This picture by Francisco de Goya was painted by commission of king Fernando VII together with "The Charge of the Mamelukes" to perpetuate the Madrid people´s stand against the forces of Napoleon.
It was made from sketches drawn by Goya who was one of the witnesses of the shootings in Moncloa.
This is the first great picture which can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word in style, in subject and in intention; and it should be a model for the socialist and revolutionary painting of the present day. Unfortunately social indignation, like other abstract emotions, is not a natural generator of art; also Goya's combination of gifts has proved to be very rare. Almost all the painters who have treated such themes have been illustrators first and artists second. Instead of allowing their feelings about an event to form a corresponding pictorial symbol in their minds, they have tried to reconstruct events, as remembered by witnesses, according to pictorial possibilities. The result is an accumulation of formulas. But in The Third of May not a single stroke is done according to formula. At every point Goya's flash lit eye and his responsive hand have been at one with his indignation.
Text from LOOKING AT PICTURES
.
No comments:
Post a Comment