Pablo Picassos Gruernica Essay examples - 914 Words

In 1937, Pablo Picasso depicts an epic event in history in his Guernica using visual symbolism, line, space, light and color which advocates to the observer the truth behind the subject matter of the artwork itself. The line used leads to specific images to tell the story; the space throughout the work is filled with many jagged and sharp shapes with an odd use of positive and negative space. The light and color illuminate the actual scene. Knowing and understanding how the artist uses these three fundamental tools will guide us to the meaning and logic of the artwork. Pablo Picassos use of line gives a sense of direction almost as key to unlock the meaning of the artwork. In our culture we read from left to write. The artist†¦show more content†¦Now combined with the images of the candle, the light fixture and the horse we gather that, by definition, the horse is the most economically important domesticated animal and was diminished due to mechanization. The candle next to the light shows us a change in technology, advocating the death of the horse with a spear in the side, as the destruction of Spains cultural origins. Finally we see the horse leading us back to the bull where between both heads we see the spirit flying away alerting us that soul and spirit is being ripped away, that death is coming no matter if it is in a bull fight or a battle, everything that lives will die. Picassos use of space in this masterpiece leads to similar conclusions to pain, suffering and the eventual death of an ancient city or any living thing. This piece is extremely vivid and the use of space used is probably breaking all the rules of art, but if we think about what we are actually seeing we are not really looking at just art, we are looking at inhumane events in the world and it almost holds an obligation to exploit the boundaries of art to get the desired effect which the artist has done intentionally. Most art works contains non busy and busy areas which are proportional to one another but in life we know that the main focus in the real world is all the chaos and that there is no balance just that tunnel vision effect of the awe stricken horror. Even in the use of light and color Picasso conveys the