Visual Evidence: Guernica
This activity corresponds to the "Visual Evidence: Guernica" feature in your textbook. The questions below are designed to help you learn more about the topic. Once you have answered the Comprehension questions, submit your answers and move on to the subsequent questions included in the Analysis and Outside Sources sections. Each section is designed to build upon the one before it, taking you progressively deeper into the subject you are studying. After you have answered all of the questions, you will have the option of emailing your responses to your instructor.
Introduction
Pablo Picasso was one of many modern artists appalled by the violence of the early and mid twentieth century. Already overwhelmed by the mechanized carnage of World War I, these artists used the techniques of modern art—bold color, abstraction, and distortion of forms—to convey their horror, sorrow, and dread at the war just past and the new war brewing on the horizon. Below, you will encounter some examples of art prompted by the First World War, as well as some further sources related to Picasso's "Guernica."
Comprehension
1. Who occupied Guernica in 1937?
2. Why did Hitler approve the bombing of the city?
3. Where did Picasso display "Guernica"?
Analysis
1. At http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=63260, examine the etching by the German artist Otto Dix. What techniques does Dix use to convey the horror of war? How do those differ from Picasso's?
2. At http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=69684, study the woodcut by German artist Käthe Kollwitz. How does Kollwitz convey the sorrow or wartime loss in this woodcut?
3. At http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=79418, examine Gino Severini's "Armored Train in Action." What do you think Severini's attitude toward modern warfare is? How is that attitude different from Dix's and Kollwitz's?
Outside Sources
1. At http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=76987, you can view a more abstract response to the Spanish Civil War by Picasso's fellow Spaniard Joan Miro. What means does Miro use to convey the fear provoked by the war?
2. The English poet W.H. Auden wrote a poem in response to the Spanish Civil War, entitled "Spain 1937. You can read the poem at http://www.brown.edu/Departments/MCM/people/scholes/Dishonest.html. How does Auden's response differ from Picasso’s?
3. Thirty years before he created "Guernica, "Picasso painted one of his most famous works, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." Take a look at the painting at http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=4508. What techniques do this one and "Guernica" have in common?