Picasso Guernica Essay

During the Spanish Civil War, German tested their bombs for warfare on a town called Guernica. It was in the province of Biscay in Basque Country in Pablo Picasso’s home country. The oil work, Guernica, was Picasso’s reaction to how he felt about the bombing and shows dismemberment and pain. It is art about the tragedies of war, especially on civilians. This anti-war symbol helped bring the Spanish Civil War more attention. The lack of color seems to make the work more dramatic. According to Picasso the bull meant brutality and darkness while the horse the people of the town. This artwork should be classified as one of the most famous political protest

The artwork uses many values and shades of colors. There are four different figures in the painting. One that is a baby covered with this transparent material that is streaming throughout the entire thing. There is a pale women that is admiring her beauty and is not paying attention to her surroundings. She has long, wavy hair which she is fixing while looking at her reflection. The next figure is an older version of her. She is darker than the other women with wrinkles that shows the aging of the lady. The last figure is at the right holding an hourglass on the top of the painting. It is a warning of how much time she has left before death. Her body is all scrawny and her bones are showing. It looks like she represents death with her hair being all fallen out. The pale women is dominant in the painting. The rest of the painting is dark and it looks like the artist only used a few colors for the painting.

"I invented Cubism, it has a Spanish origin" is what Picasso would say if asked regarding its origins of the style. He was regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Picasso had different styles and techniques that influenced the art work and artist after him. From his treatment of space cubist structure, geometric shapes and multiple perspectives. To the huge influence” that Picasso had upon artistic abstract cartons artwork in his art work.

How does Pablo Picasso’s famous art “Guernica’ represents the history and society in his time?

Sometimes words cannot exactly explain what we want to convey, so we need a visual to support it. A similar thing was observed in the article of Alan M. Dershowitz, he cleverly makes use of Ben Shah’s painting in the article to grab the attention of folks. The author writes about a murder case of a paymaster and a guard of the South Braintree by Sacco and Vanzetti, both were Italian immigrant anarchists. Surprisingly, the truth was not revealed that whether Sacco and Vanzetti were the killers and this case is still unsolved. I agree with the author that the trials could not get to the fair results. I believe that the painting is an ironic symbol of the justice. It silently expresses a lot what the text can’t. I think the painting adds words

The painting shows man and nature in harmony. A clear sign that he focused mostly on drawing is the geometric forms used in the painting. He used very calm tonality to give it the calmness. His artwork and brushwork are very fluid and focused. This painting has no historical meaning because this painting was after his transition from historical to landscape. Instead of telling a story it is supposed to evoke a calm mood. The golden light contributes to its peacefulness. Now that I have explained both paintings individually, in the following paragraph I will talk about their differences and what makes them different.

Guernica is monochromatic to make its imagery more powerful. Lack of color keeps the viewer focused on the subject matter at hand, as well as keeping the mural cold, which agrees with its general theme of injustice in war. Also, Picasso’s flat imagery does not distract the viewer from concentrating on imagery. The viewer is given no other choice than to concentrate on the subject matter of Guernica and ponder it’s meaning. The flat, grayscale images generalize the imagery and contribute to the general theme of unnecessary suffering and tragedy.

It took him over two months to finish it, and it was displayedin the Spanish Pavilion in 1937. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it imposesupon individuals, mainly innocent civilians, animals and buildings by violence and chaos. It’sbelieved to have helped bring worldwide attention to the Spanish Civil War. Some critics warnagainst trusting the political message in Guernica. Picasso said he painting exhibits brutality anddarkness. He also stated that the horse inthe painting represented the people ofGuernica. The painting was anindignation on what the war was doingto everyone. As the war went onPicasso’s paintings became more andextra sad and depressing. Death becamethe focus for many of his paintings. In the last years of his life, paintingbecame a fixation with Picasso, and he would date eachpicture with absolute precision, thus creating a vast amount of similar paintings. Picasso died atage 91 in April 1973, becoming one of the most famous and successful artist in history. Hiscareer spanned over a 78-year period, in which he created: 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints andGuernica, 1937 by Pablo

Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century and co-founder of the Cubist movement, was a participant in Europe’s political discourse during most of the early 1900s. Picasso’s Guernica, one of his most powerful political statements, was painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi’s casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Guernica, a mural-size canvas painted in blue, black, and white oil, shows tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. Picasso depicts turmoil, people and animals suffering, with building in disarray torn apart by violence and mayhem. With Guernica, Picasso establishes his identity and his strength as an artist when confronted with political authority and intolerable violence, especially in his native land. Interpretations of the symbolism of Guernica

Jack Whitten’s piece, Martin Luther King’s Garden (1968), is an abstract painting that is dedicated to Martin Luther King for his role in the development of civil rights movement. This painting is made of an oil painting, giving more variations in colors and shades. The painting has various vibrant colors, making the piece more abstract. The subject of the piece is to commemorate Martin Luther King and to honor his greatness as a civil leader. He was an important subject during the period when this painting was drawn because it was the year when he was assassinated.

My opinion on “Guernica” is very shaking it is an extravagant piece but does have some drawbacks on it. Some things that make this piece so good is the multitude of messages especially hidden ones. I’m also marveled at the thought and sophistication that went into making this. Picasso was definitely in my opinion one of the most intelligent artists there ever was. Some things that bring this piece down would be the cubist style. I do enjoy cubism but (going on to another drawback) it doesn’t fit with everything going on in the painting. It is too cramped for that style and this adds to the already menacing task of deciphering the painting. One last thing is Picasso’s lack of clarification it would definitely helped a little. All in all Guernica is definitely a great piece.

The artwork Cello-no Hands Required, is a cubism style painting. You can tell by looking at the face, and the overall build of the instrument and the people. Cubism is the style of having simple geometric shapes interlock to create an object or figure. You can see in the painting, that the cello and the people are made up of of very simple shapes, triangle, circles, and other simple shapes. The simple

Looking at the top of the face, viewers can see one large eye and a tiny bit of the other eye. The eye is mostly black, filled with a little white in the center to make it clear to viewers that this is an eye. Moving down the face is a good-sized nose that is yellow and black for viewers to see it is a nose, along with a mouth that is mostly dark and difficult to distinguish. Near the eye and mouth are pink colored, flower petal shapes. This is the only bright color that is on this side of the painting, other than the yellow face, the small amount of white, and the black shadows on the face. Also, near the eye, are small, yellow dots that seem to be coming out of the other eye. This side of the painting is quite simple compared to the other side considering it lacks color. This part of the piece reminds me of a girl who goes everyday without expressing who she truly is. The face in this painting looks sad and straight-faced as if something is wrong. The face is much different from what is portrayed to left of the face. This image makes me think that this girl has so much inside her, but is not able to express herself because she may be afraid to do so. The yellow, small dots that are coming from her eye make me think that this is the only way she is expressing herself, and that only a tiny bit of her personality comes out when she is near others. Where the yellow dots go back

Picasso's painting entitled "Standing Figure" depicts a nude woman with her arms crossed behind her head. It was painted in 1908 during a key period of invention and experimentation, as Picasso began to construct his paintings in a new way. The figure is translated into simplified, geometric forms, reflecting Picasso's interest in the art of Africa and Oceania. Using only a few colors, he focuses the viewer's attention on the intersection of these geometric forms. It seems as though Picasso uses the blue lines in this painting like some sort of directional device, drawing attention to the outline of the woman's figure. As we discussed in class, the style of cubism uses multiple or contrasting vantage points. Another element of cubism is simplifying more complicated scenes into geometric forms. Cubism rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modeling, and foreshortening. They wanted instead to emphasize the two-dimensionality of the canvas.

Between 1907 and 1914, Picasso collaborated with Georges Braque and together they produced a style known as Cubism. The period after World War I indicated an apparent return to the art of realism for Picasso as seen in a pencil drawing of 1915, Portrait of Vollard. This small work foretold Picasso's renewed curiosity in descriptive interpretation, which, for some time, ran parallel with cubism. During the 1920's, a growing sense of unease was expressed through Picasso's work and a style shift started moving from Cubism to being closer to surrealism (an artistic movement of the early 20th century that stressed fantasy and the subconscious mind).