Pablo Picasso is one of the most important, if not the most important, painter of all time. He had an abstract style of art that struck audiences from all over, however what people don’t realize is that he had meanings behind his work. Some paintings were to pull out our emotions, some were to question our society as a whole and some were political. Picasso painted in order to get his opinions by. He expressed his views and standings through all of his paintings this is why the painting Guernica has such an impact on the world. Guernica would be considered the most important Picasso painting of all time and one of the most important paintings of all time in general.

At first glance we see chaos. We see abstract images that claim to be actual figures in our mind. The painting is too much to take in so we must look at one image at a time. The first emotion we feel is horror and pain, to the left we see a volcano smoking as if it has either already erupted or it is on its way to erupting which would provoke more chaos. Looking down from the window in which we see the volcano we see what seems to be a woman holding her son. Picasso was a very religious man and had a habit of portraying Mary holding Jesus. That being said we now know that there in fact is some pain in this piece. Moving on we see that above the woman there is a Bull, which is connected to the volcano because the volcano is also the Bull’s tail. Picasso is from Spain where the Bull leads a very large impact in society and doesn’t just stand for an animal it stands for a way of life for Spaniards. Moving below the Bull we see a man who is laying on the ground who appears to be suffering in pain. While we look at him in more depth we also see that one of his arms has been cut off and in his arm is a broken in half sword. This leads us to believe that he was fighting for someone which then ties in that the woman with the boy may have lost him in the battle as well.

From these images we can start to see how Picasso can bring our emotions out of paintings. Moving on from the man we see a horse on top of him. Horses probably represented battle in those days and as we can see the horse is pummeling the man. Above the horse is a light bulb which is illuminating the scene as the sun would. However this light is very small compared to the other elements in the painting. That being said next to the sun is a lamp in a person’s hand which looks like someone who is trying to help lighten everything up. Under this is a similar person who seems to be running toward the horse to calm it down, that could be the society of Spain trying to stop whatever bad things are going on but then next to this person is one who seems to be running in horror away from something but can’t seem to get away and may also be in pain.

For historical context Picasso made this painting at the same time the Nazi’s were bombing Guernica Spain. He made this to show a political stance and to pull from everyone else’ emotions by doing this he put himself on the spotlight and made himself a target of Hitler and the Nazi army. His painting would become the most influential political painting of all time and would help to bring recognition to the rest of the world so they could help Spain in their fight (pablopicasso). That being said we can see why he chose the images he chose. The Bull represents Spain the country and the woman represents the everyday woman and housewife of Spain and shows their pain as they lose loved ones. The young boy in her arms represents the young portion of our society and the future Spain was looking forward to. The horse represents the battle and having part of a sword in its stomach shows that Spain tried to stand up for itself whether they’d make it or not. The man on the bottom of the horse is Spain’s army forces being crushed by the “battle” itself. The light is the small glimmer of hope Spain has left as Picasso made this painting. Because he made this with the intention of getting the other country’s attentions. 

Picasso painted abstractly on purpose to make a uniqueness about his paintings, to make them stand out. He knew he could get away with making obscene images in order to create actually beautiful stories. At first glance we don’t see much but pain, but looking more in depth we see the history of not only the present day of Spain but the history of Spain in general. We see what figures represent what in the country. We also see how society in Spain reacted towards fighting, the Blitzkreg tactic Hitler and the Germans used ruined not only cities like Guernica but entire countries like Spain, however as we know today Spain like the Bull they call themselves stands strong and never falls. The women in the painting show horror but they show how close the city is and how they will help those in need, the Bull is the heart of the country however Picasso purposefully put the Bull to the left in order to show how the main point in the country was war, this is why the Horse is in the middle of the painting. The black and white painting shows plenty of color by the emotions of the subjects painted on the canvas. Although the sun is white we know that it is a very dim lit one at that, we also notice that the face of only the Bull are looking at the viewers and everything else in the painting is looking either up or to the sides as if it is too hard to look at the audience because of the pain they are all in. In Picasso’s eyes this painting led Spain to come back to the life, in the midst of all of the pain he made this masterpiece in order to show the rest of the country what happens when war overcomes love and societies norm.
