In our presentation, we made a clear connection between the work of 19th century Spanish Romantic artist Francisco de Goya and the current atrocities taking place in Syria as part of the greater Arab Spring. Goya’s work, particularly Third of May, 1808, shed light on the atrocities French military forces committed in their invasion of Spain. Using light and composition to create a careful weighing of the importance of individuals within the work, Goya attempted to generate an emotional response from the viewer—the greater goal of all Romantic works. Sympathy for the victims and unconscionable horror towards their perpetrators are the particular emotional reactions aimed for in Goya’s work. Similarly, the flood of images coming in from civil war ravaged Syria express the horror of the events currently taking place there. Juxtaposed against Goya’s work, they make a statement about the power of visual media, whether fine art of journalistic photography, in creating an emotional response in viewers towards particularly events.
Works Consulted
Eisenman, Stephen, and Thomas E. Crow. Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994. Print.
Photographs compiled from Time.com
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