Description of the painting by Pablo Picasso “Guernica”

Description of the painting by Pablo Picasso Guernica The picture is a general protest against the Nazi bombing of the city of Guernica. It is filled with feelings of violence, agony, grief and suffering. It gives off a tragic sense of death, annihilation and destruction. There are no bombs, no city in the picture, only a flame of fire.

The images depicted on the canvas, transferred sufficiently in a simplified form. It creates the feeling of being in the basement. On the face of a man and a woman who are facing the viewer, stands out a mouth wide open from screaming, eyes shifted above the forehead and nostril openings. On the right side of the canvas one can observe the figures that run from the burning building.

Their windows of this building are falling woman. Near the man, whose hands are raised up, two human outlines of the face are visible, which are tense and anxious, but filled with determination. The left side of the canvas depicts a sobbing mother, with her head thrown

back, holding in her arms the dead child. This image symbolizes the grief of all mothers. The death of their children. Next to it is visible the image of a bull with a pronounced indifference, which tramples on a fallen warrior. In his hands is a broken sword, he is in a pose that resembles a crucifix.

The warrior symbolizes the viewer physical suffering. The symbol of the bull is rigidity, the personification of fascism, and the horse is the suffering of the innocent. A woman depicted with the profile of an ancient goddess is holding a burning lamp with her arm extended forward. Instead of a pupil she has a light bulb. Her mouth is wide open, she screams, but no one hears her. The horse fights in a fit of convulsion. Above all these images is an incandescent lamp.

Everything around is dying and collapsing. The picture is filled with symbols of anger, pain and revenge. A large role is played by lines, sometimes thin and round, and then suddenly sharp and refracting. They seem to express the human psyche with horror and pain.


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Description of the painting by Pablo Picasso “Guernica”