Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter,
sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent
most of his adult life in France. 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. Among his most famous
works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907),
and Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by the
German and Italian airforces during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in
a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first
decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different
theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the slightly
older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles,
beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often
paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.
Picasso's work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of
his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work
are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-
influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic
Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's
work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in
the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often
combines elements of his earlier styles.
Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved
universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic
accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century
art.
Guernica (Picasso)
Guernica is a large oil painting on canvas by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso
completed in June 1937,at his home on Rue des Grands Augustins, in Paris.
The painting, now in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, was done with a palette
of gray, black, and white, and is regarded by many art critics as one of the most
moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history. Standing at 3.49 meters tall
and 7.76 meters wide, the painting shows the suffering of people and animals
wrenched by violence and chaos. Prominent in the composition are a gored
horse, a bull, and flames.
The painting was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque
Country town in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany and Italian warplanes at the
request of the Spanish Nationalists. Upon completion, Guernica was exhibited
at the Spanish display at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques
dans la Vie Moderne (Paris International Exposition) in the 1937 World's Fair in
Paris and then at other venues around the world. The touring exhibition was
used to raise funds for Spanish war relief. The painting became famous and
widely acclaimed, and it helped bring worldwide
Composition
The scene is within a room where, on the left, a wide-eyed bull stands over a
grieving woman who holds a dead child in her arms. The center of the painting
is occupied by a horse falling in agony, as if it had just been run through by a
spear or javelin. There is a large gaping wound in the horse's side. The horse
appears to be wearing chain mail armor, decorated with vertical tally marks
arranged in rows.
Under the horse is a dead, dismembered, soldier. The hand of his severed right
arm still grasps a shattered sword, from which a flower grows. The palm of the
soldier's open left hand contains a stigmata, a symbol of martyrdom derived
from the stigmata of Christ. A bare light bulb blazes in the shape of an eye over
the suffering horse's head.
To the upper right of the horse, a frightened female figure, who seems to be
witnessing the scenes before her, appears to have floated into the room through
a window. She carries a flame-lit lamp which is positioned close to the bare
bulb.
From the right, an awe-struck woman staggers towards the center below the
floating female figure. She looks up blankly into the blazing light bulb. Daggers
that suggest screaming have replaced the tongues of the bull, the grieving
woman, and the horse. A dove is scribed on the wall behind the bull. Part of its
body comprises a crack in the wall through which bright light can be seen.
On the far right, a woman with arms raised in terror is entrapped by fire from
above and below; her right hand suggests the shape of an airplane. A dark wall
with an open door defines the right end of the mural.
Two "hidden" images formed by the horse appear in Guernica:
A human skull overlays the horse's body.
A bull appears to gore the horse from underneath. The bull's head is formed
mainly by the horse's entire front leg which has the knee on the ground. The
leg's knee cap forms the head's nose. A horn appears within the horse's
breast.The bull's tail forms the image of a flame with smoke rising from it,
seemingly appearing in a window created by the lighter shade of gray
surrounding it.
