Guernica

GUERNICA

Pablo Picasso's painting entitled "Guernica" has been called a masterpiece of modern art since its first appearance at the World Fair's. It represented an event in the Spanish Civil War that occurred in April 26, 1937. The actual sketch of his work began in May 1, 1937, and was commissioned by the official Republican government of Spain in January of that same year. It was to be displayed in the entrance hall of a Spanish pavilion at the 1937 World Fair in Paris. Pablo Picasso was given a large studio in which to conduct his artistic work. All though time was so short, he took pencil to paper, carefully executing six sketches for the 25 1/2 foot painting. Picasso uses dominantly black and white using value changes in few areas over the pictures plain. He uses line extensively, with almost geometric shapes taking form and leading the eye as can be seen in many of his pre-production sketches. Texture is kept to a minimum in the specific work as it is a very two dimensional art. He has made good use of spaces as nearly the entire canvas was used.

Furthermore, on May 9, 1937 the final composition of the sketch was introduced with many images like the bull, a fallen horse, light bulb that looks like an eye, soldier with a broken sword with his arm rest peacefully across the ground, and a women reaching out of the house, with oil lamp in her hand, with a very concerned look on her face. One piece of evidence contrary to this is the dead, lying across the ground. But yet Picasso made a conscious effort to emphasize the bull, the horse and the women in the window as each of this image would be important. The entire scene is surveyed by the bull, itself represent Spain, the horse at the center left, speared and dying in anguish represents the fate of the dreamer creativity and the light bulb at the top center with the oil lamp held by the women has represent the old and new ways of seeing things. The mural is definitely symbolized how Picasso felt at the time, especially about the bombing of Guernica Spain. Pablo Picasso was expressing his emotion about the chaos of human’s beings fighting among our self.

In my opinion this is a very emotion provoking and is appealing to my eye. The largest contributing factor to "Guernica's" overall appeal is the excellent use of symbolism which encourages its audience to