"
Guernica" was painted by Picasso, who also created the work shown in this photo.
In 1936, civil war broke out in Spain between royalist forces led by General Franco and the elected republican government. The artist Pablo Picasso, who sympathized with the republican side, painted "Guernica" in 1937 to commemorate a notorious event that occurred during that conflict, when German airplanes allied to Franco bombed the town of Guernica.
Instructions
1. Look for the painting's three key symbolic figures--the bull, the horse and the lady with the lamp. The bull represents brute force, the horse suffering. The lady with the lamp is a more ambivalent figure, which combines a feeling of desperation in the urgency of its movement with a suggestion of hope in the lamp itself.
2. Note that Picasso has chosen not to represent the attack on Guernica literally--there are no airplanes or bombs. Instead, there is a stylized representation of fire in the top right corner, and towards the bottom of the picture you can see a figure clutching a broken sword. These are timeless representations of the cost of conflict. Combined with the figures of the bull and horse, they give this painting a mythological power.
3. Observe the electric light bulb and shade which overhang mayhem. For all its terror, the scene is not happening in complete darkness. This cold, factual light gives the painting a documentary feeling and is a warning to those who commit atrocities that their actions will not go unobserved or unreported.
