Analysis of the Guernica- by

Picasso
The Guernica is a mural oil painting, created by the well-known
Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. It was finished in June 1937 and is known as one
of the most sentimental and powerful peace paintings in the history of art. It
uses a palette of grey, black and white. With its 3.49 meters tall and 7.76
meters wide, it shows the suffering of a people, and the horror and pain
during war. Upon completion, the Guernica was shown around the world and
became really famous, and is believed to have brought worldwide attention
to the Spanish Civil War.

Mood (feeling or atmosphere)

The Guernica has an effect of despair, horror, grief, violence, pain and
chaos, as well as death and suffering on its viewer. It expresses a feeling of
utmost anger and fear, feelings I have felt myself, although not so
heightened and with a much lesser intensity. In my opinion, the artist,
Picasso, either experienced these feelings himself, or saw someone else
experiencing them, someone close to his heart, and wanted to reflect them
into his work of art. It is a loud, troubling and gloomy piece of work. The
qualities that affect me are the facial expressions and body gestures, which
are full of agony and emotion.

Content
With this piece of art, Picasso was criticizing war and he wanted to
express that it destroys everything in its path. The Guernica was in fact his
most powerful political statement, which he painted right after the bombing
of the Basque town of Guernica, by the German Nazis, during the Spanish
Civil War. The painting shows the tragedies of war and the pain it inflicts on
individuals, in this case mostly innocent civilians. It is an anti-war symbol and
an embodiment of peace. The subject matter was partly imagined and partly
remembered, because Picasso wasnt there at the time of the bombing, but
remembered his country of origin. It has been intentionally amplified,
because he had to express all the pain and torment you feel at war in a
limited space.

Process
Picasso initially added color to the Guernica through bits of newspaper,
blue shadings and a red tear streaming from the screaming womans eye. In
the final phase of creating the composition, he removed all the color,
portraying it in monochrome, in black, white and grey tones. The reason he
decided to remove all color was, because he thought it may distract the
viewers from his works meaning, so he removed it to enhance the painings
impact on its viewers. The color black predominates, because black stands
for sorrow, sadness, evil, death and bad thoughts, as it also stands for
emptiness, pain, grief, loss of hope and suffering. In this piece of art, there is
no overall shape, but all kinds of different shapes, which are mostly used for
the gestures and expressions of the characters/victims of the scene. There
are many related forms and designs, but the most obvious and that Picasso
used most were triangles, squares and circles. All those shapes, sharp lines,
different tones, rhythms and tones describe and show a state of pure panic,
madness and confusion. All of the figures in this work of art have open
mouths and two staring eyes full of horror, regardless of what position they
are in. Looking closely at the painting, you can almost hear the figures
screaming in agony. Picasso painted his black and grey tones in areas of
almost flat color, unbroken with texture or tone, and has very many repeated
shapes, for example the eye and the sun, as also repeated patterns, for
example the horses hair. These techniques are to help the viewer focus on
the real meaning of the painting.

Form

Picasso used the common tools and mediums available to artists of his
time. His genius lies in being able to perform such a quality of artworks with
commonly used tools. Most of the time, he painted directly onto the canvas,
without sketching out his ideas first, as most artists do. Pablo Picasso made
hundreds of preliminary drawings for the Guernica and more than fifty
studies. He completed the Guernica painting in exactly 24 frenetic days,
and used 27 square meters of oil paint. Streams of emotions, opinions, ideas,
traditions, myths, as well as symbols and obsessions of his roots spilled onto
the canvas, as Picasso worked on his masterpiece, also locking himself away.
His anger and pain fueled him to finish his work of art in about three weeks.
He wanted to get all those heartfelt feelings he was experiencing onto the
canvas as he was experiencing them, so thats the reason he executed his
piece of art really quickly. To produce such a painting, you would need to be
extremely talented and be able to express your emotions onto paper and/or
canvas, through drawings and colors.

Art historian, Patricia Failing says: the bull and the horse are
important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these
characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of
interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their
relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways
throughout Picassos career.