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ART ANALYSIS

Title: Guernica
Artist: Pablo Picasso
Medium: oil on canvas
Date: 1937
 GUERNICA OF PABLO PICASSO

Pablo Picasso’s piece of artwork titled Guernica was one of the said artist’s
famous works. Pablo Picasso, which was the most influential artist of the twentieth
century, was born in Malaga, Spain in the year 1881. He was nourished there before he
went to France to work as an artist. One of his famous works is Guernica. It is a mural-
size canvas painted in oil with over 11 and a half feet high which stretches over 25 and
a half feet long. The piece’s current location is at Reina Sofia, Spain’s national museum
of modern art in Madrid where it permanently resides.

The artwork is a stark monochromatic palette of gray, black and white which in
our first glance, seems to be about death and dying. It is kind of somehow abstract and
chaotic. Some images overspread and bisect other images also present in it which is
making it not easy to identify their boundaries. Everything seems to be ambiguous and
jumbled, for a first time viewer of this artwork, this is just so confusing.

On a first glance, viewers cannot yet pinpoint the subjects present in the artwork.
But if we look closer, we can somehow determine the symbols painted. On the left side
is a woman in grief, holding a lifeless body of a child. Just above of her head and on her
right side is a white bull which is the sole subject in the painting that is unscathed and
untroubled amidst the chaos. Just beneath her is what seems to be a dead or just
wounded man laid down. The interesting part is that, his head and arms are the only
visible part of his body. On the center part lies a horse with its mouth wide open and on
its right side are three women, all have their faces distorted in agony. There are also
hidden subjects in the painting, just like the skull on the center and the dove on the right
side of a bull.
 The dramatic subject is repressed and it is painted in the grisaille technique, a
decoration in tones of a single color. Several symbols can be seen in the artwork
including the light bulb, the horse, the bull and a dove in which the latter cannot be
clearly seen. Picasso stated it meant brutality and darkness. Picasso also did balances
the piece by arranging the figures into three divisions from left to right.

The real meaning of the artwork was never stated by the artist, however, there
are theories and stories that tells how it was made and for what or whom it was inspired
for. On the year 1936, Pablo Picasso was asked to paint for the Spanish Pavilion by a
Spanish Republican Government that is said to be newly elected. The supposedly
theme was a celebration of modern technology, however, Picasso painted what seems
to be a political painting, a subject he had just a little or no interest at all at that time. In
the same year, a civil war has stricken in Spain. It was assumed that Picasso’s painting
is based on the bombing in Guernica, a village in northern Spain with no strategic
military value. In depicting such subject matter, Picasso created a political work, where
Guernica stands as a symbolic protest for peace. The painting was also Pablo Picasso’s
memorial to the brutal massacre.

Pablo Picasso surely has his own way in addressing his opinions and thoughts in
a subject matter. He also has an amazing art style which makes him more to look up to.
His famous painting, Guernica, represents more than I can fully explain in this paper.