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... ering may have been used to symbolize the helpless suffering that was endured by the people of Guernica. Another important figure that dominates the painting is the mother holding the dead child which "may have been inspired by a photograph. " (Chipp 92) Guernica is unique because Picasso painted images through his eyes and with brush strokes, his paintings were logical in his mind and not influenced by outside sources. In dealing with this image in one of his sketches he again strikes a personal cord with the people of Spain by putting the distraught mother in a familiar pose. "Picasso now isolate the mom and child as he had with the suffering horse, makes these figures more compact and congested, creating an agonized image even more like depicting in Goya's Disasters of War. " (Chipp 94) In Goya's The Disasters of War, number 13, the women has her arms out and head arched back, weakened and exhausted by the events unfolding around her. The mother holding a baby in Guernica expresses the same feeling of exhaustion and her head is arched back in a similar way. The difference lies in Picasso's use of color versus Goya's black and white sketches.
Goya captured events on the canvas similar to the way a picture captures time on film. Guernica, with it's colors and abstractness, goes beyond simply capturing a moment and actually brings the image to life in the viewers mind. Through all the things mentioned and making references to things people identify with, Picasso successfully takes the viewer into Guernica. The viewer can almost feel the same heartache and terror that the people of Guernica felt. "We are made to feel their pain with our eyes. " ("Success and Failure" 169) R. L.
Haeberle and Peter Brandt's photograph / poster is essentially the same scene as what Picasso would have seen when he painted Guernica. The photograph is not detached from time nor space, "we are aware, however slightly, of the photographer selecting that sight from an infinity of other possible sights. " ("Ways of Seeing" 10) The poster shows the true brutality of war, the slaughtering of innocent civilian women and children. Haeberle and Brandt created the poster as "an outcry against the brutal slaughter of war. " (Heyman 116) The question "and babies?" is raised further emphasizing the brutality. The poster is gruesome and very disturbing however, it does not stir the same kind of feelings and emotions as Guernica. Unlike Guernica, the poster takes a horrid slice of life and freezes it in time. The viewer of And Babies?
does not feel like a part of the image, instead only sympathy is felt for the victims. And Babies? is nauseating and the viewer quickly turns away from it. The poster is something the viewer does not want to stare at very long. Picasso's version of And Babies? , Guernica, forces the viewer to face the harsh realm of war and actually takes them into the scene. The longer the viewer stares into Guernica, the stronger the emotions seem to build up until the viewer is literally consumed by the painting.
Picasso uses not only the images of brutality, but also underlying images that stir up thoughts in the unconscious. "People have also found evidence of cryptic references from Vishnu and the Rape of Europa to Pinocchio and Hitler. " (Nash 49) This is why Picasso paints instead of taking pictures, these are two similar scenes portrayed with different mediums and generate distinctly different reactions to them. Prior to Picasso, a brilliant artist was commissioned by General Palafox to "examine the ruins of the Peninsular Wars (1808 - 1814) going on in Spain in order to illustrate the glories of its citizens. " (Perez Sanchez 185) Francisco Goya drew and painted countless numbers of war scenes depicting hangings, beatings, killings, and mutilations. These drawings were never published in his lifetime but came out years later and are now his famous Disaster of War etchings. The drawing Grande Havana! Con Muertos! , in the Disaster of War series, shows a gruesome scene of three men tied to a tree and mutilated because of the war crime of high treason. Unlike the poster And Babies? , Goya was not trying to horrify the viewer, instead Goya painted because he wanted the viewer to look into and reflect on the painting. "The victims' faces even show calm, and the beautiful proportions of the bodies invite viewing. " (Perez Sanchez 200) "Rather, Goya set out to incite reflection before these images, for heroic feats can never be the fruit of excesses of bloody cruelty, heroism, or love of country. " (Perez Sanchez 201) "Perhaps a reason for this print was in reaction to a murder of a General that was widely known and the murder was perhaps the first of its' kind. " (Perez Sanchez 200) "Essentially the general was accused of being a traitor and was killed by his own men, and after his execution he was dragged, mutilated and hung on a public promenade. " (Perez Sanchez 201) Similar to the bombing of Guernica, which was also the first of its' kind, so was the execution and mutilation of the general.
Goya and Picasso both painted so that the viewer could reflect on the scene in hope that similar situations will be avoided in the future. Guernica is unique from Goya because Goya froze the scenes he drew while Picasso brings Guernica to life. All three images share a common thread, they all have a high shock value and show that serious moral boundaries have been crossed. Artists have always expressed themselves through drawings, paintings, or photographs so that when something similar occurs, it can be brought into the public eye for reflection and questioning.
The discussion on Picasso's Guernica and Goya's Disaster of War prints, shows the aspect of how paintings capture the viewer and draws them into the image. It also presents the difference between Guernica and the Disaster of War prints; mainly that Picasso painted the scene so that it would live out in the viewer's mind while Goya froze scenes in time. The poster And Babies? , while still a similar scene to that of Picasso's and Goya's paintings, inhibits the viewer from entering the image. A "wall" exists that stops the viewer from being engrossed by the photograph. The painting is a complete sentence, while the photograph is missing a verb or a noun thus rendering it an incomplete sentence.
Picasso once wrote on the separation between paintings and photographs, "one simply paints-one doesn't paste one's ideas on a painting, if the painter has ideas, they come out of how he paints things. " Picasso's Guernica is truly unique because he was "simply painting" and not "pasting ideas" or freezing time like Disaster of War.
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Research essay sample on Perez Sanchez 200 Perez Sanchez 201 Guernica
