
Francisco de Goya painted a series of pieces in 1814 on the French invasion and occupation of Spain. These paintings were meant to be an illustration of the horrific nature of war, and Los fusilamientos de la montaña del Príncipe Pío, also known as: The Third of May 1808, (De Goya) is arguably one of the most moving paintings ever made. This is due to the paintings history, layout, color choice, and lastly, the position in which he places the viewer: a mere bystander.

As stated above, Francisco de Goya painted Los fusilamientos de la montaña del Príncipe Pío (De Goya) as a testament to how gruesome war really is. During the Peninsula War, in which Napoleon Bonaparte attempted to seize control of Spain, as well as many other European countries, Francisco de Goya remained in Spain, and was subject to some of the worst war crimes which have been committed. These atrocities were due to the fact that Napoleon held the ideal that enemy civilians were necessary casualties needed to demoralize an enemy military, which led him to instruct his soldiers to form firing squads on enemy civilians, as well as the fact that Spain was one of the first to be invaded, giving them the brunt of the attack with very little time to bring their troops out of Portugal. During this time, Goya painted a series of paintings labeled The disasters of war which included the aforementioned painting, however these paintings were not released until after his death.

One of the reasons this painting is so powerful is due to its layout. As the viewer observes this piece, their eyes are immediately drawn to a man with his arms raised guarding a group of women and children. The second thing the viewer sees is a very large firing squad in the foreground of the painting taking aim at the group of civilians. As a whole, the viewer will immediately pick up on the face meaning of this painting: The French are monsters, the Spanish are victims, and we should mourn their deaths. However, there is a second deeper meaning to this painting at a second glance. Soon the viewer will see that next to the group is a mound of dead bodies and a line of civilians leading back to the city of Madrid. This image gives the reader a second taste of what Goya wanted us to see: that after all of these deaths, one man had the courage to stand up instead of cowering in an attempt to stop this violence, even though everyone around him is terrified. Lastly, Goya paints the picture in the evening, where the civilian’s only source of light is a lamp at which their line ends. This shows that the civilians have no idea what is to come to them when they reach it, and upon reaching it, they are met with fear and the sight of one man standing up in a pool of his fellow citizen’s blood trying to stop these horrors.

The coloring of Goya’s painting has meaning in itself as well. The focal point of the painting is the one man who has stood up to try and stop the French. As viewers can clearly see he is wearing a pure white shirt; This color is traditionally symbolic of purity, honesty, or peace. This means that Goya’s interpretation of the man in white implies that he is standing up to try and bring peace back to his home. This directly reflects what Goya would have been feeling in 1808 as well as he saw a foreign nation invade his home: All he wanted was peace in a time when he was terrified for his own well-being. Secondly, he shows the French’s steel guns as the only shiny part of the painting whereas everything else is drab. This is meant to draw the viewers’ attention as a secondary focal point, through which he attempts to show how mechanical and uncaring the French army was about this process. By doing this, the reader gains a perspective inside of Goya’s mind, showing the French as some faceless enemy who could care less about the atrocities they commit so long as they succeed. The next thing, which adds to this perspective, is the color of the sky. The sky above these events is not just dark, it is pure black. This implies that the French have invaded the city at some time during the night, a time which is traditionally pictured as a time of peace when a person can be alone with their families. This symbolizes again Goya’s perspective on the war: it serves no purpose but to ruin peace and happiness throughout the counties which it affects.

Finally, and perhaps the most important part of this painting, is the position of the viewer. The viewer himself is standing to the side, as a third party spectator, with nobody noticing hey are there. This can mean one of two things depending on the personality of the viewer. Firstly, the viewer can be placed where they are as a way to make them feel helpless on the matter. The average viewer will see this piece and want to help the victims of this horror, but due to the position Goya has put them in, they can do nothing. They feel rejected and isolated because not only is nobody acknowledging they are there, they can do nothing to step in and help this one man protect the crowd. This is a direct reflection of Spain’s own perspective. The people of Spain wanted nothing more than for this war to end, but these horrors just dragged on, seemingly never ending and increasing by the day. The second stance a viewer can take is one of Goya’s own rage at the rest of the world. As we see the man standing up t stop this violence when everyone else fears, and the viewer watches on without helping, it shows one scentence with which Goya, and the rest of Spain were shouting during 1808: “Why will nobody stand up and help us!” This skews the meaning of this painting greatly, showing a story of what Goya wishes would have happened instead of just a recreation of these terrible events. Firstly, it shows that as France slowly kills off the country of Spain, Goya wishes the rest of the world would sand up to help a country which was incapable of helping itself. He portrays the country of Spain as the line of people cowering and begging for help as the French are systematically whipping them out, and the man in white is meant to symbolize Goya’s dream of Europe stepping in and saying that they had finally had enough.
