Week 15 - Project #5

Guernica, by Pablo Picasso

Guernica by Pablo Picasso was created as a mural-size canvas painted in oil during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's. This work was contrived by Picasso to portray the tragedies and suffering experienced by the Spanish people during the time period. It serves as a political statement that promotes peace. This painting was seen by millions of people all over the world which helped educate foreigners about the situation in Spain and eventually put an end to the war. This painting would be considered a representational abstract painting because it depicts figures and shapes which are deformed and illogical to symbolically represent an real world event.

To the left, we can see animals such as a horse and a bull. The bull has been a historical animal in Spain for years. To the right of the painting, we can see a person screaming. This brings emotions of despair, pain and suffering. We also see a dead person on the lower left side of the painting. We can see a broken knife and a flower at the bottom of the image. I think he is symbolically showing his discontent with war and soldiers. The light bulb and candle at the top of the image might representing the sun. You can see human with hands and legs of animals (lower right and to the far left) which might be a symbolic way to present how humans have lost their humanity. Overall the image is portraying the suffering and pain brought by war. 

The emotions he was trying to bring to the viewer is also reflection in the colors which he used. The painting is black and white and uses a low degree of value creating balance throughout the whole piece. The lack of colors allows the painting to maintain it's serious and dramatic message.

The greatest strength of the artwork is how it's able to present an anti-war message by using techniques from the expressionism movement to convey an emotional effect on the viewer. The biggest weakness of the work is how Picasso failed to incorporate cubism into his artwork. Picasso helped influence the cubism artistic movement but in his Guernica artwork, he didn't utilize the techniques which were used by him in many of his previous works.