Week 15 Art Analysis

Viewing the painting Guernica, by Pablo Picasso, answer the following questions to the best of your ability. Be sure the use citations if you are using references in your answers.

Be sure to review the rubric that will be used to assess your work.

1. Use the vocabulary you have learned in class to describe this artwork or performance in detail.

2. What processes were used to create this work? What social influences might the artist be responding to and why?

3. What is the relationship of this work to the time and society in which it was created? Describe the symbols used to express this relationship.

4. Identify elements in the work that evoke a persuasive or emotional response. Be specific about what those responses are and why.

5. Evaluate what you perceive to be the strengths and weaknesses of the work.  Apply discipline specific vocabulary and concepts when describing your point of view.

In this painting, Guernica by Pablo Picasso, you can see an abstract view of both animals and people. They are all running, crying, dying, severed, and in clear destruction and pain. The painting is all black, white and blue oil on canvas, which allows you to feel the darkness of what these people were experiencing. His abstract use of geometric shapes throughout is part of the cubism movement. It is such a large piece, that it is the size of a mural. It illustrates the mass panic of the people of Spain at the time of their civil war. In this piece he wanted to show the tragedy and suffering that war inflicts on innocent people. This political statement was his immediate response to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War (https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp). Pablo Picasso used this painting to criticize Francisco Franco, who at the time made a treaty with Germany, since he himself was a fascist. In the painting Picasso is illustrating the mass suffering of the bombing by aircraft, that Franco allowed his own people to suffer in order to gain control of the nation. It has been said that Guernica is one the most complex, yet understood paintings to this day.  The bull head is representative of Spain because it is a traditional animal of their culture that is used for bull fighting and other cultural traditions. The mother holding the dead baby baby, a soldier disfigured, the various heads of different animals, all of these represent the parents losing their children and the children losing their parents, soldiers dying in a lost cause, the devastation of the town. This all symbolizes the upcoming WWII. This is not tradition art, in other words it is not a realistic painting. It looks messy and doesn't give you an easily recognizable image. That would be this paintings weakness. Although, it does clearly illustrate the chaos that was happening at the time and therefor, it is a very celebrated and well known piece of art. It was well understood for what it represents, while catching your attention because of its abstract and unusual style. The strength of this painting is its ability to catch peoples attention, because of how different it is, which actually made the world aware of the Spanish Civil War.