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The Napoleonic Wars |
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The Napoleonic Wars |
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France declared war against Austria and Prussia in April of 1792 and by March of the following year France was at war with most of Europe. Because there was no standing army, every eligible male was potentially a soldier. With an entire nation at war, it was important to rally support. Artists came to the support first of the revolution and later of Napoleon. The most important battle painter of this period was Antoine-Jean Gros, who became the official chronicler of Napoleon's military campaigns. Although Gros was interested in historical realism (correct uniforms, portrait faces, and accurate settings), his battle paintings essentially glorify Napoleon.
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Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835)
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Napoleon at Eylau  1808
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This huge painting (more than 26 feet wide) has as its main subject a heroic Napoleon on the frozen battlefield in Poland (with the town of Eylau burning in the background). Although this was a battle won at a high price, the wounded seem to be magically renewed by the presence of the glorified Napoleon. Gros has borrowed from Christian imagery in suggesting that Napoleon is a new savior. |
| However, this painting was shocking when it was exhibited because viewers had been accustomed to battle paintings with the dead and wounded at a respectable distance or with the wounded falling with elegance and grace. The foreground figures here are twice life-size and in the viewer's face. The horrors of war seem to have inspired compassion and truthfulness, in spite of propagandistic hero-worship. |
Details of the foreground of Napoleon at Eylau | ||
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| Napoleon's military campaigns were not always successful. In Spain he could not control the cities as well as sweep the countryside. The presence of French troops caused the Spanish population to resist spontaneously--the term guerilla warfare (Spanish for "little war") explains this popular resistance. Guerillas attacked small groups of French soldiers and were often successful since they could disappear into the countryside. These activities evoked vicious French reprisals, as a means of warning the populace. Terror then evoked more terror, atrocity, and brutality. | |
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Francisco Goya (1746-1828)
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Third of May, 1808 1814-15
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In retaliation for Spanish resistance in Madrid, the French general ordered that 5000 local cilivians be executed. This shocking painting, done 6 years after the fact, depicts the moment before the man in the white shirt will be shot. The executioners, with heads bowed and no eyes visible, are part of the war "machine," lined up identically, bound in one menacing form. Just as the soldiers are repeatable, so too are the victims--the central figure will soon look like the corpse on the ground. These are the unknown victims of war. This painting is a very original indictment of war. Unlike earlier paintings, it does not see war heroically. Nor does it focus on the glorified leaders; ordinary, anonymous suffering men are central. Earlier works often depicted suffering as martyrdom and thus redemptive; here there is terror but no catharsis. |
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Francisco Goya (1746-1828)
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The Disasters of War series of etchings, c. 1820
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Although these prints were probably based on eyewitness experiences, the series was published posthumously in 1863. Unlike Goya's painting of the executions in 1808, this series is critical of both sides in the conflict and demonstrates a very pessimistic view of human nature. Both sides are capable of unbelievable barbarity. Human beings are either victims or murderers. There is no sense of any higher purpose being served, no sense of any justification for war. Goya depicts the purposeful mutilation of the enemy (a terror tactic)--left and below--and the rape of innocent civilian women--below, right. |
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All images marked MAS were photographed on location by Mary Ann Sullivan. All other images were scanned from other sources or downloaded from the World Wide Web; they are posted on this password-protected site for educational purposes, at Bluffton College only, under the "fair use" clause of U.S. copyright law.