Expressionism In Pablo Picasso's Guernica

Art is a means of independent expression. Paintings provide opportunities for the appreciation of hidden messages. This idea is evident in Pablo Picasso´s paintings. Guernica was Pablo Picasso´s most famous painting, his masterpiece. Painted in 1937, Guernica was to portray a powerful political statement. During the Spanish Civil War, Picasso painted Guernica as a response to the devastating bombing on the Basque town of Guernica. Pablo Picasso was one of the most influential painters of the 20th century. Beginning in 1927, Picasso was caught in a new philosophical movement. This movement, known as Surrealism, led Picasso to paint Surrealist images. Picasso was outraged by the inhumanity of the aerial bombing on the town of Guernica. The bombing …show more content…
Expressionism describes the proclivity that tries to express emotions and feelings rather than show the reality or the nature of things. Expressionism, as a visual art, presents an emotional situation in its most compelling form. Guernica depicts this expressionism in the exaggerated and distorted images. The mural contains symbolic images in a violent collection of lines and monochromatic tones. Picasso´s intention with the painting of Guernica was to show tortured images to challenge the common belief of a heroic war. Indeed, the painting unmasked the war as an act of …show more content…
Guernica displays several images including: the bull, the mother with a dead child, the horse, a dead soldier, and a pigeon. The bull has a stunned expression whose face shows the horror surrounding it. Furthermore, Picasso said the bull was to convey darkness and brutality. The mother with a dead child is in agony with eyes in the shape of tears. This image represents the Catholic image of the Virgin and Child, although corrupted by war. The horse is in the center of the painting and looks as if it is about to fall down. The only visible part is the head of the horse with the mouth wide open. The rest of the body of the horse is overlapped with other images, like a human skull. The horse afflicted in agony is considered a central image in Guernica. The horse resembles the people of Guernica as a helpless animal at a dead end. The dead soldier is not a complete body and it is made up of different body parts. The dead soldier is holding a broken sword and a flower on one hand. The flower represents the light of hope among the stress of destruction. At last, the pigeon is situated between the horse and the bull, but it appears to be just a flash of light. The pigeon resembles the peace that was broken when the war