Cubism and its Impact
-
Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning
-
Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
-
Picasso, The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro
-
Picasso, Guitar
-
Picasso, Guernica
-
Braque, The Viaduct at L'Estaque
-
Three Futurists: Balla, Severini and Boccioni
-
Mondrian, Composition No. II, with Red and Blue
-
Modigliani, Young Woman in a Shirt
-
Duchamp-Villon, Horse
-
Brancusi, Bird in Space
-
Cartier-Bresson, Behind the Gare St. Lazare
Picasso, Guernica Picasso, Guernica, oil on canvas, 1937 (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid) Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker, Dr. Beth Harris
⇐ Use this menu to view and help create subtitles for this video in many different languages.
You'll probably want to hide YouTube's captions if using these subtitles.
- So, we thought we'd talk about Picasso's great painting, called "Guernica,"
- which actually, I remember seeing very many times,
- because it used to be in the Museum of Modern Art
- before it was sent back to Spain.
- - Yeah, it was. I kind of feel like I grew up with this painting.
- - Yeah, me too.
- - It was always such a powerful presence at MOMA.
- - Yeah. And it was in a very small little room, so it was very intense.
- - It was. It was. You know what was interesting is that actually,
- in Picasso's will, he lent it to MOMA
- until such time as Spain became a democracy again.
- And remember, Franco lived for a very long time.
- And this painting was made as a response to Franco -
- - Well, to a specific event, the Spanish Civil War -
- - A terrible, terrible event -
- and this is such a loaded and powerful painting
- and has had such an impact, both when it was made
- and long afterwards.
- - Yes, we can talk about two . . .
- So, maybe we should talk about the historical circumstances
- in which it was made.
- It's a gigantic painting, and it was made by Picasso in Paris
- at the request of one of two Spanish governments
- that existed at that moment.
- Remember, there was a civil war going on in Spain,
- and on one side were the Fascists, led by Franco,
- who would win the Spanish Civil War.
- But on the other side were what were called the Republicans.
- It has nothing to do with American Republicans versus Democrats.
- But these were people who wanted a democracy,
- and they tended to be a bit more on the left,
- whereas Franco tended to be very much on the right
- of this political spectrum, in a much more extreme sense
- than we have today. And what happened was that
- Franco was trying to intimidate the population.
- You have to remember, this is . . . we're talking about 1937 now.
- This is before the second World War.
- There had been the horrors of the First World War,
- and there had been the rise of Fascism in Spain,
- in Italy, in Russia -
- -and Germany.
- -and Germany, absolutely.
- -and what happened was, was that Franco decided
- to unleash violence directly on a civilian population
- in order to really cow that population,
- and to assert his power.
- - and to consolidate his power.
- - Absolutely. And so what he did is,
- he actually was in touch with Hitler in Germany,
- and he allowed Hitler to test out some of his bombers
- on the city of Guernica.
- -Hard to believe.
- -It's really incredible. And Picasso was so horrified by this-
- - the world was horrified by this - by the bombings,
- and the mass civilian casualties that resulted.
- Guernica was not a military target.
- -Guernica's a little town.
- -It's a little town. And this is a painting that was Picasso's
- sort of, visceral response to this, that was made
- specifically for an international exhibition in Paris,
- a kind of World's Fair.
- So, maybe we should talk about what we see.
- -Yeah, it's a . . . it's a very powerful image against
- the horrors of wars, I think in the tradition of
- Goya's "Third of May."
- - or David's "The Oath of the Horatii."
- But you know, those were really old paintings.
- And when you think about the 20th century,
- when this was made, history painting,which is
- what we were just referring to,
- it didn't exist, really, anymore.
- So a lot of people have credited Picasso with
- almost single-handedly re-establishing the importance
- of grand history painting. And I think for him,
- this event required that kind of solemnness, that kind of import.
- -Of the tradition of history painting. There are so many things
- that remind me of Goya.
- The figure in the foreground, for example, who's all
- splayed out with a knife in his hand,
- like the Spanish peasants in Goya,
- Christlike in their martyrdom.
- -The other thing that really reminds me of Goya here
- is Picasso's choice to do this painting in black and white -
- - black, white and grays, right.
- - and, you know, Goya's painting is in color,
- but it's all so starkly lit that it might as well be -
- - Right, and it's about the forces of darkness,
- and the forces of good.
- - It is, and the contrasts between light and darkness,
- both in this painting and in the Goya, I think
- it's very consciously Picasso, another Spaniard
- recalling that great example of history painting. Yeah, yeah.
- And that image of the mother and the child on the left,
- - That's so effective.
- -I look at this painting and I can almost hear the bombs,
- and the sirens, and the screaming. It's so palpable.
- -On the extreme right, you have the woman
- who's fleeing the burning building, her burning home.
- And of course this painting is full of symbolism.
- There's the horse, of course, screaming
- There is the broken sword as you had mentioned,
- And then, I think, really potent and really curious and
- interesting is the light source itself, that lamp.
- You know, people have said it looks like a human eye.
- Perhaps the eye of God.
- But you have an electric light bulb there.
- And also it could function as an explosion.
- That could be the explosion of the bombs.
- -I think that's always sort of how it felt to me,
- looking at that, was like the lights flickering on and off,
- and explosions, and lights, and the way that lights . . .
- you know, explosions sort of make lights flicker,
- and it has this feeling of the chaos of that moment.
- - It really does. It really does.
- It also kind of vilifies modernity, in the sense of
- the possibility of having airplanes drop bombs.
- You know, because it's an electric light bulb, after all.
- Something else that I find really interesting here
- is the cross-hatching. Do you see that,
- especially in the body of the horse?
- Some art historians have talked about that
- as a reference to the newsprint that Picasso
- used to put into his paper collages.
- But here, it's actually painted to look like
- a little hatching, as if it might be print.
- But it's not. So it's sort of self-reference.
- But also, a reminder that this is a current event.
- Like Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa," this is a tragedy that has just taken place.
- And it's a pretty extraordinary painting.
- And we know that when Colin Powell went to the UN,
- to make the case for the war in Iraq,
- by saying, claiming that, he believed at the time
- that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,
- or the Bush administration believed it, and Colin Powell went to make that case at the United Nations
- they didn't want to take pictures in front of this image.
- -Well traditionally, the press sessions are in front of
- a tapestry that was donated to the UN.
- -It's a copy of this image.
- And you're right, he did not want to be seen
- in front of that.
- -Right, because he was making a case for war.
- And here we have this very, you know -
- -Stark reminder of the price of war.
- -Right, and I think it's really important to say
- that this is represented in a sort of abstract,
- Cubist kind of representation that, I think,
- makes it more powerful.
- I think if this had looked photographic,
- I don't think it would have the power that it does.
- I think the ways that the forms are exaggerated,
- the hands moving up, and across, and all of the ways
- that we have a kind of exaggeration here
- are there to serve the emotional point of the image,
- of the horrors of war.
- -And because was brilliant, I think at doing that.
- - That formal language of expressing those emotions.
- - Yeah, but it form that is used, that is folded into such a powerful political
- and sort of humanistic message.
- - Yeah, and it's interesting also because so much of the history of the 20th century
- and of art history is really looking at art in a way that is very separate
- from the political arena.
- - A sanitized formalism.
- In fact, much of Picasso's other work is really dealing with the way vision
- can be represented in a very, very kind of formal way.
- And it's so interesting to see such a powerful statement.
- I mean, there were other examples of Picasso's work, but here is sort of the great example of the 20th century,
- of a deeply political painting from an artist who spent a good deal of his career, you're absolutely right,
- really focusing on the way we see and the way we represent what we see.
- And art historians have written art history very much in that way for much of the 20th century.
- - So here is a really successful marriage that does not separate ...
- - Art that is engaged, right?
- - In the world, in the most direct way.
Be specific, and indicate a time in the video:
At 5:31, how is the moon large enough to block the sun? Isn't the sun way larger?
|
Have something that's not a question about this content? |
This discussion area is not meant for answering homework questions.
Discuss the site
For general discussions about Khan Academy, visit our Reddit discussion page.
Flag inappropriate posts
Here are posts to avoid making. If you do encounter them, flag them for attention from our Guardians.
abuse
- disrespectful or offensive
- an advertisement
not helpful
- low quality
- not about the video topic
- soliciting votes or seeking badges
- a homework question
- a duplicate answer
- repeatedly making the same post
wrong category
- a tip or feedback in Questions
- a question in Tips & Feedback
- an answer that should be its own question
about the site
Share a tip
Suggest a fix
Have something that's not a tip or feedback about this content?
This discussion area is not meant for answering homework questions.