artist to soften the subject's brutality through technical skill. Method and subject are indivisible. Goya's procedure is determined less by the mandates of traditional virtuosity than by his intrinsically morbid theme. The brushwork could not be described as pleasing, and the colors are restricted to earth tones and black, punctuated by bright flashes of white and the red blood of the victims. The quality of the pigment itself foreshadows Goya's later works: a granular solution producing a matte, sandy finish. Few would admire the work for painterly flourishes, such is its horrific force and its lack of theatricality. Provenance Despite the work's commemorative value, no details about its first exhibition are known, and it is not mentioned in any surviving contemporaneous accounts. This lack of commentary may be due to Fernando VII's preference for neoclassical art, and to the fact that popular revolts of any kind were not regarded as suitable subject matter by the restored Bourbons. A monument to the fallen in the uprising, also commissioned in 1814 by the provisional government, "was stopped by Ferdinand VII, in whose eyes the senators and heroes of the war of independence found small favour, on account of their reforming tendencies". According to some accounts, the painting lay in storage for thirty to forty years before being shown to the public. Its mention in an 1834 Prado inventory shows that the painting remained in the possession of the government or monarchy; much of the royal collection had been transferred to the museum upon its opening in 1819. Théophile Gautier mentioned seeing "a massacre" by Goya during a visit to the museum in 1845, and a visitor in 1858 noted it as well, though both accounts refer to the work as depicting the events of the second of May, perhaps because continues to be the Spanish name for the whole episode. In 1867, Goya's biographer Charles Emile Yriarte considered the painting important enough to warrant its own special exhibition, but it was not until 1872 that The Third of May was listed in the Prado's published catalog, under the title Scene of the Third of May 1808. Both the Third and Second of May suffered damage in a road accident while being transported by truck to Valencia for safety during the Spanish Civil War, apparently the only time they have left Madrid. Significant paint losses to the left side of the Second of