Guenica (1937) by Pablo Picasso: Painting

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Modernism is basically a movement in which the methods and ideas used in art, architecture, literature, etc. are very different from those used in past. In other words, the modernists reject the conservative values in creating novel artworks. In terms of painting or art, modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing art and abstraction is one of the main characteristics of modern art. There are many modernist or avant-garde movement under modern art such as cubism, impressionism, constructivism, etc. and the most renowned painter during modernism period is Pablo Picasso. He is the founder of cubism movement (1902-1912) along with Georges Braque. He also came out with the invention of constructed sculpture and collage. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937).

Guernica (1937)

The painting shown above is Picasso’s famous cubism painting, Guernica where it depicts the inhumanity, brutality, and hopelessness of war. A palette of gray, black, and white is used in completing the artwork. From my point of view, I like the way he only used three colors probably to portray the real meaning behind the painting which is the suffering of people due to violence and chaos. In fact, cubism style of painting concerns with using monochrome brownish and neutral colors only. Since modernism emphasizes on the shapes, colors, symbols and line that make up the artwork, hence we can conclude that Picasso used the combination of gray, black, and white to symbolize the grief, mourning, death, and sadness of the people after the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain, by Nazi German and Fascist Italian warplanes. It is very remarkable I must say. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form. Guernica painting looks like a lot of things is jumbled up into one place which creates a very abstract image where not many people would understand the painting as it is different from the normal and traditional painting. This is because modernism paintings are not meant to be looked literally with our own eyes but also with our hearts and minds. In short, it is beyond what we see and it is not what you see but how you see it.

This is definitely the part where I do not really favor in cubism or any modernism paintings as they can be too abstract that sometimes I find it hard to understand and analyze what the painters are trying to portray and deliver. In fact, I am a bit terrified looking at the above painting probably due to the way the subjects are drawn which can be said quite unusual. But then again, if we think about the main idea of modernism itself, we could say that the reason why Guernica or any other paintings look unusual with the subjects are scattered all over the canvas is because Picasso wants the people to interpret the symbols as they understand them. In short, it is up to them to define the meanings behind the symbols and they can be varied from one person to another. Nevertheless, I am totally impressed with those modernism artworks and it makes me wonder as to how did the painters’ or Picasso’s brain actually work that they could actually project it in the form of paintings. It is indeed amazing and incredible.