Guernica

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Guernica         In 1937, Pablo Picasso painted Guernica, oil on canvas. The Republican Spanish government commissioned the mural for the 1937 World Fair in Paris. Guernica is a large mural, twenty-six feet wide and eleven feet tall, and was placed at the entrance to Spain's pavilion. Picasso did not do any work after receiving the commission until reading of the bombing of the Basque village of Guernica, in Spain. It was that attack, perpetrated by the German Luftwaffe, that inspired him. Guernica, however, is not a complete depiction of that event. In Guernica, Picasso masterfully conveys the suffering of the Basque people and the tragedy of war. He seeks not to report on every detail of the ...

... of the bull is very dark in comparison to its head, representing two distinct partitions and a clear division. Picasso procrastinated in starting his mural scheduled to debut at the Paris World Fair until he received news of the bombing of Guernica. When he learned of the attack, he set to work immediately "determined to . . . shock and disturb its viewers." Certainly, Picasso's Guernica is fundamentally a historical account, a vivid depiction of a singular event. But, the underlying theme of Guernica is also clear; all war is an injustice to mankind and despite the fact that mankind will overcome and reunite, war is the worst tragedy to fall on anyone. Work Cited Doroux, Suzanne.

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