Art History Writing Assignment

Katrina Wolf
Art History and Appreciation
Goldstein
30 November 2014
Writing Assignment
Guernica, a painting by Pablo Picasso is perhaps one of his most famous works. It gained its rise to fame when it was taken on a worldwide tour. However, something that is not very well known about this certain piece of artwork is the political message behind it. Apparently, the painting is a tribute to the town of Guernica, which is located in Spain.
In the year of 1937, Nazis bombed Guernica for practice purposes. This was also during the
Spanish Civil War. The painting portrays the effects of war and what a tragedy it really is. It is painted in a black, white and grayscale fashion of colors. One can assume that Picasso painted in these colors rather than bright colors to get his point across more efficiently. It was not done to show that war is just black and white. If anything, the absence of color does nothing but emphasize and intensify all of the pure, raw, and uncut emotion. The painting shows Picasso’s opinion on bullfighting as well. Guernica is also a tribute to Picasso’s homeland, which is Spain. This is why you can see so much emotion behind the characters in this piece of art. Many of the people in this work (if

they are not corpses already) have their heads back, screaming in pain and pure agony. Picasso’s aim was to show all of the pain that the bombers had caused. Picasso’s painting style was extremely unique. He not only fathered and pioneered cubism, but he also made large contributions to surrealism as well as symbolism. The way that the people, animals, and objects in Guernica are painted makes the work special. Picasso utilized his cubistic talents to show the pain and suffering that happened in Guernica when the bombing occurred. Although the figures depicted in his works are not perfect individuals, Picasso still makes them perfect in their own way. "My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and the death of art. In the picture I am painting — which I shall call Guernica — I am expressing my horror of the military caste which is now plundering Spain into an ocean of misery and death." Pablo Picasso The above quote shows how Picasso felt about the war just as much as his famous painting showed his distaste for the war. The quote and the painting go hand in hand with one another. The quote lays down a sturdy foundation and provides a background for the painting.