Art Comparison of Art --

¶ … Art comparison of art -- a war of styles War is hell -- and war has also been idealized by artists to either create propaganda that glorifies a nation or simply glorify the pursuit of military excellence in battle. Jacques-Louis David's Neoclassical depiction of the mythological "Oath of the Horatii" (1784) uses the setting of classical Greece to show two young men, strapping, proud and brave, vowing to fight to the death to defend their honor.

Two women cower in the background, soft, shapeless anonymous figures in contrast to the highly stylized, sharply characterized men's musculature. Through the use of clean, symmetrical lines that recall Grecian architecture and the statuesque sculpting of classical forms, David creates a contrast between military, masculine excellence and feminine fear of death. War seems noble in this painting, or at least, a challenge that provides the young men to show valor in the pursuit of a worthy cause.

Francisco Goya's "Third of May" (1814) likewise makes a use of contrast of its foreground and background, between the sight of the victims of soldiers and the military men wielding the weapons against the innocent civilians. It was originally commissioned by the Spanish government to celebrate the expelling of the French soldiers who had perpetuated the massacre depicted on the canvas.

But in this portrait, the victims of war, rather than the combatants, are the artist's central concern in a way that makes war seem senseless, rather than glorifies armed combat, even armed resistance. The man at the center of the picture is shown in a dazed blurry light, to show his fear, the confusion of a society at war, and the fact that this attack is taking place in the furtive light of night, not during the day and out in the open.

The illicit nature of the attack is shown memorably. There is no glory here, only slaughter, and the man's naked chest, his nightshirt open for all to see, makes his vulnerable, almost feminine quality attractive to the viewer, unlike the depiction of David's shameful, terrified females. Goya's victims are not static, remote representations, they are of the artist's own present day and political reality, and the specificity in his title, which makes reference to an actual, real event, underlines how war impacts human life in a negative fashion.

The Romanticism of Goya's work is shown in the way that it is openly partisan and emotional -- it lacks the clean lines of David's painting and thus make the figures seem more worthy of pathos, more real as subjects to the viewer, even though the rendering of the subject may be less realistic on the surface. Goya's intent was to make a clear, partisan point that would move the viewer to judge war harshly, as well as see the French soldiers as butchers.

Its Romanticism is also evident in the way that it is intended to move the heart about the individuality of often unrecognized citizens, rather than to inspire the viewer to noble ideals of self-sacrifice of any soldier. "With Goya we do not think of the studio or even of the artist at work," as we do when seeing in David's work, for while David openly recalls previous artwork in his styles, Goya "think[s] only of the event" of the present, and seeks to depict its specificity and intensity (Clark, 2007).

To a modern sensibility, the Neoclassical works of art attempting to show the glory of war,.