Pablo Picasso's Guernica (Lavender Mist)

     In 1937, Pablo Picasso painted Guernica, oil on canvas. The Republican Spanish government commissioned the mural for the 1937 World Fair in Paris. Guernica is a large mural, twenty-six feet wide and eleven feet tall, and was placed at the entrance to Spain’s pavilion. Picasso did not do any work after receiving the commission until reading of the bombing of the Basque village of Guernica, in Spain. It was that attack, perpetrated by the German Luftwaffe, that inspired him. Guernica, however, is not a complete depiction of that event. In Guernica, Picasso masterfully conveys the suffering of the Basque people and the tragedy of war. He seeks not to report on every detail of the bombing, but only to

Art forms using the technique of painting have evolved throughout history, specifically when female painters became noticed for their success. From the art of the Renaissance style in the 17th century to early 20th century Modernism, there have been eight large art movements to compare painting expansions: Baroque, Neoclassicism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Geometric Abstraction and Surrealism. While these eight movements play off of one another in technique, each reflects its own style using the previous movement as a way to advance the art form as a whole.

The painting was 11 x 25 feet. Picasso, a Spaniard himself, was commissioned by the Spanish government to paint a mural for the Spanish Pavilion of the Paris World’s Fair in 1937. Picasso put off painting the mural for the government when he learned of a bombing in Guernica, Spain. German Nazis bombed the country village Guernica in Spain in1937. The Germans did not drop the bombs for military engagement; they did it for a test.

The Impressionism movement in art was followed by the Realism and Romantic periods. In complete contrast to Realism and Romanticism, with its detailed, accurate and photo-like paintings of contemporary life, Impressionism brought about more of a blurred reality to the canvas. Specific techniques Impressionist artists used were unblended colors and quick, short brush strokes with a unique play on light. An Impressionist artists' goal was to "objectively paint reality in terms of transient effects of light and color."(1) The Impressionist artist would place vibrantly contrasting colors directly on the canvas; which was a great contrast to the traditional art of blending somber colors. Not understanding, or accepting these new techniques, the Salon of the French Academy consistently rejected most artwork by Impressionist artist. These rejections from the Salon eventually forced a group of Impressionist painters to organize their own exhibitions; Exhibitions of the Independent Artists.

In northwest Spain, bombs were dropped on Guernica, a small Basque market town by the German air force. This caused the Spanish Civil war from 1936 to 1939. The bombing lasted three and a half hours killing hundreds of people. While in Paris, news of the bombing in his country reached Pablo Picasso and he was devastated. This event became an inspiration to him to paint a huge mural that was called Guernica, and becomes the most memorable anti war image in the twentieth century.

Art has been a part of history before Christ was born and along the flow of time different styles and movements revolutionized what art means to the creator and audience. On the flow of time one of the branches that stood out in style, color, and expression through repetition was Impressionism. An artist that helped revolutionize Impressionism in his time was Oscar-Claude Monet, but the piece that stood out was the “Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur.”

Impressionism art can be considered the first distinctly modern movement in painting, it was developed in Paris in the 1860’s but wasn’t first exhibited until 1874. Impressionist art turned away from the fine finish and detail that artist during the same time aspired to create. Impressionist captured or at least tried to capture momentary, and sensory effect of a scene. Impressionist didn’t rely heavily on realistic depictions of an object or scene, they loosed the brushwork and lightened their palettes to include intense pure colors. They didn’t follow the traditional linear perspective and clarity that previous art forms depicted to lesser ones. Many critics during the time faulted the impressionist paintings because of that

What happened throughout the 20th century in the post impressionist era of art is artists going wild and exploring how wide Art can actually be. Beforehand Art was either marble statues or Realistic Oil paintings (even watercolours were looked down upon) but because of the (sometimes insane) things artists did throughout the 20th century, including cubism, we have reached a point where you don't have to worry about people telling you that what you make is not art, it can't be art because it

Guernica was created by Pablo Picasso in 1937. The Spainsh Civil war is the cause of making Guernica. The Basque Country village in northern Spain is were the bombing took place, government warplanes is how the German and Italy destroyed the area. The German bombers were supposedly affiliated with National forces and General Franco during the war. Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica uniquely executed showing innocent people suffering during the bombing.

Guernica is another perfect example of Picasso exhibiting history in his work. The mural-sized oil painting on canvas was painted by Pablo Picasso in 1937. It is painted in a palette of grey, black and white and is regarded by many as “modern art’s most powerful antiwar statement”. The mural exhibits suffering people and animals wrenched by violence and chaos. A gored horse, a bull and flames are prominent features of the artwork. Guernica displays the tragedies of war and the suffering it imposes on individuals, specifically innocent civilians. The lack of colour intensifies the chaos and the tragedy. Guernica is a town in the province of Biscay in Basque Country. On Monday 26th April 1937, warplanes of the German Condor Legion bombed Guernica for two hours. At the time. Picasso was working on a mural for the Paris Exhibition that was to be held in the summer of 1937. On May 1st, news of the bombing of Guernica reached Paris. Picasso was appalled and enraged by

“Guernica” was painted on a canvas with oil by Pablo Ruiz Picasso in 1937. He was inspired by the experimental bombing of Guernica in Spain by the Germans during the Spanish Civil War. The Reina Sofia National Art Museum is the current home of this famous anti-war painting.

In the video “The Power of Art – Picasso,” the life and art of the Famous Artist Pablo Picasso is explained and the specifically his piece, Guernica, is focused on. This video starts off by giving the viewer background about who Picasso was and his early life. Next, the political events of his time are explained. Lastly, the influences for his Painting Guernica is explained and the painting itself is described and clarified. I have always heard a lot about Picasso and seen him mentioned everywhere, but I never learned much about him or his artwork so I was very interested in watching this video about him. After watching this, I have gained a lot of respect and appreciation for the artist, Pablo Picasso and his work.

Home to those who opposed the forces of fascist general Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, Guernica symbolized the origin of the resistance against the Nationalists, and was therefore allowed by Franco to become the bombing site for a Nazi airstrike. Guernica’s main plaza, filled to the brim with people shopping on a market day, was completely obliterated, as approximately a hundred-thousand pounds of explosives rained down upon it—resulting in the deaths of nearly two-thousand innocent Spanish citizens. Though this catastrophic event is regarded by many to be the very first civilian-targeted airstrike in history, it is better remembered largely in part due to Pablo Picasso. After receiving the news of the atrocity, Picasso was so overwhelmed with a sense of disgust that he decided to create a mural-length painting depicting the aftermath of the bombing, which he then simply titled

Numerous aspects of the painting clearly portray Picasso’s feelings about the war, specifically the bombing on the village of Guernica. The symbolism is difficult to deny, even with the abstractness of the painting. Individuals in the painting can be seen with mangles bodies, reflecting what occurred during the bombing of Guernica. There is a man in the painting lying upwards that appears dead and has a detached arm. Around him there are other wounded with pained and tortured expressions of their faces. A woman can be seen clutching a lifeless body, her face expressing immense grief. Many people were wounded and killed by the bombings. There is another person in the painting with his arms out and a leg dragging. His

In Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica, which he created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Spain, in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, he portrays the tragedy of war. In the painting, there is a man on the left with his arms reaching up and his head looking towards the sky. There is also a woman on the left of the painting looking up with a look of terror on her face. These two seem to be innocent civilians whose lives have been changed forever by the terrible effects of the bombing. In the top-middle of the painting there is a light fixture of sorts that looks like the Sun with a light bulb inside of it. There are also spikes coming out of the light. I think the light itself symbolizes a bomb and the spikes are the shrapnel that gets