Why does everything in Guernica look so primtive and stupid, kind of like a child’s drawing?
The figures in Guernica look to me like caricatures, but that doesn’t mean childlike or stupid. A good caricature requires a fairly sophisticated artist.
Pablo Picasso; “The path to youth takes a whole life.”
Because to a certain extent, that is the style. Cubist. Primitive. Abstract. Of course, he was very capable of many “styles”:
For a good cross section of his work:
Why do you equate “primitive” and “childlike” with “stupid”?
My question exactly.
NETFLIX offers a 2-DVD set entitled Picasso: The Man and His Work. I have it in my queue maybe 1/5th of the way down.
You might want to rent it from NF or some other company.
I’m no big fan of Picasso nor of his cubist paintings, but as far as I can understand it, the cubist style tries to “do away” with the traditional concepts of perspective in painting.
In other words, when you see a “traditionalist” painting of a woman/man/cow you see certain angles and light as the human eye perceives them. A cubist painting tries to represent more than that, to get to represent the whole concept of a thing the way the mind perceives the real thing. I don’t know many cubist paintings that achieve their goal, but I’ve seen a couple of Picasso’s paintings that are pretty close. (look at them live, if you can, the internet doesn’t do them justice)
It looks that way because that is Picasso’s style (his signature style anyways, he was capable of others, as RGVChicano points out). It seems to me like what you’re asking is “Why do I not like this work?” I don’t know the answer to that - Cubism is definitely not for everyone, but it is a recognized style and one that occupies its own place in art history, helping to bring the art world from traditional ideas through to modern ones.
Now, if you’re actually asking “Why did Picasso choose this style?”, or “What statement about war was Picasso trying to make here?”, then the answer is probably different.
Oh, you must have misunderstood - I love Picasso’s work, especially Geurnica. But I don’t know anything about why it looks the way it looks, all warped and weird and primitive and “off,” and I was trying to find the answer to that. I don’t think Guernica is a cubist work, is it?
Well, think about what the “offness” is communicating. Since he was enormously skilled and could’ve painted it in any style he wished, why do you think he distorted the people and animals in that painting?
Here’s another very famous painting about war, Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. What is your response to those figures v. Picasso’s?
For me, Picasso’s distortions make the piece very active and emotional, moreso than an accurate rendering of figures would be.
Okay, well I apologize for misunderstanding, but using the word ‘stupid’ to describe something does not usually mean that you love it.
I think that Guernica is in fact cubist - I’m not 100% sure though, and am prepared to be proved wrong. I think Picasso created many of his works as ‘off’ in an attempt to jar the viewer and communicate the extreme emotion of the scene - in this case, the agony of war. Seeing this piece is intended to give the viewer an immediate gut reaction, even in someone who knows nothing about the subject matter.
Also, consider it in relation to hundreds of years worth of realistic guys-on-horseback-going-into-battle paintings - he just wanted to switch it up!
Why does it look like a child’s drawing? Maybe that’s what he was going for.
Picasso embraced the idea of the child artist, and was not really interested in “grown up” art. Rather than creating a technical marvel, he taps into your emotions with primitive, distorted, childish figures.
You have no idea how difficult it is for a trained artist to create something simple and child-like. I’ve tried it many times, and because of my training, I just can’t do it convincingly.
Picasso, IIRC, once said that his ultimate goal was to someday paint a picture in which people would see nothing but emotion. He knew he would never achieve this, but it was what he was attempting to do. The pain, suffering, and anguish one sees in the figures in Guernica (particularly the woman with the dead baby and in the face of the horse) strike one with much greater intensity (IMO, that is), and therefore with much greater meaning, than they would have if portrayed in a more realistic style.
As an aside, I recall reading once that during the German occupation of France, a German officer, upon seeing Guernica in Picasso’s studio shortly after it was completed, asked, “Did you do this?” Picasso’s reply: “No, you did!”
One could technically say that is “Late Cubism” (if there is such a label) since “Guernica” was done around 1937 and Cubism heyday was from 1900ish to 1920. But. Guernica does contain elements of Cubism.
Another excellent site on Picasso.
It is not Cubist - Cubism is when you take three-dimensional items and “unwrap them” to flatten them, somewhat abstractly, onto a two-dimensional space. Kind of like representing our globe on a 2-D space - but without the same mathematical rigor and with artistic intent.
Guernica is more Modern or Primitivist, like Jean Dubuffet (see: Primitivism - Wikipedia).
But, VC03 - while I agree with other posters, who have said things like “Picasso was trying to go straight to the emotion of the tragedy of Guernica” - you claim you LOVE Picasso and Guernica. Well - why? What do you like about it? At some level its “childlike, stupid” figures appeal to you - how come?
I’m guessing Picasso was trying to portray the way the Guernica bombing would have been perceived by a person witnessing it in person. A person in the middle of the attack probably wouldn’t have been able to see it as a whole but would more likely have seen it as a confusing series of random single images.
I remembered this post from earlier this year. Evidently the painting we are familiar with is actually a printing plank and is a “negative” of the intended final work. I don’t think that it makes much difference; if you dislike one, you will probably dislike the other. It leaves me indifferent, it moves my Spanish friend to tears. Chacun à son goût…