Guernica The Massacre At Chicas Analysis

Topic 6: Art as Response to War

The paintings: Guernica, the Massacre at Chios, and the Living Dead are intimately akin, considering that these masterpieces depict the horrors of the war; and the blindness of the leaders who value most money and power than human life. The themes are war, ambition, genocide, rape, tyranny, civil unrest, looting, and lack of respect for human life. First, Picasso’s Guernica was painted to express the consequences of the uncalled bombing of the Nazis on the Basque community of Guernica, during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso’s palette was basically white, black, and gray in an effort to establish the mournful moments after the devastation. To complete his statement he drew a bull, which represents the unstoppable force of the fascist attack. Moreover, this attack, was the result of the twisted mentally of Gorning, intolerance, and injustice. One can express this, considering that he exterminated the town’s population as a birthday gift to Hitler. While, Picasso’s was paid for this canvas, he wanted to perpetuate in our minds how war can shape our lives forever. This is the reason he included body pieces in disarray.
Second, the Massacre at Chios masterfully portrays the desperation, lack of hope, an unbearable pain of the Greek citizens, who were awaiting execution or becoming slaves for the rest of their lives.
These poor human creatures were condemned to death for the terrible crime of fighting to get independence from the Turks. Eugene Delacroix decided to document the event on this canvas by expressing his disagreement. It was his way to condemn this atrocity on his free will. This paint was not commissioned by anyone. At the same time Delacroix wanted to show the Turks and their sultan the results of their conceited mentality. During this incident women were rape, and the rest of the population practically
exterminated. Third, The Living Dead of Buchenwald took this picture in 1945. As a companion of General Paton, she visited the concentration camps, after the collapse of Germany. The colors are similar, since the photograph was taken in white and black; the only option of photography at that moment. It was not published until 1960. Eventually, it became one of the best pictures of the Holocaust’s barbaric approaches; and the resilience of the Jewish community. The faces of the Jewish men in the photograph depict hope as Mrs. Burke-White approached them, accompanied by the U.S. rescuers. Unfortunately, all of them endure the atrocities of the genocide and there were unable to smile. They just stood holding the barbed wire together, as a team, perhaps to indicate that they were unbeatable and resilient. The palettes, which Picasso and Delacroix, employed, are a myriad of browns, blacks, grays, which facilitate their political statements. The first two colors assemble realistically the somber events. The splashes of red are included to delineate the brutality of the bloody events. They also took advantage of quick and blurred brushstrokes to portray the devastation that the citizenry endured as consequence of these massacres. Moreover, the three artistes highlighted the faces of the defeated and sometimes to make the faces of the perpetrators difficult to recognize. From her part Margaret Bourke-white picture in black and white, clearly portrayed the somber moment. The realism was the main style used by the three artists.