Guernica

Guernica

Cubism; Surrealism; Spanish civil war.

The complex composition, with Picasso’s characteristic Cubist figures and disquieting representation of space, was not easy to read. A braying horse occupies the painting’s centre, stumbling over its fallen rider sprawled below and lit by the spiked rays of a light bulb above. A bellowing bull on the left seems to encompass a wailing mother with her child laying slack in her arms. A ghostly figure emerges from an opening to the right, holding a gaslight, while a woman closer to the foreground hangs her arms in despair. Farther back, flames and possibly ruins consume a howling figure. The dramatic subject is subdued, painted in the grisaille technique, a method using a neutral monochrome palette.

Picasso, Pablo

Material: Oil on canvas
Measurements: 349,3 x 776,6 cm

1937

Ballester-Clemente, Irina

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.

Image/JPEG

Still Image

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