Picasso's Guernica (1937)
When I saw Guernica for the first time my first reaction
was, “what is going on here?” To me it seemed like too much. There were people
everywhere, some on the floor and others suffering. I was trying to figure out
what the chaos was all about. Guernica makes me feel pain because all of the people
are suffering. The pain that the people were feeling translated to me. The lady
on the left side is crying while holding her dead baby, there is a dead man on
the bottom of the painting who looks as if he had a painful death, and the
person to the right looks as if he/she is screaming and crying in front of a
burning building. The atmosphere of the painting seems to be both indoors and
outdoors. The left side is indoors because there is a kitchen table in the
background and the right side seems to be outdoors because there are buildings
in the background. It is a very negative and sad atmosphere. Other than the
suffering people I also see a lightbulb and a sun on the top. I think that the
lightbulb and the sun are the two things that give the painting most of its
light. Yes, there is also a person’s hand holding a candle right under that,
but I think most of the light source comes from above. There is also a horse
and a cow. The horse looks as it is in pain and the cow looks peaceful. I think
that the horse represents Guernica and the victims and the cow represents the Germans
and Italians who bombed Guernica.
This painting is a landscape. Picasso used a lot of
geometrical shapes with this painting. If you look at the painting carefully
you can see the lines for the shapes he used. He used a lot of triangles to separate
all of the objects through his painting. The colors he used were grey, black,
and white.
A lot was happening in Picassos world while painting
this painting. He painted this painting in 1937. On April 26, 1937 a
Spanish Civil War started in Spain, German and Italian planes bombed Guernica
leaving hundreds of people dead and many more injured. Throughout his painting
I think Picasso interpreted the war well because he painted some victims
suffering and others dead. He really showed the pain of these victims and how
they were feeling through the horrible disaster.
What stood out to me the most from this painting has
to be the cow because it is painted more brightly and it doesn’t look as if it
is in pain. It is also the first thing that I saw when viewing the painting.
Like I said previously I think the cow represents the enemies of Guernica because
it looks peaceful while every other living thing looks miserable and sad. I don’t
think it was an antiwar message because I feel as if it is a war message. Maybe
it’s a message to give the people who didn’t experience the war a little bit of
the feeling that those who did experienced it felt. Overall, I actually like
the painting even though it is very dark. I like it because I undersood it more
after viewing the video and I connected to it.
I feel like after reading someone else's point of view about Guernica I now see new pieces of it. For example, I didn't notice that the left and right sides of the painting took place in different settings. I like how you incorporated background knowledge and how thoroughly you examined it.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I actually watched the video that Dr. Cleworth provided for us. I didn't notice the background until after too. It kind of made sense though after looking at it for a couple of hours. There was a lot going on with this painting so it is hard to catch every detail. :)
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