Description of the picture:
Guernica – Pablo Picasso. 1937. Oil on canvas. 349×776
Picasso’s expressive canvas of 1937 was a public protest against the Nazi bombing of the Basque Gerniki. His picture is full of personal feelings of suffering and violence.
On the right side of the picture, the figures run away from the burning building, from the window of which a woman falls; to the left, a sobbing mother holds her child in her arms, and a triumphant bull treads on a fallen warrior. A broken sword, a crushed flower and a dove, a skull (hidden inside the horse’s body) and a pose of a fallen warrior resembling a crucifix are all generalized symbols of war and death. The bull symbolizes cruelty, and the horse – the suffering of the innocent.
Together, these frantic figures form a collage, distinguished by silhouettes on a dark background, brightly lit by a woman with a lamp and an eye with an electric bulb instead of a pupil. Monochrome painting, reminiscent of newspaper illustrations, and the sharp contrast of light and darkness enhances a powerful emotional effect."