ipl-logo

Explain How Would You Classify Pablo Picasso's Guernica

436 Words2 Pages

Would you classify Pablo Picasso's Guernica as Expressionism, Cubism, Dada, or Surrealism?

Before attempting to decide which art movement best expresses Picasso's Guernica mural, we need to understand each art trend individually before considering which one applies.

Expressionism was first coined in the early 20th century as “art which distorts reality through exaggeration, vigorous and visible brushwork and strong colour” (Artchive.com, 2017a); expression of emotions; ancient and primal in its composition, linking past and present.

Cubism deals with non-realistic views of subjects, geometric in design, often “fragmented and abstracted” (Tate, 2015), in some cases, cube-like. Where traditional perspective is important in prior art movements, it is inconsequential in Cubism.

The Dada art movement was significant in its no particular style, anti-establishment, rejection of tradition method of art form; think anti-art collaboration and negativity. Following the Dada art …show more content…

Explain your answer by using specific visual and stylistic references:

The mural itself dates from 1937, and while the Analytical type of Cubism ran from 1908 to 1912, I believe this mural exhibits the strong aspect of this style. It has a a rather simple and limited colour palette, indicative of the Cubist era, Analytical type; black and grey, with another muted colour. Expressionism deals with a massive influx of colour and therefore can be 3liminated from the line-up as a choice.

While not truly cube-like, a misnomer of the movement, it is geometric in design. The human figures and animals portrayed display an unrealistic picture; eyes, faces, hair, limbs, etc. are out of alignment within the space the bodies (Tate, 2015), fragmented. Perspective is shown using separate delineated areas, rather than the tradition shading, foreshortening,

Open Document