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Analysis of Iconic War Paintings

This document summarizes and analyzes three paintings: 1) The Third of May 1808 by Goya depicts the suffering and emotions of insurgent patriots slaughtered by Napoleonic troops using muted colors. 2) Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix depicts the victory of revolution while romanticizing struggle, but also shows details like Freedom focusing on a bourgeois man rather than a child worker. 3) The Boy and the Machine by Lindner presents a tacit icon open to interpretation, with disturbing colors that make the viewer feel confused and lacking context.

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43 views4 pages

Analysis of Iconic War Paintings

This document summarizes and analyzes three paintings: 1) The Third of May 1808 by Goya depicts the suffering and emotions of insurgent patriots slaughtered by Napoleonic troops using muted colors. 2) Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix depicts the victory of revolution while romanticizing struggle, but also shows details like Freedom focusing on a bourgeois man rather than a child worker. 3) The Boy and the Machine by Lindner presents a tacit icon open to interpretation, with disturbing colors that make the viewer feel confused and lacking context.

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osloraj2208
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Analysis

Oscar Manuel Galvez Lopez


Preparatoria Universidad Tecmilenio
Art and Culture
Prof. Mario Martinez Hubbard
January 22, 2024
In this painting (The Third of May 1808, by the pre-romantic artist Francisco José de
Goya y Lucientes) we see an explicit fact: the slaughter of insurgent patriots by Napoleonic
troops. It uses muted colors, just the enough to picture the scene. The emotions of suffering,
loss of hope, sadness, etc. are noticeable. Here the emotion of those present is perfectly
shown in a depressing and dark place. It is a perfect exploration of the suffering of war and
oppression.
In this painting (Liberty Leading the People, by the romanticist painter Ferdinand-Victor-
Eugène Delacroix) we see an example of romanticism with implicit icons. Here one would
say that the theme is explicit: the battlefield, the victory of the sans-culottes over the
ancient regime and more. The colors that Delacroix used in this painting conveys a picture
of “glory” behind the concept of a revolution, a people’s struggle against brutality and
oppression, it romanticizes it and electrifies it. However, there are details that one does not
notice the first time.

When you think about Delacroix being the son of a minister under the Directory of the First
Republic, you get why the revolution-glorifying details exist in the painting, but it would be
a rather incomplete review if we did not note anything more; when someone looks at the
painting, they will easily notice two elements that are in dissonance with the rest of the
painting: the man with the hat and freedom. Freedom is a simple propaganda allegory, a
new virgin Mary, but here is the special element: Freedom observes the man with
expensive clothes, the bourgeois. He does not observe the child who is clearly known to
have worked, he does not choose the proletariat, he focuses on the bourgeois, the one who
has the money to dress in a jacket, pants, scarf, vest, and top hat, who has a shotgun and not
a pistol or a saber. Here, the author Republican Liberty is bourgeois.
In this painting (The Boy and the Machine, by Ricard Lindner) a tacit icon is presented,
since it is not understood perfectly and is really very open to the personal interpretation of
each one; in Deleuze and Giattari’s Anti-Oedipus (1972) it is used to exemplify the
relationship between schizophrenia and capitalism. Maybe it’s related to this. The color
palette in this picture is not harmonious, in fact, it makes the viewer feel confused and
deprived from a context that one may feel disturbed with.

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