Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is one of his most famous paintings. It was finished in 1937 and is painted with oil on a canvas. It is, in fact, accepted by most critics as one of his most compelling and moving paintings. The painting is conveying an anti-war message showing gruesome nature of conflict and the casualties that any war causes. Guernica was painted after Picasso bore witness to the bombing of the Spanish city Guernica. Although Pablo Picasso had never visited Guernica, the news about its destruction profoundly influenced him resulting in the painting that would later become widely regarded as a masterpiece and a significant milestone of visual art.
Over the course of its existence, the painting has caused a lot of discussion about how it must be understood and what point exactly Picasso tried to express. As stated by DiPaola and Smith, the processes that occupy the mind of an artist have been a major topic for cognitivists and art historians throughout the history of art (25). Indeed, the answer to understanding Picasso’s mindset during the creation of Guernica may be the key to precisely interpret his message. Moreover, knowing how Picasso perceived the problem of war may bring a person closer to being moved by Guernica. Moreover, it would probably have a bigger impact on the one contemplating the painting.
However, Guernica did not solely interest scientists and art historians. In an article by Katyal, the author is describing how Danish art student Nadia Plesner drew inspiration from Guernica to support her claims about the crisis that raged at that moment in Darfur (878). Plesner used Guernica to model her painting after it; the painting was titled Darfunica. Plesner included various pieces of brands, political and fashion symbols in her attempt at making patterns of her painting look more like Picasso’s masterpiece. The decision about creating such work of art came to Plesner after she had learned that in 2003 Guernica was covered with blue cloth at the time when the United Nations press conference on the crisis in Iraq took place. Guernica was not just a painting for Plesner; she was inspired by the ability of visual art to tether contemporary political events to the ever-present problems of social justice.
To conclude, Guernica is an important piece of art. Not only because of its nature of a ringing anti-war statement, but also because of the inspiration that it brought many artists since the painting’s creation.
Works Cited
DiPaola, Steve, and Allisson Smith. “Interactively Exploring Picasso’ Multidimensional Creative Process in Producing Guernica.” Proceedings of Electronic Visualisation and the Arts, 2013, Web.
Katyal, Sonia. “Trademark Cosmopolitanism.” Fordham University School of Law, 2013, Web.