Guernica Paper
Standard 9: Global Connections and Interdependance
a. How language, art, music, belief systems, and other cultural elements can facilitate global
understanding or cause misunderstanding
Guernica
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso's Guernica is a remarkable piece that showed the pain and sufferings of its time
which brought worldwide attention to some terrible tragedies. This paper will look into
Guernica; the content behind it, some of the formal matters, and the impact of the painting. First,
the paper will give a little background on Pablo Picasso; some of his life influences and some of
his major periods of art, but with the main thrust why the painting came to be in the time and
location it was made in.
Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain on October 25, 1881. (Works of Art) Pablo was the
oldest of his siblings. He grew up in what would be considered a middle- class family. His father,
a painter and a professor of art, has a great influence on his life, although his influence is in a bit
of a different nature. Picasso's father took pride in the idea that proper training meant
indoctrinated copying of the masters. Pablo liked his art in somewhat of a more rebellious
manner.
Early on in Picasso's childhood/teen years he was already faced with adversity. He watched his
young sister decay before his eyes, and his parents' struggle to save her. On January 10, 1895
Pablo's seven-year-old sister Conchita dies of diphtheria, Picasso was only thirteen years old at
the time. This has a great effect on him and his family. His family would soon pack up and move
to Barcelona. (Creator and Destroyer)
Once in Barcelona, Picasso passed his entrance exam into the Barcelona School of Fine Arts at
age 14 in one day. (Biography) He was a rebel and he began to frequently go to Barcelona Cafes
where intellectuals gathered. (Art for Dummies) One of the cafes Picasso went often was Els
Quarte Gats. (Creator and Destroyer) This was a place for artists to show their work and discuss
their ideas. Picasso ate up the ideals with the notion to break free from tradition.
At age 19 Picasso packs up his bags and moves to Paris. He neither wrote nor spoke any French.
Soon a man named Max Jacob would enter his life and become his caretaker and worshiper.
(Creator and Destroyer)
Only after a short time in Paris, in the summer of 1900 one will begin to see Picasso's mood and
style change. He had changed his focus of painting towards the solitude and pain of humility. He
expressed this with the color blue, and by 1901 Pablo Picasso's Blue Period is in full swing.
(Creator and Destroyer) It is during the Blue Period that Picasso paints of Spain while in Paris.
He strictly used shades of blues and blue-greens, only occasionally using other colors to warm
the piece. This period would last four years.
In 1904 Pablo would meet Fernande Oliver, a model. Picasso and Oliver would frequent the
Circus Medrano. The Circus's pink tent could be seen for miles. Soon thereafter, Picasso's Blue
Period would fade into his new Rose Period. Associated with the use of the colors orange and
pink, Picasso was now painting figures of the circus actors he frequently went to see. (Most
Famous Artist) The Rose Period would last from 1905-1906. (Biography)
With a brief amount of time spent in what was called the African Period, next came Cubism.
Cubism is often considered his most important time period because of his role in pioneering the
movement. Cubism is a style that Picasso created with is a good friend George Braque. Cubism,
in laymen's terms, is essential taking a three dimensional object and splitting it up into flat areas,
or geometric shapes, of pattern and color. Often, these flat areas overlap each other so that the
shapes and the different parts of a human can be seen with a front and a back perspective at the
same time. (Art for Dummies) Cubism is also associated with the use of monochrome brown
colors. The artist analyzes the object within the medium of the painting. (Biography 2) Picasso
was defiantly getting noticed during this time period. In 1911, because of his shifts away from
traditional art, he was accused, arrested and eventually released in relation to the theft of the
Mona Lisa. (Top 25)
Now to jump ahead a couple decades to 1937 and come to Pablo Picasso's most important piece,
Guernica, called his landmark painting. (Biography) Picasso had been commissioned by the
Spanish government to create a piece for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World's Fair. The
painting is twenty-five feet across by eleven feet high. For the first time ever, he allowed the
opportunity for an audience to watch him work. Picasso completed Guernica in a month's time.
(Creator and Destroyer) Guernica was created in all black and white and shades of gray in
association with his Cubist Movement.
Guernica was based on the bombing of the town of Guernica, Spain on April 26, 1937 by fortythree German planes. The bombing killed 1,600 of the 7,000 people that lived there and
destroyed seventy percent of the town. (Creator and Destroyer) Guernica was painted to show
the world the terrible things that were happening in the Spanish Civil War. This civil war was
from July 17, 1936 when a group of Spanish Army generals tried to the Second Spanish
Republic. The war would end on April 1, 1939 leaving a dictatorship lead by Fascist General
Francisco Franco. The onset of mass media gave an unprecedented level of attention, and both
sides of the war had support from outside countries. This war was noted for the passion and
political division it inspired. Also it was recognized for the atrocities committed by both sides of
the conflict. (A History of Spain and Portugal)
This wasn't just bad for Spain, but a time of disparity for almost everyone around the world,
which is possibly why this painting was and is such a big deal. In 1937 there is a terrible
depression that is affecting the world as a whole. The depression started with the ending of
World War I on November 11th, 1918. Many would think that the ending of world war would be
a good thing, which it was, but the combination of the tragedies that happened during the war
and the decisions made by the countries left in power created much turmoil in Europe at the time.
The first thing that needs attention when discussing the aftermath of WWI is the obvious
destruction that was caused by the war. Entire countries were practically destroyed. People left
had absolutely nothing. World War I was a whole new type of war to the world. It was called the
War to End All Wars. It was called this for the terrible destruction it caused. Never before had
anything like this ever been seen. All this destruction was due to all the new technology available
and the pure mass and size of the fighting going on. Trenches lefts cites and the countryside in
shambles. For the first time ever "total war" was seen. Over 65 million men fought between the
Central and Allied powers. It is estimated that as many as 10 million men died in battle and
another 20 million were wounded. (The war to end all wars)
The next thing to consider is the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919. The
treaty gave 100% of the blame and responsibility of World War I on Germany. Because
Germany was completely destroyed and had just surrendered to the Allied Powers, they really
didn't get much of an input in the treaty. They were told to sign the treaty or be invaded. So they
were given extreme military restrictions, land was taken away, and probably the worst blow was
that they were responsible to reparations to the allies. (The Treaty of Versailles.) This treaty
would devastate German financially for years to come and would eventually become an
influencing factor in World War II.
World War I brought Britain from being the world's largest overseas investor to one of the
world's biggest debtors. 40% of all government spending went to interest on loans that needed
paying from the war effort. This type of problem was congruent throughout all the powers that
fought in the World War I. The financial woes didn't end there. After the war, the United States
became the banking center of the world. Every country in the world was taking out loans from
the United States and its banks in efforts to rebuild their ravished country. So when the stock
market crash of 1929 happened it sent Europe even further down its spiraling hole of a
depression. (Consequences)
Guernica was initially showed at the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition in
July of 1937. It went on tour and was laid rest at the museum of Modern Art in New York until
1981. It was then moved to Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain until 1992 where is moved to where
it is stays today, Queen Sofia Center of Art. Picasso would not allow it back into Spain until the
end of the rule of Fascism and General Francisco Franco. (Biography)
Pablo Picasso created Guernica to represent the pain and suffering of a city, and it eventually
became the pain and suffering of the world. Guernica shows the affliction of people, animals,
and buildings all rippled by chaos. This scenes portrayal through Cubism created a feeling that
could not have been replicated by any other style of painting. The abstract notion leads to the
feeling of pain and heartache felt by a city, and a county, and a world as a whole. Hopefully this
pain and suffering of this time and location will not be repeated.
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