In front of the towers, a bridge leads over a moat, a dead man hangs from a scaffold, and to the right are a horseman with a yellow standard and a group of followers, all armoured and carrying lances.

At the very front are nine men in metal armour and helmets, larger and more detailed than other humans in the picture.

Wyndham Lewis wrote in 1950: "In the Surrender of Barcelona I set out to paint a Fourteenth Century scene as I should do it could I be transported there, without too great change in the time adjustment involved.

It is similar to The Armada, another painting Lewis made around the same period, which belongs to the Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada.

He connects it to Barcelona's role as a Republican stronghold and eventual fall in the Spanish Civil War, and writes: "The theme of the picture is the fall of a peaceful open city, the submission to a brutal military occupation, and the effect of war, siege and surrender on a civilian metropolis".