Francisco Goya, Shootings of May 3, 1808.   1814, Prado

Napoleon’s armies have invaded Spain and taken Madrid, but, after more or less passive acquiescence, on May 2, 1808 the people of Madrid rioted.  Murat, Napoleon’s general, rounded up the usual suspects and shot the lot. 

The French atrocities and the cruelty of war turned Goya into an anti-war artist of the first rank.  This painting, his Charge of the Mamelukes, and his series of etchings Los desastres de la Guerra set a standard that only Picasso’s Guernica and a few other artists (mostly German) can equal. 

Here Goya painted the French firing squad at work; some of the victims lie before it, bleeding, futilely grasping at blood soaked dirt.  The firing squad, although somewhat differentiated by the color of their coats, remains faceless; the enforcers of the regime’s ruthlessness are not individuals. 

The firing squad’s bodies bend forward with their rifles; their hats, white packs and other equipment make a strong diagonal setting up a frame within the frame.  On the other side of picture, of the execution yard, are the victims, those about to die, and those awaiting their turns.  They too form a diagonal, and with the hill behind them, enclosing the frontal plane of the picture.  The night sky and cityscape of Madrid only fill space and create sense of claustrophobia. In the background is a church, perhaps the cathedral of Madrid.  Goya chose to place a church in the background:  while the event pictured happened, the setting is Goya’s doing.  

With the mound of dirt and diagonals of the bodies, Goya blocks out nature and man’s built world:  neither are not relevant to the murder occurring in front of us.

Note that the blue green of the soldiers’ coats echoes in the soon-to-be-shot friar’s habit and the red of the third soldier echo the blood of the victims and the pants of the man covering his eyes. 

The focus of attention is the poor, unknown man about to be shot.  His hands and arms raised, he looks like Christ on the cross.  In fact, his right hand bears the stigma of the nail in Christ’s palm.  A bright light from mysterious source illuminates him, singling out an anonymous victim of mass murder.  Previously, artists reserved the stigmata for Christ and St. Francis; Goya transfers these signs to a poor worker.  Not a lot of ambiguity about what Goya thinks of the French and those Spaniards who oppose them.

Once again the state and the powerful shoot the dispossessed their barbarity.  We do not know who the victims are, our martyrs are nameless; no one will name them a saint, no one will write a book about them; there will be no holiday in their honor.  We will visit the grave of the Unknown Soldier:  our heroes no longer have names.