The Third of May 1808

The man at the centre, illuminated by the firing- squad lantern, stands with his arms thrown above his head in a pose of crucifixion. On his raised right palm, faint but unambiguous, is a darkened wound: the stigmata. Goya painted Madrid's executed civilians as martyrs. The soldiers' faces are deliberately turned away, anonymous. The first modern painting to depict war as suffering rather than as glory. Now at Museo del Prado, Madrid @museodelprado