Painting the Badajoz massacre

On 14 August 1936, the rebel troops advancing toward the capital from the south, with the Madrid Column led by Lieutenant Colonel Yagüe, began their attack on the Extremaduran city of Badajoz.  The capture of the city was extremely violent, unleashing brutal repression against the population. The bullring became the scene of what came to be known as the Badajoz Massacre, where around two thousand people were indiscriminately gunned down between August 14 and 15. Journalistic reports brought the events to the attention of the world, and they became a controversial episode recounted from opposing perspectives. Research by various scholars has gradually shed light on the massacre, although the exact death toll has yet to be determined.

From loyalist Spain, the Badajoz massacre was denounced and used as an example of the extreme violence carried out by some rebel columns. The event inspired notable artistic creations, such as this painting by Joaquim Martí Bas, titled Executions in the Badajoz Bullring, which was presented at the 1937 Spring Exhibition in Barcelona. The artist was a prominent member of the Professional Illustrators’ Union of Catalonia, more prolific in the fields of illustration and poster design than in painting, and he demonstrated great artistic ambition with this choice.

The subject and composition of the work almost inevitably recall  Goya’s The Third of May 1808, a model artist for creators during the Civil War. As in the painting by the Aragonese master, victims and executioners are depicted anonymously on the left and right sides but are identifiable as collective types. In this case, they are ideologically opposed groups: leftist men and women dying in the bullring, portrayed with communist stars, work overalls, and raised fists, in contrast to legionnaires, civil guards, requetés, and clergymen in the stands. The contrast is even starker when considering their expressions: while the victims in the arena cry out and wail, the executioners remain impassive.

The large dimensions of the canvas (over two meters high and three meters wide) reflect the importance that Martí Bas attributed to such a tragedy, considering that large formats were traditionally reserved for subjects of the highest order. Moreover, the work was one of the few pieces in the exhibition with a wartime theme. Although it did not convince everyone of its artistic merit—one critic dismissed it as a “ridiculous caricature” for lacking even a trace of Goyaesque realism—the Catalan government and the Barcelona City Council decided to acquire it, and it was added to the collection of what is now the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.

IEG