What was guernica painted for

He holds a flower in his hand [5]. While the figures of women and the soldier are conceptually quite straightforward, the bull and horse have drawn varying interpretations over the years.

However, some speculations have theorized that the bull, which lacks the emotional expression of the rest of the figures, is an emblem of Franco or fascism. These theories indicate that it is precisely the bull that is tearing the town apart, which would explain its emotionless eyes.

There are also theories that claim Pablo was inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Following the closing of the Paris Expo, Guernica went on a tour in Europe. After the civil war ended and Franco took power as the Republic folded their arms, the painting continued to travel with aims of helping raise funds for Spanish Republican refugees who had fled the country in time.

In , the piece was returned to MoMA and deemed no longer fit to travel - decades of transport took its toll and left the painting in a precarious physical state. It remained in New York until when it was brought back to Spain, to Museo Reina Sofia, as per Pablo's wishes who insisted that the piece must not be returned to the Spanish soil until Franco was dead.

Although this was a fairly personal reasoning, it also made a lot of sense for the safety of Guernica - the artwork would certainly be destroyed almost immediately if it came back during Franco's reign. Interestingly enough, it was the time during which Guernica was stationary in New York City that marked the painting's international rise in popularity, allowing it to take a life beyond the canvas [7].

The piece became synonymous with places where defenseless civilians came under attack. And by doing so, it began to take on particular resonance for anti-war protestors who began treating the piece as a source of motivation and the tragedy of the Spanish town as a reference.

The way Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals became iconic and the mural became much more than even Pablo could predict - the painting gained a monumental status, becoming an embodiment of peace.

Picasso From Minotaur to Guernica focuses on a key phase of transition in Picasso's art, from his numerous depictions of the Minotaur myth in the late s and early s to his majestic and tragic masterpiece, Guernica. The Minotaur, contained in a labyrinth where it was fed Athenian youths, serves in part as a metaphor for destructive bestial drives under containment, but in Picasso's works on the theme, the Minotaur is set free into the world, where it frequently finds itself stumbling and dumbstruck.

This expression of destructive drives finally culminates in the terrible aerial bombing recorded in Guernica. From Minotaur to Guernica is authored by Catalan poet Josep Palau i Fabre , one of the artist's earliest admirers and experts, who has made several close analyses of other phases in Picasso's prolific career. All images used for illustrative purposes only. March 24, Andrey V. Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning. Pablo Picasso, The Three Musicians. Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Glass, and Bottle.

Conservation Picasso's Guitars. Picasso, Guernica. Practice: Cubism and its impact. Next lesson. Google Classroom Facebook Twitter. Sort by: Top Voted. There a building burns. And all around, empty doorways and windows gape like missing teeth and empty eye socket in the burned out skull of a city. While the figures and symbols are a commentary on war in general, and the setting of this painting perfectly represents the town of Guernica, blasted into rubble by the bombs of the Luftwaffe.

Placed centrally in the painting, Picasso painted a rearing horse with rolling eyes and distended teeth—its face is so anguished, you can almost hear it scream and you even might miss the spear piercing it from back to front. On the left, a bull seems to guard the mother and child, or perhaps looms over them like the shadow of the war, while in the distant background, barely visible, a bird shrieks at the sky.

While the bull may indeed symbolize war or perhaps bullfighting, referencing both Spain in particular and the human desire for dominance in general I believe the suffering horse is a metaphor for the undeserved death that war often brings to the innocent.

Even more telling is the electric bulb casting a harsh light from above, in sharp contrast to the hand-held oil lamp. Picasso placed those two elements right next to each other for a reason:. And everywhere else in this painting we simply see the atrocities of war. Limbs are huge, swollen and wounded. Mouths gape in soundless screams, eyes are wide in terror, brows are furrowed in anguish. A single warrior lies broken and dismembered at the base of the painting, trampled by the death throes of the horse above him.

His arm clutches a broken sword, separated from his body. In Guernica we find no solace in humanity—all is death and destruction. Picasso painted Guernica over the course of just 35 days, a stunning achievement for such a large work, especially one that has made such a mark in history.

While Picasso is best-known for his modern, abstract paintings, he still learned to draw and paint realistically at a very young age. His own style of painting only began to emerge when he was 19 and living in Paris.