bonaparte. He kept his job as court painter, which required an oath of loyalty to Joseph. Yet he also saw his countrymen crushed by French troops, and these experiences fed the drawings that became his prints The Disasters of War.

In February 1814, after the French had finally been driven out, Goya asked the provisional government for permission to "perpetuate by means of his brush the most notable and heroic actions of our glorious insurrection against the Tyrant of Europe". The proposal was accepted, and he painted The Second of May 1808, showing the street fighting, and The Third of May 1808, showing the reprisals. Nobody knows whether he personally saw either event, despite many later stories that place him there.

What is in the picture?

The scene is set in the dark early hours after the uprising. On the right stands the firing squad, a tight row of soldiers seen almost from behind, their faces hidden and their rifles forming one hard, repeated line. On the left is a disorganized group of prisoners facing the guns at very close range. Kenneth Clark wrote that Goya 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 on the ground between the two groups throws a hard light across the scene. The brightest light falls on the victims: a monk praying, men covering their faces, and a dead body already lying in blood. Behind them a line of other prisoners waits its turn, and in the distance a dark town with a church tower rises against the night sky.

Who is the man in the white shirt?

The man at the centre, kneeling with his arms flung wide, is the heart of the painting. His pose has often been compared to the crucified Christ, and Goya even gave him marks on his right hand like the wounds of the nails. He wears yellow and white, the colours of the papacy. The lantern also echoes a detail from religious paintings, where Roman soldiers carry a lantern when they come to arrest Christ.

But Goya turns the religious tradition upside down. In older martyrdom paintings, light stood for the presence of God and the victim could look forward to heaven. Here the lantern performs no miracle; it gives light only so the soldiers can finish their work. The man is as anonymous as his killers, and he pleads not to God but to a row of soldiers who do not hear him. The biographer Fred Licht saw this as the moment when the nobility of a single martyr is replaced by the futility and anonymity of mass murder.

Why did some critics dislike it?

At first, reactions were mixed. Artists usually painted war in the grand, heroic style of history painting, and Goya's raw approach looked strange. Some early critics said the perspective was flat or that the victims and soldiers stand too close together to be realistic. The critic Richard Schickel argued that Goya was not trying to follow academic rules at all, but to make the scene hit harder. Even Romantic painters who came later, such as Géricault and Delacroix, arranged their scenes of suffering with more attention to beauty.

Were there more paintings in the series?

Possibly. Written accounts and other evidence suggest that Goya painted four large canvases about May 1808, including a revolt at the royal palace and the defence of an artillery barracks. If so, two of them have disappeared, which may hint that the authorities disliked paintings that celebrated a popular rebellion.

Why does it matter today?

The Third of May 1808 is seen as one of the first paintings of the modern era and an archetypal image of the horrors of war. It inspired Édouard Manet's paintings of the execution of Emperor Maximilian and Pablo Picasso's Massacre in Korea and Guernica, and it is even said to have influenced Gerald Holtom's design of the peace sign. When you stand in front of it, you notice that you cannot see the soldiers' faces, but you can see every victim's. That choice is the whole argument of the painting.

Learn with The Third of May 1808: English phrases

Phrase	Meaning	Example
to bear witness	to show or see that something happened	The painting bears witness to the killings.
in cold blood	cruelly and without emotion	The prisoners were shot in cold blood.
to face the music	to accept something unpleasant	The rebels had to face the music.
to turn something on its head	to reverse the usual idea	Goya turned the hero painting on its head.
faceless	without identity, impersonal	The soldiers form a faceless wall.

Try this: Describe a photo or painting you remember in three sentences, using "to bear witness" and "faceless".