PART 1: ART AND ARCHITECTURE THEME REFLECTION
Part 1: Thinking Through Theme and Image
The theme chosen for discussion within this particular project is the theme of duality and conflict as a result of duality. This is a common theme throughout arts and literature; it can be seen in a grand sense in the Bible, with the duality of the divine, as well as in classical literature like Frankenstein. It is also present in many famous works of art, including works of art like Picasso’s Guernica. Duality and conflict—and associated themes of war and strife—are common themes because they are universal in many ways. Although human behavior and culture shows significant variation, there is conflict in every culture around the globe.
Conflict, as a central theme of humanity, can take many forms. In a lot of art, conflict between good and evil is represented; Christian iconography, for instance, sometimes shows the conflict between Heaven and Hell, which is just another form of conflict related to duality. Many different thematic ideas in art are presented through pairing and contrast; life and death, good and evil, and even rich and poor are consistently analyzed in art and literature alike. As such, the idea of duality is quite a broad theme, and will be specified more coherently in the second part of this discussion, which will focus entirely on the work entitled Guernica by Pablo Picasso.
The idea that conflict and duality are tied together raises a number of important questions when analyzing art and literature. Perhaps most importantly, human beings’ preoccupation with duality would suggest that some conflict and contrast is necessary in most people’s lives for them to truly appreciate their lives as a whole. Are human beings doomed to continued conflict? Is there any way for human beings, as a whole, to break free from the cycle of violence and conflict that seems to grip us as a species?
The duality of human nature that so many authors and artists choose to depict often has its roots in an attempt to understand the reasons that conflict is developed. So many authors and artists portray conflict as having two clear sides, but there are also artists who choose to look at the smaller, more nuanced details of conflict. Although there might be two sides to a war, for instance, the people on both sides are fighting the war for different reasons. Thus, there are more than two sides to many conflicts, despite the human obsession with duality in conflict.
The idea of duality speaks to a deeper human psychological need, however; it speaks to the human need to understand other human beings and to explain the situations that we, as human beings, find ourselves in. Learning how best to understand and explain the circumstances that we are struggling with is one of the driving purposes for art as a pursuit; many artists use their art as a way to explore the conflicts that they are experiencing in their lives, whether those conflicts are internal, external, real or imagined.
Object-Theme Reflection
Pablo Picasso was not present when the warplanes bombed the little Basque town of Guernica, but experts believe that he read George Steer’s eyewitness account to create his epic piece. Many art historians and other experts believe that Guernica is one of the most important and influential pieces to depict war. Although Cubism can be a difficult type of art theory to understand for the general public, Guernica was greeted with almost immediate worldwide success, demonstrating that the emotion and the difficulty of the thematic ideas contained within the piece are so expertly painted that they can transcend many different barriers that people have when it comes to dealing with art, especially art that deviates from the realistic and classical schools. In fact, Harke suggests that the scene portrayed in Guernica is best described as “primal,” indicating that it appeals to many different people despite being an unusual piece.
Composition and Background
Figure 1. Taken from Harris, 2016.
Although the painting arguably depicts a Spanish town in Basque country, Guernica was painted in Paris, France, where Picasso was in exile. It is a massive mural; the painting stands at eleven feet five inches tall and twenty-five feet six inches wide. The mural itself covers a massive amount of space and is quite impressive in its scope when viewed in person. Unlike other works by Picasso, this piece is painted entirely in black, white, and shades of gray; there are no colors that take away from the sadness and the gut-wrenching nature of the piece. The painting depicts a number of figures who are designed to evoke sympathy from the viewer, including a woman with a dead child and a soldier that has been vivisected in the battle. Although none of these images are particularly realistic, there is certainly chaos in the piece that contributes to the thematic understanding of duality and conflict through the piece. The piece was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government in 1937 for the World’s Fair; the piece became an international sensation after its completion. In fact, Picasso helped to bring attention to the atrocities that were being committed in the Spanish Civil War, but he also helped expose the realities of war as a whole.
Analysis and Theme
Guernica depicts chaos and despair associated with war, but the creation of the piece has deep roots in the duality of war and of conflict. Picasso himself was ousted from his homeland in 1934, never to return; he experienced the Spanish Civil War and the remainder of his life as an outcast expatriate, unable to return home to his homeland because of conflict. The conflict and strife that the country was experiencing is reflected in the work he produced for the Spanish Nationalist government. Bandara writes, “Although Picasso himself acknowledges that Guernica is a highly symbolic and political work, this emphasizes on the artist’s great ability to reconcile the war through his Guarnica painting. Picasso’s painting affirm how well the artist has captured the ardency, distress, destruction, bereavement, and other negative aspects associated with war; it has become a device of reconciling war-conflicts over the world. Thus, it can convey to people beyond all material barriers, frontiers” Caught up in this incredibly heartfelt, challenging depiction of war and conflict is another competing pair of values: anger and reconciliation. Guernica demonstrates that reconciliation through art might come later or in an unexpected form, but the expression of anger in the form of art often leads to reconciliation.
One of the most interesting things about this particular painting is its size. It is massive in scope, and part of the importance of the painting is indeed its scope; the reason it is so overwhelming to be present with this particular painting is partially because of how large it is and how overbearing the stark color contrasts between the black and the white are. Guernica is as much a depiction of the emotions associated with the idea of war than anything else; it is an exploration of the chaos of conflict which asks humanity as a whole to examine why war and conflict ever occur.
Although war is the central theme of many pieces and paintings, conflict is not always tied to the theme of war. Sometimes victory is tied to the theme of war, while defeat and is also a common theme; Guernica represents the true struggle of war, the internal, chaotic conflict that war elicits. This is the reason that this particular painting was chosen for discussion here; it underscores the important internal conflicts that are linked closely to the expression of these conflicts as political instability and armed conflict. Picasso himself was known to be quite tempestuous in his interpersonal life, and there are some experts who suggest that Guernica is also a representation of the inner conflict so common to artists and individuals with artistic temperaments.
Annotated Bibliography
General Methodology
Meltzer, Donald, and Meg Harris Williams. The apprehension of beauty: The role of aesthetic conflict in development, art and violence. Karnac Books, 2008.
This is an interesting text, which focuses on the artistic process and the development of artistic vision and ideas. Much of the text focuses on analyzing art from a psychoanalytic point of view, and the role of the internal conflict that the artist experiences when examining different ideas and creating art is closely considered by the authors. Human nature, the authors suggest, is consistently and always in conflict; there are constantly warring pieces of the mind vying for control and consideration. This is important when considering the development of the artist as an individual and as a thinker, and for analyzing their completed works.
Object Bibliography
Bandara, W. M. P. S. "“Guernica”: Reconciling Multiple Conflicts Through Art." (2014).
Bandara writes a text that examines the way that conflict is addressed and then potentially reconciled using art as the main vehicle for this reconciliation. Bandara suggests that Picasso, in exile and far removed from his native community, was using the art to address the feelings of loss and isolation that he felt as a result of his exile. Bandara suggests that all art is the reconciliation of ideas and emotions, and notes that conflict is often painted or crafted into art as a way to relieve the internal conflict that is the most prescient and current in the artist’s mind.
Hartke, Raul. "The primal scene and Picasso's" Guernica"." The International journal of psycho-analysis 81, no. 1 (2000): 121.
This piece also examines Picasso’s mental state in an attempt to better understand the art that he produced in the years after the Spanish Civil War. Although Picasso was notoriously flippant about the symbolism in his pieces, there is no doubt, according to Hartke, that Picasso was deeply conflicted about the external conflict in Spain. However, Hartke also suggests that many of Picasso’s interpersonal relationships were quite a mess and were causing him significant internal strife as well. Hartke notes that Picasso had many “triangular” relationships during this time, and that much of his correspondence used the vocabulary of conflict and war to describe his personal crises.
Harris, M. "Picasso's Secret Guernica." (2016). Accessed February 10 2016. http://web.org.uk/picasso/secret_guernica.html.
According to Harris, Guernica is full of hidden imagery; this hidden imagery is enough to demonstrate that Picasso was incredibly concerned with the thematic idea of conflict when he painted Guernica. The painting has one meaning on its face, and all the figures seem clear; however, like a magic eye picture, continued investigation into the figures and the structures in the painting lead to a more in-depth understanding of the meaning and the message that Picasso was trying to portray. Harris even suggests that there are strong sexual overtones in some of the imagery, suggesting that the conflict in some of the images portrays the internal conflict between procreation and death.
Bibliography
General Methodology
Meltzer, Donald, and Meg Harris Williams. The apprehension of beauty: The role of aesthetic conflict in development, art and violence. Karnac Books, 2008.
Object Bibliography
Bandara, W. M. P. S. "“Guernica”: Reconciling Multiple Conflicts Through Art." (2014).
Hartke, Raul. "The primal scene and Picasso's" Guernica"." The International journal of psycho-analysis 81, no. 1 (2000): 121.
Harris, M. "Picasso's Secret Guernica." (2016). Accessed February 10 2016. http://web.org.uk/picasso/secret_guernica.html.
