Art elements and design principles
Highlight and analyse the art elements and design principles you can see in the
image below.
Pablo Picasso. “Guernica” (1937) 3.5m x 7.8m.
Art elements
COLOUR blue /grey monochromatic LINE variety of thickness. Jagged
for buildings/curved for animals and people, going in all different directions.
Limbs etc are twisted into linear clashes.
SHAPE overlapping geometric emphasis on triangles
TONE full tonal range from light to dark - dark in background light area come
forward TEXTURE short sharp lines denote the texture on the horses coat.
FORM essentialy fairly flat but tone denotes roundness of horses neck,
triangular lines denote muscles on arm. Line also denotes perpective of window
COMPOSITION: The horizontal composition of Guernica is held together by a
simple geometric structure. It has 3 distinct areas – a large central section
based on a triangle with 2 vertical panels either side
SPACE crowded, flattened, shallow CONTRAST strong contrast through
colour/tone line – curves of people etc against jagged background
SCALE size of canvas
makes
it overwhelming.
Some
objectshere
out of scale and
Copy and
paste
an image you wish
to analyse
proportion eg, head coming through door.
PATTERN is created through
repetition of coloured shapes, lines on horses coat.
MOVEMENT despite
there being a lot of overall moving individuals, overall, the feel is very static.
BALANCE symmetrically balanced around a central triangle, but overlaid with
asymmetric balance of colour and tonal shapes
FOCAL POINT/EMPHASIS eye drawn to light bulb at top which in turn casts
triangular light shape (and your eye)downwards UNITY very unified through
overall composition and combination of art elements.
Design principles
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© Bowden, D’Aglas, Lindley, Hannan, D’Angelo 2010
Elements and principles of design revision table
Complete this revision table comparing a number of artists, artworks and
artforms. Refer back to this table regularly to help enhance your recall.
Topic
Description of idea
Artist: Pablo Picasso
Artwork: Guernica (1937) oil on canvas. 3.5 x 7.8m. (effectively a mural)
Artstyle: Cubism
Picasso had become involved in political matters in late 1930’s, when in 1936, civil war broke out in Spain,
resulting in the Fascist, General Franco being installed in power.
He was commissioned to paint a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris.
Postcards, to be sold, were to be made of his work. He wasn’t sure about taking this commission.
At the end of April.1937, General Franco 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 now knew what he was going to paint for his commissioned mural.
It exhibits powerful emotions of grief and rage.
Influences: culturally – the Spanish bullfight, Historically – the European tradition of history painting eg; “The
3rd of May” by Francisco Goya (1808).
Description of materials
and techniques:
• Ceramics
• Drawing
• Multimedia
• Painting
• Photography
• Printmaking
• Sculpture
• Textiles.
Picasso immediately began a series of drawings that were done very rapidly over 2 days in May,
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, especially after viewing newspaper reports at the time.
At the same time, he painted an oil painting on canvas, again in tones of black and white, of a
horse’s 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.
In making this giant canvas, the framework would have been braced to allow for the contraction
of the stretched canvas material when primed with gesso. He would have drawn out the basic
composition, possibly with charcoal.
A raised arm with a hammer and sickle formed the central axis in the first outline, but was
subsequently painted out with later painting. Picasso would have painted from the ground up,
blocking in large areas of blacks, greys and whites. Oil paint is slow drying and so there is
flexibility to push the paint around and change the tonal qualities as he went.
As he was so used to doing, Picasso first drew in a shallow Cubist space. He then floated over
the top, a spread-out, precise, frieze-like historical battle – it has a similar combination of static
and tumultuous forms.
Early in the painting, the blacks came to the fore , invading the canvas from the ground up. He
then experimented with half-tones, using wallpaper swatches to define a range of greys before
painting them in. Lastly, with the inclusion of the light bulb and lamp, he introduced the whites as
if shining a light on the scene.
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Description of the
elements and
principles of design
used:
Elements:
•
line
•
shape
•
form
•
texture
•
tone
•
colour.
Principles
•
space
•
contrast
•
scale
•
pattern
•
unity
•
rhythm/movement
•
balance
•
emphasis.
Description of how the
artwork has assisted in
communicating the
ideas/intent of the artist
(including the symbols
used).
The composition of Guernica is held together by a simple geometric structure. It has 3 distinct areas – a
large central section based on a triangle with 2 vertical panels either side. The faces of the women and
soldier on the ground direct the viewer’s eye to the top of the picture, towards the source of destruction – the
sky from which the bombs come. The flattened oval at the top is half sun, half light bulb, creating an
uncertainty of whether the scene is outside or inside, as does the tiled floor and the tiled roof. This
uncertainty is a fitting representation of the home that were bombed to pieces.
Jagged Linear clashes
Emphasis on triangular shapes
Natural volumes of limbs are torqued and twisted into linear clashes.
Short strokes of horse hair also representative of newspaper print
. Full tonal range from dark to light
Monochromatic austerity . The b/w colour scheme undoubtedly owes something to the newspaper reports
of the bombing.
Flattened shallow space
Strong contrast through colour, tone, line.
Large scale
Pattern created through repetition of colour shapes and texture lines on horse.
Unified horizontal composition
Static overlaid by tortured movement of individual people and animals.
Symmetrically balance background overlaid by asymmetrical balance of shapes and tonal qualities
Eye drawn to light bulb at top from which everything then follows.
Since his childhood, Picaso was fascinated with the figure of the bull – it is the protagonist, but
at no point over the development of the painting, is it vicious. If he has slaughtered the horse, he
has not necessarily caused its suffering. This harks back to the bullfight where the picador’s
horse is used to entice the bull while the toreador thrusts in the last spears to kill the bull.
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. Likewise the oval
shape at the top was originally a sun, but Picasso decided that this was also too obvious, so
changed it to light bulb. This may have influenced by the strong photographers light in his studio
as Dora Marr chronicled the progress of the painting. It also creates ambiguity between interior
and exterior space.
In the original drawings, a clenched upright fist becomes a dismembered arm clutching a broken
sword , thereby going from victory to defeat.
The flower could symbolize regrowth in the final painting, just as the single tree in Guernica that
actually survive the bombing.
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.
It is also where the “weeping woman” first appears. This is the beginning of a famous series
which was to follow, based around his tumultuous relationship with Dora Marr.
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© Bowden, D’Aglas, Lindley, Hannan, D’Angelo 2010