Picasso’s Guernica is an immortal mural painting. It shows the horrors of the war in a timeless fashion.
More from David Hart’s amazing website on this great mural:
Spanish painter Pablo Picasso painted mural (1937) of bombing of Basque city of Guernica by German airforce during Spanish Civil War. Depicts victims of war, suffering women, children, and horse. Perhaps greatest painting about war ever made. Focuses on victims. Timeless and universal in its themes.
And,now further details on the mural, again from David Hart’s website:
Scene takes place in darkness in open space, possible town square surrounded by burning buildings.
Figures within the triangle: the central pyramid
- fleeing woman – the fleeing woman
- the wounded horse (suffering humanity, originally had small winged horse/soul leaving gash in side) – the horse’s head
- the broken statue of the warrior (classical image perhaps of fallen Spanish republicans) – the fallen warrior (left) – the fallen warrior (right)
Tip of triangle “eye” of electric light globe (image of sun/eye) and woman with the lamp (light holding darkness/bull at bay) – the woman with the lamp
To right burning building with falling woman (perhaps also burning, in stance of suffering Mary Magdelene) – the falling woman
To left wailing woman with dead baby (originally on ladder, like bringing Christ down from the cross) behind which stand bull (threatening or protecting woman and child?) – Far left – bull, woman and dead child
Other figures are bird (rising or falling, originally small winged horse/soul) and flower (symbol of regeneration and hope, like 600 year old tree left standing) – Detail of the Flower
Thank you David Hart for such an amazing website and its contents
