Guernica
Guernica, the work by Pablo Picasso, enjoys the reputation among many people as the most important work of art created in the Twentieth Century. Some people consider it the most important work of art ever created. Looking at the painting invokes as many different emotions as there are those to see it. Many people feel sadness, anger, shock, and horror when they look upon Picasso’s creation. Picasso created Guernica as a response to the tragedy, commissioned by Francisco Franco and carried out by Hitler’s Nazi war machine, suffered by the men, women, and children of the Basque town of Gernika on 26 April 1937. This paper will describe in detail the shapes, lighting, and colors used in Guernica. We will also describe the subject matter of Guernica. We will analyze how effectively the shapes, lighting, and colors support or detract from the subject matter we previously described. Finally, we will analyze how the shapes, lighting, and colors work to invoke a particular mood or emotional response among those who view Guernica.
Shapes, Lighting, Colors
Shapes are two-dimensional and are generally defined by lines. A line is a one-dimensional path that is an identifiable point moving through space. Lines create the edges of forms and shapes. Horizontal lines run parallel to the earth’s surface and can show that the landscape extends past the edge of the artist’s painting. Vertical lines give the viewer a sense of height. Diagonal lines give the viewer a sense of movement. Curvy lines are used to define the curves of the human body ("Understanding Formal," n.d.).
In Guernica, Picasso makes use of a lot of diagonal lines, soft curvy lines, and a few straight horizontal and vertical lines. Picasso uses curvy lines, even exaggerated curvy lines, to define the shapes of the characters in the painting. The female holding the light, the soldier, the wailing woman and her infant, the bull, and the horse all are defined by curvy lines. It is almost like a cartoon how they are drawn and then colored in. Picasso’s use of curvy lines is done to exaggerate movement and emotion of the characters, he has not painted the characters in a way that looks real as a photo of people or horses looks real. We do see anguish in the mother holding her infant, fear in the woman who is looking up into the light, confusion in the eyes of the woman holding the light, and pain in the face of the horse who is impaled by a spear. If Picasso had used very soft curves to depict his characters, in the same way as Artemisia Gentileschi did in her painting Judith Beheading Holofernes, the characters would not invoke such strong emotions in the eyes of the viewer. Even though it is sometimes hard to discern everything that is being depicted in the painting, Picasso is able to inveigh against what happened in Guernica with great emotion by using exaggerated curves to define the shapes of his characters.
Another good way Picasso uses lines to define shapes is in the way light is cast on the scene. In the center of the painting, there is a big white triangle. The triangle is defined by straight diagonal lines. It is interesting to see how the line that defines the triangle on the right side goes down through the woman with exposed breasts. It seems clear that the woman holding the lamp is illuminating this part of the scene by the way the line is drawn. The whole scene takes place in a room. We see straight lines defining the corners, doors, and what looks to be tiles of the floor. It is as if a nightmare was interrupted: suddenly we see what is occurring in the dark. Usually the monsters and demons of our dreams disappear when the lights come on. The way Picasso uses light does not give the viewer any sense of relief: Picasso wants us to look at the nightmare and feel the despair. The light he shines is not enough to rid Spain of its demons; it is merely a cry for help.
Picasso use of color in Guernica creates a bleak, horrible, sense of doom. In fact, Picasso uses only greys, black, and white colors. He uses the colors of a long winter with no hope of a bloom on the horizon. For the people in the town of Gernika have been removed like so many leaves on trees. The difference between the townsfolk of Gernika and trees void of leaves in their winter slumber? We do not know if the people in Gernika will ever return. Where is their spring? Picasso could not see the end of the war and after his reading of the accounts of how his people in Gernika were so callously exterminated he might well have imagined there to be no spring for them. Picasso’s use of grey scale for Guernica superbly captures the emotion he must have felt when Gernika fell down.
Guernica
Picasso’s Guernica is a painting that expresses Picasso’s horror at the destruction of the Basque country town of Gernika by General Francisco Franco and his Italian and Nazi allies on 26 April 1937. Sixty German and Italian planes dropped bombs and machine-gunned down innocent civilians who tried to escape the destruction. The attack was used by the German military to test out their new theory of war, the Blitzkrieg. Women and children were treated equally by their Nazi attackers and were indiscriminately shot down alongside the men. The attack made little sense to Europeans who had survived Word War 1. In WW1, innocent civilians had certainly been killed, however innocent civilians had not been the primary target of aggression. War changed when Gernika, not even a military target, was destroyed by the Germans as ordered by Franco. Peaceful civilians, women and children, are not prepared to fight a mighty war machine and imagine their confusing, shocking, and horrible, deaths at the hands of the Nazis. Picasso effectively captured the essence of what happened in Gernika that April day so long ago. Is not the viewer shocked, confused, and angry when confronted by Picasso’s work in Guernica? The answer must be yes when we consider the twisted-shifting lines, the gruesome lighting, the bleak colors, and the cold display of images.
References
Doyle, C. (2008). Exploring the Creation of Picasso's Guernica: Composition Studies, Chance, Metaphors, and Expertise. Creativity Research Journal, 20(4), 445-450. doi:10.1080/10400410802391918
Hensbergen, G. v. (2004). Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Martin, R. (2002). Picasso's War (10th ed.). New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc.
Preston, P. (2007). GEORGE STEER AND GUERNICA. History Today, 57(5), 12-19.
Understanding Formal Analysis. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2014, from The J. Paul Getty Museum Web site: http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/formal_analysis.html#line
Rhodes, R. (2013). Guernica: Horror and inspiration. Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, 69(6), 19-25. doi:10.1177/0096340213508672
Swami, V. (2013). Context Matters: Investigating the Impact of Contextual Information on Aesthetic Appreciation of Paintings by Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso. Psychology Of Aesthetics, Creativity & The Arts, 7(3), 285-295. doi:10.1037/a0030965
Author Note
When I showed my children the cover of Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon and asked them to comment on it my son said it made him angry and my daughter said she did not like it because it made her sad. I showed each child the image separately so that in answering they would not influence each other. I choose to write about Guernica because when I first saw it online it made me sad as well. I did not know why so I figured it would be a good painting to research. The more I read about Guernica the more I wanted to read. This paper was supposed to be a two-page paper. I wrote a bit more than that and I felt like I could have written much more. Even though I have not seen the painting in person, I feel that I have come to understand quite a bit about it. I too abhor the brutality of war. I think that most Americans abhor war but we seemed to be caught in a never-ending loop of war. It does not seem to matter whom we elect, both parties are eager to carry out war. It is necessary for our survival, our way of life we are told. I hope we can change that view.
I did not want to write other people’s conclusions about Guernica so there is very little work cited in the paper. I did read a tremendous amount of material so I included it in my references. I tried to draw my own conclusions from my original first thoughts on the subject matter and composition of the painting. I think doing my own analysis is the point of what we are trying to learn to do in this class. For this blog post I am including a link so that you too may take a look at Guernica.
Guernica, the work by Pablo Picasso, enjoys the reputation among many people as the most important work of art created in the Twentieth Century. Some people consider it the most important work of art ever created. Looking at the painting invokes as many different emotions as there are those to see it. Many people feel sadness, anger, shock, and horror when they look upon Picasso’s creation. Picasso created Guernica as a response to the tragedy, commissioned by Francisco Franco and carried out by Hitler’s Nazi war machine, suffered by the men, women, and children of the Basque town of Gernika on 26 April 1937. This paper will describe in detail the shapes, lighting, and colors used in Guernica. We will also describe the subject matter of Guernica. We will analyze how effectively the shapes, lighting, and colors support or detract from the subject matter we previously described. Finally, we will analyze how the shapes, lighting, and colors work to invoke a particular mood or emotional response among those who view Guernica.
Shapes, Lighting, Colors
Shapes are two-dimensional and are generally defined by lines. A line is a one-dimensional path that is an identifiable point moving through space. Lines create the edges of forms and shapes. Horizontal lines run parallel to the earth’s surface and can show that the landscape extends past the edge of the artist’s painting. Vertical lines give the viewer a sense of height. Diagonal lines give the viewer a sense of movement. Curvy lines are used to define the curves of the human body ("Understanding Formal," n.d.).
In Guernica, Picasso makes use of a lot of diagonal lines, soft curvy lines, and a few straight horizontal and vertical lines. Picasso uses curvy lines, even exaggerated curvy lines, to define the shapes of the characters in the painting. The female holding the light, the soldier, the wailing woman and her infant, the bull, and the horse all are defined by curvy lines. It is almost like a cartoon how they are drawn and then colored in. Picasso’s use of curvy lines is done to exaggerate movement and emotion of the characters, he has not painted the characters in a way that looks real as a photo of people or horses looks real. We do see anguish in the mother holding her infant, fear in the woman who is looking up into the light, confusion in the eyes of the woman holding the light, and pain in the face of the horse who is impaled by a spear. If Picasso had used very soft curves to depict his characters, in the same way as Artemisia Gentileschi did in her painting Judith Beheading Holofernes, the characters would not invoke such strong emotions in the eyes of the viewer. Even though it is sometimes hard to discern everything that is being depicted in the painting, Picasso is able to inveigh against what happened in Guernica with great emotion by using exaggerated curves to define the shapes of his characters.
Another good way Picasso uses lines to define shapes is in the way light is cast on the scene. In the center of the painting, there is a big white triangle. The triangle is defined by straight diagonal lines. It is interesting to see how the line that defines the triangle on the right side goes down through the woman with exposed breasts. It seems clear that the woman holding the lamp is illuminating this part of the scene by the way the line is drawn. The whole scene takes place in a room. We see straight lines defining the corners, doors, and what looks to be tiles of the floor. It is as if a nightmare was interrupted: suddenly we see what is occurring in the dark. Usually the monsters and demons of our dreams disappear when the lights come on. The way Picasso uses light does not give the viewer any sense of relief: Picasso wants us to look at the nightmare and feel the despair. The light he shines is not enough to rid Spain of its demons; it is merely a cry for help.
Picasso use of color in Guernica creates a bleak, horrible, sense of doom. In fact, Picasso uses only greys, black, and white colors. He uses the colors of a long winter with no hope of a bloom on the horizon. For the people in the town of Gernika have been removed like so many leaves on trees. The difference between the townsfolk of Gernika and trees void of leaves in their winter slumber? We do not know if the people in Gernika will ever return. Where is their spring? Picasso could not see the end of the war and after his reading of the accounts of how his people in Gernika were so callously exterminated he might well have imagined there to be no spring for them. Picasso’s use of grey scale for Guernica superbly captures the emotion he must have felt when Gernika fell down.
Guernica
Picasso’s Guernica is a painting that expresses Picasso’s horror at the destruction of the Basque country town of Gernika by General Francisco Franco and his Italian and Nazi allies on 26 April 1937. Sixty German and Italian planes dropped bombs and machine-gunned down innocent civilians who tried to escape the destruction. The attack was used by the German military to test out their new theory of war, the Blitzkrieg. Women and children were treated equally by their Nazi attackers and were indiscriminately shot down alongside the men. The attack made little sense to Europeans who had survived Word War 1. In WW1, innocent civilians had certainly been killed, however innocent civilians had not been the primary target of aggression. War changed when Gernika, not even a military target, was destroyed by the Germans as ordered by Franco. Peaceful civilians, women and children, are not prepared to fight a mighty war machine and imagine their confusing, shocking, and horrible, deaths at the hands of the Nazis. Picasso effectively captured the essence of what happened in Gernika that April day so long ago. Is not the viewer shocked, confused, and angry when confronted by Picasso’s work in Guernica? The answer must be yes when we consider the twisted-shifting lines, the gruesome lighting, the bleak colors, and the cold display of images.
References
Doyle, C. (2008). Exploring the Creation of Picasso's Guernica: Composition Studies, Chance, Metaphors, and Expertise. Creativity Research Journal, 20(4), 445-450. doi:10.1080/10400410802391918
Hensbergen, G. v. (2004). Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Martin, R. (2002). Picasso's War (10th ed.). New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc.
Preston, P. (2007). GEORGE STEER AND GUERNICA. History Today, 57(5), 12-19.
Understanding Formal Analysis. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2014, from The J. Paul Getty Museum Web site: http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/formal_analysis.html#line
Rhodes, R. (2013). Guernica: Horror and inspiration. Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, 69(6), 19-25. doi:10.1177/0096340213508672
Swami, V. (2013). Context Matters: Investigating the Impact of Contextual Information on Aesthetic Appreciation of Paintings by Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso. Psychology Of Aesthetics, Creativity & The Arts, 7(3), 285-295. doi:10.1037/a0030965
Author Note
When I showed my children the cover of Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon and asked them to comment on it my son said it made him angry and my daughter said she did not like it because it made her sad. I showed each child the image separately so that in answering they would not influence each other. I choose to write about Guernica because when I first saw it online it made me sad as well. I did not know why so I figured it would be a good painting to research. The more I read about Guernica the more I wanted to read. This paper was supposed to be a two-page paper. I wrote a bit more than that and I felt like I could have written much more. Even though I have not seen the painting in person, I feel that I have come to understand quite a bit about it. I too abhor the brutality of war. I think that most Americans abhor war but we seemed to be caught in a never-ending loop of war. It does not seem to matter whom we elect, both parties are eager to carry out war. It is necessary for our survival, our way of life we are told. I hope we can change that view.
I did not want to write other people’s conclusions about Guernica so there is very little work cited in the paper. I did read a tremendous amount of material so I included it in my references. I tried to draw my own conclusions from my original first thoughts on the subject matter and composition of the painting. I think doing my own analysis is the point of what we are trying to learn to do in this class. For this blog post I am including a link so that you too may take a look at Guernica.