Along with its companion piece of the same size, The Second of May 1808 (or The Charge of the Mamelukes), it was commissioned by the provisional government of Spain at Goya's own suggestion shortly after the ousting of the French occupation and the restoration of King Ferdinand VII.

[4] The Third of May 1808 inspired Gerald Holtom's peace sign and a number of later major paintings, including a series by Édouard Manet, and Pablo Picasso's Massacre in Korea and Guernica.

Even in his own court he was seen as a "half-wit king who renounces cares of state for the satisfaction of hunting",[5] and a cuckold unable to control his energetic wife, Maria Luisa of Parma.

[6] Napoleon took advantage of the weak king by suggesting the two nations conquer and divide Portugal, with France and Spain each taking a third of the spoils, and the final third going to the Spanish Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy, along with the title Prince of the Algarve.

He failed, however, to grasp Napoleon's true intentions, and was unaware that his new ally and co-sovereign, the former king's son Ferdinand VII of Spain, was using the invasion merely as a ploy to seize the Spanish parliament and throne.

[9] After Napoleon convinced Ferdinand to return Spanish rule to Charles IV, the latter was left with no choice but to abdicate, on March 19, 1808, in favor of Joseph Bonaparte.

"[10] On May 2, 1808, provoked by news of the planned removal to France of the last members of the Spanish royal family, the people of Madrid rebelled in the Dos de Mayo Uprising.

"[11] Goya commemorated the uprising in his The Second of May, which depicts a cavalry charge against the rebels in the Puerta del Sol square in the center of Madrid, the site of several hours of fierce combat.

Several of his friends, like the poets Juan Meléndez Valdés and Leandro Fernández de Moratín, were overt Afrancesados, the term for the supporters—collaborators in the view of many—of Joseph Bonaparte.

[18] During these years he painted little, although the experiences of the occupation provided inspiration for drawings that would form the basis for his prints The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra).

[15] In February 1814, after the final expulsion of the French, Goya approached the provisional government with a request to "perpetuate by means of his brush the most notable and heroic actions of our glorious insurrection against the Tyrant of Europe".

[20] The Third of May 1808 is set in the early hours of the morning following the uprising[21] and centers on two masses of men: one a rigidly poised firing squad, the other a disorganized group of captives held at gunpoint.

Executioners and victims face each other abruptly across a narrow space; according to Kenneth Clark, "by a stroke of genius [Goya] has contrasted the fierce repetition of the soldiers' attitudes and the steely line of their rifles, with the crumbling irregularity of their target.

[24] The central figure is the brilliantly lit man kneeling amid the bloodied corpses of those already executed, his arms flung wide in either appeal or defiance.

[28] Goya's series of aquatint etchings The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra) was not completed until 1820, although most of the prints were made in the period 1810–1814.

[30] The groups identified as the earliest clearly seem to predate the commission for the two paintings, and include two prints with obviously related compositions (illustrated), as well as I saw this, which is presumably a scene witnessed during Goya's trip to Saragossa.

[34] The painting is structurally and thematically tied to traditions of martyrdom in Christian art, as exemplified in the dramatic use of chiaroscuro, and the appeal to life juxtaposed with the inevitability of imminent execution.

Works that depicted violence, such as those by Jusepe de Ribera, feature an artful technique and harmonious composition which anticipate the "crown of martyrdom" for the victim.

[39] Goya's figure displays stigmata-like marks on his right hand,[36] while the lantern at the center of the canvas references a traditional attribute of the Roman soldiers who arrested Christ in the garden.

Rather, it affords light only so that the firing squad may complete its grim work, and provides a stark illumination so that the viewer may bear witness to wanton violence.

Here, for the first time, according to biographer Fred Licht, nobility in individual martyrdom is replaced by futility and irrelevance, the victimization of mass murder, and anonymity as a hallmark of the modern condition.

This lack of commentary may be due to Fernando VII's preference for neoclassical art,[45] and to the fact that popular revolts of any kind were not regarded as suitable subject matter by the restored Bourbons.

A monument to the fallen in the uprising, also commissioned in 1814 by the provisional government, "was stopped by Ferdinand VII, in whose eyes the senators and heroes of the war of independence found small favour, on account of their reforming tendencies".

Théophile Gautier mentioned seeing "a massacre" by Goya during a visit to the museum in 1845, and a visitor in 1858 noted it as well, though both accounts refer to the work as depicting the events of the second of May,[28] perhaps because Dos de Mayo continues to be the Spanish name for the whole episode.

[48] In 1867, Goya's biographer Charles Emile Yriarte considered the painting important enough to warrant its own special exhibition,[28] but it was not until 1872 that The Third of May was listed in the Prado's published catalog, under the title Scene of the Third of May 1808.

Depictions of firing squads were common in Spanish political imagery during the Napoleonic War,[52] and Goya's appropriations suggest that he envisaged paintings of heroic scale that would appeal to the general public.

[53] Points of similarity include a victim in a posture of crucifixion, whose white garment sets him apart from his companions; a tonsured monk with clenched hands who kneels to his left; and an executed corpse lying in the foreground.

[60] Art critic Arthur Danto compares Goya's work and Manet's: The Third of May also depicts an execution, an early event in the so-called Peninsular War between France and Spain.

Goya's painting of the massacre, which shows terrified civilians facing a firing squad, was intended to arouse anger and hatred on the part of Spanish viewers.