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Pablo Picasso - Guernica (1937).
Subject Matter, influences, and cultural contexts.
Picasso had become involved in political matters in late 1930’s, when in 1936, civil war broke
out, resulting in Franco being installed in power.
At the end of April.1937, General Franco (Fascist) and his German allies bombed to
destruction, the ancient Basque capital of Guernica, Spain. This town immediately went to
being symbolic via the media. Franco, the Germans and the Vatican denied responsibility and
blamed retreating Republican (opp. to Fascists) forces.
Picasso immediately began a series of prep drawings for his huge mural–sized painting.
Prior to this, he had been working on a very political work The Dream and Lie of Franco.
(etching and aquatint). It was a personal attack on Franco.
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Materials, techniques, art practices.
These etchings were done very rapidly over 2 days in Jan. 1937.
They were accompanied by a poem that demonstrated his interest in Surrealist “automatism”.
# Picasso mastered all techniques. He was able to absorb them all, so that
they made no demands on him.
When it came to working on Guernica, Picasso maintained a public record of the workings of
his mind as he worked through the painting.
# this was the first time an artist had thought to preserve all the stages of a painting.
He was helped in this by his new mistress at the time, Dora Maar, (who was an accomplished
photographer in her own right).
He started with pencil sketches on paper. Then worked pencil on gesso–painted board, which
lent itself to linear methods, but he starts to loose the fluid line in favour for more jagged
volumes. The limbs are torqued and twisted into linear clashes. Different manners are
combined in the same drawing, from the smooth lines of the bulls head to to the jagged ugly
lines of the warriors spear.
At this point, Picasso is cutting down on all the formal urges of colour etc as he concentrated
on the line and form of this huge painting. It was probably at this point that he decided to stay
with black and white.
At the same time, he painted an oil painting on canvas, again in tones of black and white, of a
horses head, twisted upwards in suffering.
He also did some softer drawings of the bull, making it look quite angelic.
# Picasso never forgot any previous painting of his and he never rejected or
regretted any of his previous artistic production.
Communication of ideas and meaning / signs and symbols.
From the moment the minotaur – ½ man, ½ bull – appeared in Picasso’s work (in the Vollard
Suite series (of 1931-1934) , it took on many different rolls, sometimes brutal, sometimes
serene. That the bull takes on human behaviours, becomes part of the symbolism of
Guernica.
The Minotaur Defeated, Vollard Suite.
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However, of the bull in Guernica, Picasso said, << The bull is not Fascism, but it is brutality
and darkness…the horse represents the people…the Guernica mural is symbolic…allegoric.
That’s the reason I used the horse, the bull and so on. The mural is for the definite expression
and resolution of a problem, and that is why I used symbolism.>> 1
In Picasso’s prep drawings for Guernica, he had a bird flying out of a split in the horse”s
stomach to symbolise “regeneration”, but wisely decided it was too obvious. ( the flower
symbolises regrowth in the final painting.) So despite the horror of this terrible incident at
Guernica, Picasso didn’t forget 40 years of being a subtle and aesthetically aware artist in
order to be deliberately political.
The establishment of Picasso’s iconography ( common characteristics or themes in
artworks) becomes increasingly important in the 12 years leading up to Guernica. About half
way, in 1930, he painted a Crucifiction.
The iconography is first of all Christian (Christ on the cross), but also primitive, with
references to Greek and Neo-Classical art (in the folds of the cloth) and also cultural (small
Spanish? conquistador/soldier). It is a complex use of the symbolism of pagan and Christian
religion – both leading to sacrifice.
The same combination of symbolism can be seen in Minotauromachie.(1935). Notice again
the Christ figure, but this time he climbs the ladder, instead of being carried down off the
cross.
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Timothy Hilton, Picasso. Pg.241.
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At a time when the concept of childhood innocence was being challenged by the psychiatrist,
Sigmund Freud, for Picasso the little girl was still a symbol of innocence. She first appeared in
his Blue period (1901-04). Here she holds out a guiding light and bunch of flowers, conveying
hope. (remember the flower later used in Guernica ).
Aesthetic qualities.
Guernica is frieze –like (a frieze is a long strip of raised or 3D figures, usually telling a story
and attached to a building).
To take account for this, Picasso deliberately flattened it’s compositional elements. He went
back to his first imitations of shallow Cubist space. He did this in a similar fashion to the way
he reversed the normal colour values in Crucifiction,- the limbs that are furthest from the
picture plane are in an advancing colour (strong acid yellows etc) and those that are closest
are in a receding colour, (even white). In Guernica, he applied the same principle, only in
tones of black and white. He then floated over this flattened space, the spread-out, precise
battle scene.
Compositionally, the painting is held together by the the central triangle.
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