PIPICASCASSSOO frfroomm ‘‘GuGuernica’ernica’ toto thethe enendd
1937-1973
Portrait of Dora Maar 1937 GuGueernicarnica 1936 - The Civil War breaks out. Picasso joins the Republicans and he is appointed director of the Prado Museum 1937 April 26 - The town of Guernica is bombed. Picasso realises a canvas in which he condemns the Nazi German aerial bombing that destroyed Guernica and killed an estimated 1600 people. The huge Cubist mural was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to decorate the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition – The shapes are reduced to the essential – The use of colour (synonym of life) is abandoned for a dismal white /black in order to convey more impact and light to the whole – The picture is huge (8 x 3,5 metres) in order to be seen by the greatest number of people at the same time – It stands as an ideological and political manifesto – It presents the recurrent symbols of all his works: the bull, the horse, torment and dismemberment of bodies
2 GuerGuernniiccaa The figures are like ghosts who cry while they are lightened by the bomb explosion The composition is not chaotic as it may seem but it is organised in 3 vertical levels The mural shows – Horrified men and animals united by grief – The tongues of the bull, the grieving mother and the horse are daggers that suggest screaming – On the ground dismembered corpses – On the left a mother utters a piercing cry to the sky grieving over her dead child – On the right a man cries in despair – In the centre a horse ( symbol of the Spanish people) is falling in agony as it has just been run through by a spear. He puts out his sharp tongue like a glass dagger. His nose has the shape of a human skull. A light bulb in the shape of an eye is hanging over the horse's head. – Under the horse is a dead, dismembered soldier, his hand grasps a sword from which a flower grows( symbol of life finally triumphing over death and man’s brutality ) – To the right of the horse, a frightened female figure, who seems to be witnessing the scene , appears to have floated into the room through a window. Her arm carries a flame-lit lamp. – Below her, from the left, an awe-struck woman staggers towards the centre She looks up blankly into the light bulb. – The wide-eyed bull (violence and bestiality) stands over the grieving woman – A bird, possibly a duck, stands on a shelf behind the bull in panic Cubist and realist vision ( the bombing destroys the buildings)
3 Pesca notturna ad Antibes 1939 WarWar anandd afafterter wwaarr yyeearsars 1939- leaves for Antibes and then for París where he spends the whole war period He feels the importance of his political commitment and his communicative power after his growing popularity Paints works with a social inspiration 1948- joins the congress of the intellectuals for the peace 1949- realises the duck ( paloma) for the placard of peace in Paris. In the same year his daughter Paloma is born Il carnaio 1945
Massacro in Corea 1951
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In the 1950s his style changes as he begins looking at the art of the great masters from whom he draws new inspiration. In this phase he makes a series of works based on the paintings of Velasquez, Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet, Delacroix.
Gustave Courbet, Fanciulle lungo la Senna, 1856-57)
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Las Meninas, 1957
Velasquez, Las Meninas, 1656
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His final works are a mixture of styles, They become more colourful and expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produces a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate engravings. 1950-1970 - the final years when he acquires worldwide fame 1970- donates various works to the Picasso Museum of Barcelona 1973 - dies in Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie
Big heads 1969 Donna con braccia allargate 1961
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