Pablo Picasso's Influence On Guernica

Pablo Picasso, born on October 25, 1973, was a Spanish painter and father of cubism. His work in art and the cubism movement allowed him to challenge the boundaries of traditionally styled and accepted work and become “one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century.” He began experimenting with cubism when in 1907 he painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a painting of “abstracted and distorted” prostitutes. A painting like this had never been seen nor done before. Cubism, in fact, is a movement which emphasizes the abstract form of objects by “highlighting their composite geometric shapes” and creating “collage-like effects” (Pablo Picasso Biography). Rather than painting the image he sees, Picasso aimed to show his subjects

In fact, Picasso created many sketches in an attempt to properly capture the devastation of the town during the war. One of his first sketches (Figure 1), influenced by artist Francisco Goya, depicted a dying horse, bull, “wounded picador,” and a crying woman with a “dead child in her arms.” In this painting, all but the bull appears to be dying or hurt. In fact, the bull stands in the background, seemingly unharmed by the tragedies on the street. His later sketches (Figure 2) include a woman looking from her window and discovering the horror of the street below as well as more nameless individuals dying on the streets. Similar to his sketches, the final painting also has a bull who seems unaffected by the events as well as a multitude of people screaming and horrified by what they have just witnessed. Also, the woman looking out the window is also present in the final image. However, the final product (Figure 3) appears to emphasize the geometric qualities of people and animals, an approach which is not fully employed in his earlier sketches. Also, Picasso stresses the difference between light and dark in the final painting which is not as apparent in his sketches. Finally, there is “a triangle made up of the horse and two of its victims” (Picasso’s Guernica) in the completed painting, showing that, especially in times of crisis, people become connected in surprising ways. Now the painting is seen as a “national monument”