The Third of May

 

     The painting above shows a bunch of French soldiers in a line about to kill this innocent poor Spanish man. This painting was created by Francisco Goya and he calls it The Third of May. In the early 1800’s Napoleon went into alliance with Spain’s king, Charles IV because we wanted to conquer the world of Portugal. But Napoleon realized that the alliance was a trick and that is when he noticed the French were taking over and now his brother Joseph Bonaparte became Spain’s new king.

    On May, 2^nd, 1808 hundred of Spaniards rebelled to support the French and the next day all the Spaniards freedom fighters were rounded up and massacred by the French. In the painting you see a Spanish man who is convincing the French army not to kill him, but he knows he is going to die just like all the other Span freedom fighters watching him. He is sacrificing himself for his people just like Christ did. I believe Goya put the man in a white shirt is to show that he is the only good thing in the world.  The tiny hill the man is kneeling on his covered in blood from all the other freedom fighters that already died. The crowd behind him is turning away because they do not want to see what is about to happen to this poor man who is one of them. Overall this painting is one of the most famous paintings in history because this shows what a true murder looks like and many future artists were inspired by that and used this inspiration for their own paintings of political murder.