View allAll Photos Tagged execution,
** FILE ** In this undated photo provided by the California Department of Corrections is Clarence Ray Allen. Allen, 75, is likely to become the 12th condemned inmate executed since California's voters restored capital punishment in 1977. The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday, Oct. 3, 2005, to hear his final legal challenge, 25 years after a hit man Allen hired murdered three people at a Fresno market. (AP Photo/California Department of Corrections)
France was shocked by the execution of Maximilian of Austria, Emperor of Mexico, on June 19, 1867. The politics behind Napoleon III's withdrawal of troops from Mexico also outraged the public. This canvas is clearly a nod to Goya's similar execution scene in The Third of May 1808 (1814). Manet was a devout Republican and was keenly influenced by political events, and here he sought to record contemporary events like a grand history painter, but with his own modern vision. However, the painting's subject matter was too sensitive to be exhibited at the time, especially with the overt implication of Napoleon III's culpability by dressing Maximilian in a sombrero and the soldiers in French uniforms. The Romantic spirit and muted tones create a distinctly somber, yet immediate scene.
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
FILE - This March 7, 2012 file photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Garry Thomas Allen. A federal judge in Oklahoma City has stayed Allen's Thursday, April 12, 2012 execution. (AP Photo/Oklahoma Department of Corrections, File) ORG XMIT: TXKJ104