Picasso's Guernica Analysis

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Name: Charleston Lim

Class: 5.13

The following text type is a painting entitled ‘Guernica’ by Pablo Picasso dated in 1937. 1937 was the period of Spanish Civil war and this painting was created in response to the bombing of Guernica. The intention Pablo Picasso had creating this painting was probably to depict scenes of the tragedies of war, loss of innocent lives. The attitude of Pablo Picasso shown through this painting would be that he is one that is truly against war, as shown by the helplessness of many faces in the painting.

The whole outlook of this painting already gives audience a gloomy mood due to colours used in the painting. There are only three colours used in this painting: white, black and grey. These colours are neither striking nor attractive and thus give the painting a dismal and dreary outlook. This could be Picasso’s intention, to make the painting look dispirited, showing the futility of war.

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On the top left hand corner of the painting, there is a hybrid of a one eyed bull and a horse.  The Bull could be used to represent bull-fighting, which was very famous in Spain in that period of time. The horse could then be interpreted as war-animals as Horses were means of transport during 1937. This hybrid thus highlights the violence of the war as by mixing both the bull and horse together, it would show the violent nature of the animal and thus the violence of war.

Right below the hybrid animal is a woman grieving over a ...

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