The oil painting "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso, is a famous painting that depicts the tragedies and atrocities of war. During the Spanish Civil War, the Nationalist Spanish Government sided with German and Italian forces, who then bombed the small town of Guernica in Spain.
Since many of the men in town were away at war, the main inhabitants were women and children. Because of this, it is evident that the bombing was mainly used as a device to hurt people and to make people afraid of the power of the Nationalist government.
The painting show a group of people out in the street. The painting is saturated with details. It's chaotic. There are so many things going on at once. On the left, a woman twists her face in pain and screams toward the sky as she hold her dead baby in her arms. On the right side of the painting, another person twists in pain an agony. A man lies on the ground, his arm severed by a sword, bleeding all over the ground. There is a stigmata in his open palm, which expresses the sacrifice and martydom of the people. The broken sword represents the defeat of the people. The light bulb in the painting symbolizes the sun - perhaps light and hope. Finally, Picasso used colors like black, gray, and white to express how sombre this incident was.
This painting is a testament of how devastating and harmful violence and war can be. It is an icon of peace and non-violence. It lives on and continues to move people today because it is a reminder of the pain and devastation human beings sometimes inflict on one another. It is a reminder from Picasso, it is a message of the past that seems to say, "Look at what they've done. Don't let this happen again. Stop hurting and hating each other."
