Execution of Emperor Maximilian is one of the few works in
which Manet seeks a dramatic effect. The painting illustrates the
climax of a well-known historical episode. Napoleon III intervened
in Mexico to prevent it from gravitating toward the United States,
for which he had no sympathy and which was at that time too
involved in the Civil War to protest his actions effectively.
French troops invaded Mexico in June 1863, and an assembly of
Mexican notables proclaimed Maxirnilian - the brother of Franz
Joseph of Austria - Emperor. But, once the Civil War was over, the
United States demanded that the French withdraw their army, and
Napoleon, in 1866, complied. Deserted by his supporters,
Maximilian was captured in 1867 at Quere-taro, condemned to death,
and shot in reprisal for the summary executions he himself had
ordered.
This is certainly the work which shows most clearly the
influence of Francisco
Goya (note, for example, the rapid treatment of the people
looking over the wall) and, in particular, the influence of the
painting in the Prado entitled The
Third of May, 1808. But there is one thing that is quite wrong
according to the old school. The spectators could not be in the
position in which they are shown, in view of the height of the
wall, unless they were standing on scaffolding. Conscious no doubt
of this faulty drawing, the artist, perhaps to disguise it, has
made the fore-ground stand out sharply from the background and
diverted attention from the base of the wall by showing it as
little as possible between the black-trousered legs of the
prisoners and the soldiers. "You can see right away that they are
French," Meier-Graefe said of the soldiers. As a matter of fact,
for want of Mexicans, Manet had been forced to borrow a squad from
a French regiment.
In Manet's painting the soldiers have just fired (the
chests of Maximilian and his two favorites are enveloped in
smoke). In the back, an officer is preparing to give the coup de
grace.
Neither the paintings nor a lithograph of the subject
were permitted to be shown in France. As an indictment of
formalized slaughter the paintings look back to Francisco Goya, and
anticipate Picasso's Guernica.
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