Mash it Up!

- Unit 2 Research Project

Guernica (1937) is one of the most famous paintings in the history of art. Compared to other
types of famous artworks produced by Pablo Picasso, the inner meaning of Picasso’s
Guernica may not be as easily recognised and identified, which leaves the audience with
only a limited range of interpretation and analysis of the artwork created.

As Picasso quotes, the artwork Guernica is mainly a war based painting, offering a visual
description of the devastating and chaotic impact of war towards both men and women,
specifically targeting on the civilian life and community. This piece of artwork was completed
in 1937, a year of widespread political disruption and uproar in Spain and worldwide. World
War II starts a few years after Picasso has completed this piece of artwork, which further
decimates the european continent as a whole.

From this work of cubism, we are able to see the captured scene of several victims suffering
from the bombing, some living, some dead. The figure sprawled prone in the foreground of
the painting appears to be a corpse, alongside both living victims framed on both sides with
their heads thrown back and wailing in agony. On the very left, a mother is clutching onto a
baby who passed away in the bombing of the enemy.

The chaos caused by the political instability of Europe is clearly evident in this composition,
as both humans and animals are jumbled up together in the background of broken and hard
geometric shapes, significant to the concept of Cubism. The texture of the newspaper print
of the horse brings us back to Picasso’s early journal Cubist artwork. Usually, art critics
analyse the vast use of colours in Picasso's other artworks such as “rose” or “blue”, however
in this monochromatic painting, Guernica uses the predominant colour of black and white,
symbolising the death of art and reality.

According to some extended research and investigation, it is known that Picasso has most
likely been strongly influenced by another Spanish Artist, Francisco de Goya, who paints war
paintings and bullfighting arts. Both artists illustrates the simultaneous brutalisation and
dehumanisation of humanity in wartime, also in response to the common characteristic of
having to face the fear of death between both animals and human beings.

Despite the fact that the overall meaning of this piece is less optimistic and obvious, with
chaos and brutality reigning over civilisation, just like during the Guernica bombing attack.
 Mash it Up! - Unit 2 Research Project (2)

3 Interesting Aspects of this Artwork:

In the piece Guernica mentioned in the previous task, the weeping woman holding her dead
child on the left side of the canvas is mainly portrayed in this Cubist artwork. Pablo Picasso
created a number of portraits that further elaborates on the last painting of the series, a
thematic continuation of the tragedy depicted upon the masterpiece Guernica. The Weeping
Woman is a silent protest of the bombing of Guernica, a colourful display of the pain felt in a
time full of horror. Instead of focusing on the image of the woman crying because of the
death of her baby, the artist altered the area of focus from the effects of the Spanish Civil
War and directly onto the universal image of suffering.

Picasso’s perplexing use of distorted images, strategically placed tear drops, blue chattering
teeth and piercing black eyes insists that we imagine ourselves into the excoriated face of
this woman, trying to feel the depicted pain and horror felt by the figure in this portrait. The
use of distorted images and an expressionism vibe surrounds this painting, the model was
the inspiration of this piece of artwork after she suffered a tremendous loss during wartime,
with the artist illustrating her response of seeing newspaper photographs of the Luftwaffe
bombing of Guernica on behalf of the Spanish Civil War. The oil on canvas painting is able
to display her loss through different angles, lines and colours. Other than that, the audience
is presented with a combination of bright and dark colours that represents the shock and
death that surrounds this woman after her loss in the Spanish Civil War. Picasso painted her
hair with a mix of blue and black, with the use of shallow space to give depth with shades of
acidic green and mauve to create a sense of loss in her appearance, portraying a series of
painful images through the artistic techniques that invokes the audience in different ways.

I believe that The Weeping Woman is truly an inspiring and unique piece of art created
based on the inspiration from reality and by Pablo Picasso’s pure imagination. Today, the
painting is exhibited at the London Tate Gallery. Many artists tried to copy the style of the
painting, trying to comprehend and solve the mystery of the tragedy of the Weeping Woman.
 Mash it Up! - Unit 2 Research Project (3)

Pablo Picasso is undoubtedly one of history’s most

famous influential artists, though Guernica may be his
most well known painting, ​Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
is one of the most exemplary models of the greatest
rule breaking artworks in history. Instead of analysing
Picasso’s The Weeping Woman, I will be discussing
about how Les Demoiselles d’Avignon have changed
the history of art around the world.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a painting by a

modernist master Pablo Picasso, epitomising Cubism,
a form and concept of art innovated by Picasso and
Braque, which is a complete breakthrough from
traditional composition and representation of painting.

The title Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was a lighthearted suggestion from the art critic Andre
Salmon, who requested to see the resemblance between Picasso’s figures and the
prostitutes on Avignon Street in Barcelona. This painting presents us with an uncomfortable
variegation of the overlapping fragments of five female nudes, which combines powerfully
with its violent forms and animalistic masks to bring shock to the audience.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a cinematic close-up painting, with five women each over
seven feet tall presenting themselves to the surface of the painting. The colour of their body
appears to be intimidating rather than entirely nude. The way in which the five figures are
positioned is equally striking, as there are no connection in between them, heightening the
drama of the picture as well as its uncertainty. The two women in the center are seemingly
more provocative, as they stare expressionlessly at the audience while lifting up their arms
to show their breasts. These women all aggressively flaunt their nudity, offering the best of
themselves to the audience. Looking on a close up view, the head of the top right figure is
covered with a primitive mask, while the one on the bottom right is also in a mask that is
made of multiple views like a poorly arranged jigsaw.

The main objective of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was to challenge the audience’s
assumptions and views upon the world that we live in. The gigantic intrusive nudes, absence
of perspectives, disconnected nature of the group, and the juxtapositioning of normal faces
in masked faces all contributes to the kaleidoscopic chaos and sense of pictorial anarchy.

Picasso focused heavily on the analysis and simplification of form as he was frustrated with
the traditional conventional theory of art as the imitation of nature was only limited towards
the impressionism of art, which was why he reached out for such a shockingly explicit theme
for his new style of modern art, with a strong belief that the redemptive power of art
exorcises negative elements, and such a distinctive work of art helps to combat prostitution
and sexual disease.
 Mash it Up! - Unit 2 Research Project (4)

How has the Cubist Concept impact the Contemporary Arts World?
From 1907-1917, Picasso and Braque pioneered the Cubist movement, a revolutionary style
of modern art formed in response to the rapidly changing modern world of arts. They
challenged conventional, realistic forms of art through the establishment of Cubism, involving
new ways to perceive the world around us, reflecting upon the modern age.

Since Picasso had a strong belief that art should not copy nature, he felt no obligation to
remain the traditional artistic techniques of the two dimensional objects, coming up with the
concept of emphasizing the difference between paintings and reality. He felt that we should
no longer see an object from a certain angle or perspective, but from angles selected by our
observations and movements.

African art and the Modern Urban Street in Paris were then greatly influenced by Picasso’s
conceptions of Cubism and style. Picasso then discovered a fascination in the simplification
of objects into simple geometric components while incorporating texture, patterns, text and
newspaper scraps into his Cubist works, influencing generations of artists to follow.

Famous Cubist Artworks:

 Mash it Up! - Unit 2 Research Project (5)

How will I transfer my subject knowledge and concepts into my art-making?

After learning about the concept of Cubist artworks

in this research project, I will be able to incorporate
different elements of collage underlying fractured
images in geometric forms using multiple vantage
points, instead of drawing portraits in a form of
modelled space and dynamic arrangements of
volumes where the background and foreground are
merged together.

I will be exploring open forms of piercing figures

and objects by allowing the space to flow in
between and showing objects from various angles
and perspectives, innovating and representing a
response to the change of space, movement and
time in the modern world, sometimes also known as
the fourth dimension in art.
 Examples of Analytical Cubism and Synthetic Cubism:

Analytical Cubism:

Synthetic Cubism:
 Image Acknowledgements

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/synthetic-cubism

https://paulford.com/a/analytical-and-synthetic-cubism/

https://study.com/academy/lesson/analytic-cubism-vs-synthetic-cubism.html

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/paintings-analysis/les-demoiselles-davignon.htm

https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

https://www.everypicture.org/weeping-woman-by-picasso

https://www.theartstory.org/movement-cubism-artworks.htm

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/an-introduction-to-cubism-in-12-artworks/

https://www.donquijote.org/spanish-culture/history/spanish-civil-war/

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/spanish-civil-war-breaks-out

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-artists/juan-gris.htm

https://www.austinartistsmarket.com/cubism-movement/