9. The Third Of May 1808 – Francisco Goya, 1814
The Third of May 1808 (Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo)was completed in 1814 by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, now in the Musseo del Prado, Madrid. The work commemorates Spanish resistance to the armies of Napoleon during the occupation of 1808 in the Peninsula War. Commissioned by the provisional government of Spain at Goya’s suggestion it is the same size as its companion piece, The Second of May 1808 (or The Charge of the Mamelukes). The work was a groundbreaking, archetypal image of the horrors of war. The work is acknowledged as one of the first paintings of the modern era, because of its clear divergence from the traditions of Christian art and traditional depictions of war. According to the art historian Kenneth Clark, The Third of May 1808 is “the first great picture which can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word, in style, in subject, and in intention”.