(Guernica, Spain 1937)
The destruction of war on innocent lives is hard to fathom
for someone who has not experienced such horror first-hand. Creative works like Pablo Picasso’s
monochromatic painting Guernica (1937)
serve as perpetual reminders of the tragedies of war and have also become
powerful anti-war symbols.
Painted
as an immediate response to Nazi Germany’s devastating bombing practice on the
Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, Guernica would become arguably Picasso’s most famous work. (pablopicasso.org) The political message of the mural—the
suffering of people and animals, and buildings wrenched by violence and
chaos—is a powerful one.
(Guernica mural 1937)
The
overall scene painted in grey, black and white oil on canvas sets a somber
mood. The newspaper print used in the
painting is said to reflect how Picasso learned of the massacre in the town of
Guernica. The images of the work are
contained within the walls of a room where, on the left, a wide-eyed bull
stands over a woman grieving over a dead child in her arms. The mother screams and screams, but nothing
will bring her child back. (news.bbc.co.uk)
The centre of the painting is occupied by a horse that has been run
through with a spear or javelin. The
large gaping wound in the horse’s side is a major focus of the work. The animal’s terrible pain and suffering
pulls viewers in. Picasso was asked
whether the horse represented the Spanish people, but he refused to answer.
(bbc) The horse contrasts sharply with
the other animal in the painting: the
bull, which appears calm and dispassionate as it watches the drama unfold. A light bulb blazes in the shape of an evil
eye at the top of the mural and is believed to symbolize the Spanish word for
light bulb, bombilla, which also
means bomb in Spanish. Daggers that
suggest screaming replace the tongues of all the figures in the painting.
(Picasso at work on Guernica, June 1937)
The
horrors that befell Guernica in the form of saturation bombings certainly
weren’t the last—of WWII and every war since.
As S. Mathews of Erie Pennsylvania comments on the BBC News website, “Guernica resonates with every
generation—from the nightmarish qualities of the twisted bodies frozen in time
to the flower of hope clutched in dying fingers. Does man ever learn that war is futile—or are
we destined by our leaders to repeat our mistakes in some kind of macabre
symphony, each succeeding movement more devastating than the next?” Picasso’s most political painting is a
powerful visual statement against the suffering war inflicts upon innocent
individuals.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting), Guernica, web.
http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp, Guernica by Pablo Picasso, web.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7986540.stm, BBC News Magazine, "Piecing Together Guernica" (2009)
Betty, As usual you do an outstanding job with applying a reading role to the text and analyzing the text thoroughly and in an engaging and thought-provoking way.
ReplyDeleteIf your outside sources are all online, you don't have to add them to a list at the end of the post. Just hyperlink to them within your post.