DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Help

Search

Advanced Search

Find results with:

Add another field

Search by date

to

Searching collections:

Visual Resources Center Digital Image Collection

Add or remove collections

Home Guernica.

Reference URL

Share

Add tags

Comment

Rate

To link to this object, paste this link in email, IM or document

To embed this object, paste this HTML in website

Guernica.

View Description

Loading content ...

you wish to report:

Your comment:

Your Name:

Submit

Cancel

...

Back to top

Powered by CONTENTdm®

Larger Image	Larger image may be viewed by UofL faculty, staff, and students only (log-in required using ULink username/password) at: http://echo.louisville.edu/login?url=http://vrc-web.louisville.edu/Jpegs/430/437-42.jpg
Title	Guernica.
Creator	Picasso, Pablo (Spanish painter, sculptor, and printmaker, 1881-1973)
Date	1937
Cultural Context	Spanish European Western European
Style/Period	Cubist Analytical Cubist Synthetic Cubist Surrealist Modern (styles and periods) Abstract (fine arts style)
Theme	Paintings (visual works) Oil paintings (visual works) Civil wars Spain--History--Civil War, 1936-1939 Wars Political art Politics Government Tyrants Dictators Dictatorship Fascism Civilization Destruction Deaths Dismemberment Distortion Mutilation Protests Protesting Emotion Gesture Figurative art Figures (representations) Profiles (figures) Front views Infants Children (people by age group) Women Mothers Parents Families Soldiers Military personnel Men (male humans) Heads (animal or human components) Heads (representations) Animals Horses Bulls (animals) Cattle Horn (animal material) Lamps (lighting devices) Light (energy) Reason
Subject	Paintings Oil paintings Civil wars War Politics & government Political issues Dictators Nazis Fascism Civilization Bombings Military tactics War destruction & pillage Death Dismemberment Body parts Mental states Despair Distress Grief Gestures Infants Children Women Mothers Families Soldiers Military personnel Men Heads (Anatomy) Animals Horses Teeth Supernatural beings Bulls Cattle Horns (Animal) Lamps Light Light bulbs
Description	"In this monumental work of 1937, Guernica, Picasso combined Analytic and Synthetic Cubist forms with several traditional motifs, juxtaposing them in a new Surrealist way. The combination serves the political message of the painting - namely, Picasso's powerful protest against the brutality of war and tyranny. […] From 1936 to 1939, there was a civil war between Spanish Republicans and the Fascist army of General Franco. In April 1937, Franco's Nazi allies carried out saturation bombing over the town of Guernica. Picasso painted Guernica to protest this atrocity. He loaned it to New York's Museum of Modern Art, stipulating that it remain there until democracy was restored in Spain. In 1981, Guernica was returned to Madrid. […] Consistent with its theme of death and dying, the painting is nearly devoid of color, although there is considerable tonal variation within the range of black to white. The absence of color enhances the journalistic quality of the painting, relating it to the news accounts of the bombing it protests. […] Guernica is divided into three sections - a central triangle with an approximate rectangle on either side. The base of the triangle extends from the arm of the dismembered and decapitated soldier at the left to the foot of the running woman at the right. The dying horse represents the death of civilization, though it may be rescued by the woman with a lamp (Liberty) rushing toward it. Another expression of hope, as well as of the light of reason, appears in the motif combining the shape of an eye with the sun's rays and a lightbulb just above the horse's head. On the right, the pose and gesture of a falling woman suggest Christ's Crucifixion. On the left, a woman holds a dead baby on her lap in a pose reminiscent of Mary supporting the dead Christ in the traditional Pietà scene. Behind the woman looms the specter of the Minotaur, the monstrous tyrant of ancient Crete, whose only human qualities are the flattened face and eyes. For Picasso, the Minotaur came to represent modern tyranny, as embodied by the Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco, who collaborated with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. […] These apparently disparate motifs are related by form and gesture, by their shared distortions, and by the power and content of their message. Cubist geometric shapes and sharp angles pervade the painting. Picasso's characteristic distortions of body and face emphasize the physical destruction of war. Eyes are twisted in and out of their sockets, ears and noses are slightly out of place, tongues are shaped like daggers, palms and feet are slashed. Although the integrity of the human form is maintained throughout, it is an object of attack and mutilation."
People Pictured	Minotaur (Greek mythology)
Location Depicted	Guernica (Spain) Spain
Material	Oil on canvas Oil paint (pigmented coating) Paint Canvas
Measurements	11 ft 5 1/2 in x 25 ft 5 3/4 in (3.49 x 7.77 m)
Technique	Oil painting (technique) Painting (image-making)
Work Type	Oil paintings Paintings
Repository	Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain)
Source	Adams, Laurie Schneider. Art Across Time. 2nd ed. 2 vols. New York: McGraw, 2002. (p.894, 25.12).
Rights	Photograph reproduced in Adams courtesy: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Photographic Archive, Madrid, Spain. © 2001 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Digital Publisher	University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format	image/jpeg
Digital File Name	VRC 437-42.jpg
Rating

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home Guernica.

Guernica.

Description

Tags

Comments