Modern Painting: Guernica

Report on a modern painting with people and animals

Guernica

“Guernica” was painted in 1937 by the famous modern painter Pablo Picasso, in Spain.

The artist

Pablo Diego José Fransico de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, most common known as Picasso (25/10/1881), was a Spanish painter, sculptist and a graphic artist. He was the first child of José Ruis Blasco and María Picasso López. His father (José) was also an artist, teacher of arts classes, and a conservatist. He had two sisters, Lola and Conchita. Picasso had a lot of wifes, whom he often used as a model for his paintings. Everytime he fell in love again, his style of painting changed. He has four children: Paulo, Maya, Claude and Paloma. He studied at the academy of Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, and has since then painted many famous painting. He had several different periods of painting like the Pink, the Blue, the Cubist, the Classic, the Surrealistic and the Abstract Period. He died on the 8th of April 1973, at the age of 92, in Mougins in France.

The painting

There is much to be seen on the painting. There is a horse running into a house in panic. On the right of the painting somebody is falling of a burning roof and there is a mother crying about her dead child. Picasso wanted to show the chaos in Guernica during the bombardment. In the front there is a man with a broken sword, the symbol for a dead soldier. The lamp is a symbol for explosions and the bombardment of Guernica. The painting was made during the Latter Period, in which Picasso withdrew himself from publicity. Even though he wasn’t as famous as he’d once been, he still made very nice, and a lot of paintings.

For “Guernica”, Picasso used oil-paint (grey, red, white) to make his most famous painting ever. He used it in a rather abstract way, because human and animal figures can be recognised, but it doesn’t look like the normal shapes at all. There is no clear direction in the painting, because it has to represent the chaos of the bombing of the town of Guernica in Spain in 1936. So everything, horses, people and other things in the painting are running in a chaotic way.

My opinion

Personally, I do not like “Guernica”, but I’m not an arts-liking person at all. I like some of the 17th century Dutch art like Rembrandt, and some Vincent van Gogh, but I do not like most art.

My resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting)

Digital self-portrait

Dear,

Today I post a digitally edited self-portrait of myself, made with GIMP. As you can see on the picture I have to look like something is really wrong with me, although there are a lot of bright colours. My message with the picture is: Even if you are different, try to look at life with a smile. I hope this does not offend anybody, otherwise I would like to hear it so I can remove the picture.

Collage

Dear person,

In this message I will publish a collage which I made. It had to represent something about you. I have tried to represent I like winter with the collage. I thought that the dark background and white undergroud, which is supposed to look like snow, perfectly suit the winter, together with the images included.

With dear regards,

Ruben Verhelst

Class T3A

Self-portrait

Dear person,


I made some paintings in the Van Gogh style (or at least tried to), for art’s class because we had to. I tried to make the first one in the colours red, blue and thin purple for the background and red, yellow and some orange to make it kind of look like I’m in a very angry mood. I also made the colours go in a kind of wave from down left to up left to try and create a 3d picture what wasn’t very successful. In the second painting I tried to make a nice combination of the colour blue/yellow, red/purple and red/yellow to create a kind of illness. I noticed that the head was drawn to big, but it was too late. Also the other lines in the face aren’t the same as in the first one so I think the face is a failure on itself. I think the colours for the background were pretty successful, except from the fields of yellow which are too big. The colours in the body are also quite good, then again the field of orange and the lines of red are too big. But then the colours of the face, which are totally disastrous in comparison the other painting. And so I think the first painting is absolutely the best, in both outlines, details, and use of colours.

Dear regards

Ruben Verhelst

Class T3A

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