2. On first showing, Guernica came under severe criticism from fascists
(“degenerate”) and communists (“anti-social”) alike, besides baffling many
critics and viewers.
GUERNICA
3. Starting on the 1st of May 1937, Picasso took five weeks to complete Guernica,
which was staggeringly fast for such a monumental work. Forty-five dated
sketches for the composition and figures show how it evolved.
COMPOSITION
6. The painting it divided into three parts united by a triangular structure.
This composition draws the viewer’s attention to the screaming horse.
TRIANGULAR STRUCTURE
7. The canvas was so high, Picasso had to slope it against the wall at one end of
his studio to fit it into the space. He used a ladder and brushes strapped to
sticks to reach the top part of the painting.
THE SCALE
8. ‘The bull is not fascism but it is
brutality and darkness…
(Picasso, 1945)’
The ambivalent bull/minotaur
figure obsessed Picasso and was a
regular theme in his work. Here,
the visible presence of a faded
third eye shows how Picasso was
continually reworking this
painting. The final version shows
the helpless bull confronting the
viewer with human eyes.
THE BULL
9. The bull is both the hero and the
victim.
He stands almost protectively over
the woman screaming and mourning
her daughter’s death, yet the bull is
also amid the carnage, staring
helplessly towards the audience with
human eyes, mouth wide and
gaping.
Picasso was influenced by
Surrealism, and the bull was adopted
as a motif that symbolised man
irrationality by the Surrealists.
THE BULL
10. Originally, Picasso drew a boldly raised arm
with a clenched fist (the familiar salute of
the Spanish Republican forces) as the
painting’s focal point. However, unhappy
with the obvious symbolism, Picasso
replaced the raised arm with the twisted
features of the horse, whose spiked tongue
evokes the primal scream of pain of the
innocent victims of war.
Many feel the horse is a direct symbol of
the pain of the people of Guernica, with
the dotted lines on it’s body reminiscent of
how the attack flooded the newspapers with
printed text of the horrors they
experienced.
THE HORSE
11. After erasing much of his overly symbolic
imagery, Picasso couldn’t resist leaving
several hidden motifs within the painting.
These included a second bull’s head, formed
by the horse’s bent front right leg, which
appears to be nuzzling the statue’s hand.
While the bull appears to be neutral, it could
be goring the horse from underneath.
There is also a hidden skull within the
horse’s nose.
HIDDEN WITHIN THE HORSE
12. Picasso originally painted a sun before converting it into an eye with a light bulb.
The electric light bulb is a source of evil, the spotlights of the air bombers that
searched down into Guernica for targets with their bombs and machine guns,
which challenges the soft, innocent light of the lamp.
The Spanish word for light bulb is bombia, which is similar to bomba, the Spanish
word for bomb.
EYE AND LIGHT BULB
13. The woman holding the lamp with the
candle light illuminates the chaotic
scene, was recognised as a symbol of
enlightenment. This motif has also been
used most famously by the Statue of
Liberty.
WOMAN HOLDING THE LAMP
14. The image of the grief-
stricken mother holding
her dead child echoes a
famous pose of suffering
in art, most famously in
Michelangelo’s Pieta.
Picasso distorts the
mother’s body – splayed
fingers, arched neck and
gaping mouth, releasing a
silent scream – to
heighten the emotional
impact.
WOMAN HOLDING DEAD CHILD
Pieta depicts Jesus cradled
on his mother Mary’s lap
after the crucifixion.
Michelangelo was only 24
when he completed Pieta.
