What Is The Third Of May 1808

The Third of May 1808 was painted in 1814 by Francisco Goya commissioned by Ferdinand VII, who had taken the throne after the French had been driven out of Spain. This work’s dimensions are 8' 9" x 12' 4" painted with oil on canvas. Guernica was painted later in 1937 by Pablo Picasso as a piece for the Spanish Pavilion at the World’s Fair. This painting was created with oil on canvas with dimensions reaching 11’6” x 25’8”. While Goya and Picasso took radically different approaches to depicting the emotional affects of war they each experienced, Picasso’s Guernica drew influences from Goya’s Third of May 1808. In an image of The Third of May 1808 (fig. 1) starting from the right, there is a group of five to six soldiers in a line perspectively moving back in space. They wear …show more content…
Their aim is on six men in front of them off to the left side of the painting. One man in the back of the group covers his face with his hands, a man that looks to resemble either a monk or a friar is kneeling in the foremost of the group with his hands clasped perhaps in prayer, and two of the other men hold looks of horror on their face. The most prominent member of the group is a man dressed in a white shirt and yellow pants with his hands thrown in the air and eyes wide. In the foreground of these men in the process of being killed is a group of men who have already been slain. Bodies lay in an almost pile with one specific man separated slightly with hands outstretched toward the bottom of the painting. Red has been painted under these bodies to represent their blood. In the middle of the painting pass the muskets is another group of people standing in terror