Guernica: Testimony of War

It is modern art's most powerful antiwar statement created by the twentieth century's most well-known and least understood artist. But the mural called Guernica is not at all what Pablo Picasso has in mind when he agrees to paint the centerpiece for the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair.

For three months, Picasso has been searching for inspiration for the mural, but the artist is in a sullen mood, frustrated by a decade of turmoil in his personal life and dissatisfaction with his work. The politics of his native homeland are also troubling him, as a brutal civil war ravages Spain. Republican forces, loyal to the newly elected government, are under attack from a fascist coup led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Franco promises prosperity and stability to the people of Spain. Yet he delivers only death and destruction.

Hoping for a bold visual protest to Franco's treachery from Spain's most eminent artist, colleagues and representatives of the democratic government have come to Picasso's home in Paris to ask him to paint the mural. Though his sympathies clearly lie with the new Republic, Picasso generally avoids politics - and disdains overtly political art.

Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernica is certainly the his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War.

Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.

This work is seen as an amalgmation of pastoral and epic styles. The discarding of color intensifis the drama, producing a reportage quality as in a photographic record. Guernica is blue, black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (25.6 ft) wide, a mural-size canvas painted in oil. This painting can be seen in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Interpretations of Guernica vary widely and contradict one another. This extends, for example, to the mural's two dominant elements: the bull and the horse. Art historian Patricia Failing said, "The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso's career."

Some critics warn against trusting the polital message in Guernica. For instance the rampaging bull, a major motif of destruction here, has previouse figured, whether as a bull or Minotaur, as Picasso' ego. However, in this instance the bull probably represents the onslaught of Fascism. Picasso said it meant brutality and darkness, presumably reminiscent of his prophetic. He also stated that the horse represented the people of Guernica.

Artist's Mother

Have you ever watched the 1997 feature film based on the television series Mr. Bean which stars Rowan Atkinson in the title role and Peter MacNicol, Bean: The Movie? The movie featured a famous painting; the portrait Whistler's Mother. Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, famous under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother, is an 1871 oil-on-canvas painting by American-born painter James McNeill Whistler. The painting is 56.81 by 63.94 inches (144.3 cm × 162.4 cm), displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, having been bought by the French state in 1891. It is now one of the most famous works by an American artist outside the United States. It has been variously described as an American icon.

In the movie Bean, the Grierson Art Gallery is given a donation of $50 million dollars by General Newton to buy the painting. Mr. Bean sneezes on the painting and when trying to remove it with a napkin, he discovers that he had a broken pen in his pocket, and covered the face with blue ink. In panic, he takes the painting down and tries to clean it, but knocks it out of its frame, and steps on it.. He runs to the janitor's closet and applies lacquer thinner on the face. He is relieved, as the blue ink disappears from the painting, and he happily puts away the lacquer thinner. However, when he turns around and sees the painting again, he'd added the wrong type of paint thinner, causing bubbles in the paint. In shock (again) he desperately tries to remove the bubbles from the painting, but instead he rubs all the paint off from the face. Not knowing what to do, he draws a cartoony, childish-looking face on the white spot and quickly takes the painting back to the room where it was being kept before.

He quickly locks the door because someone is trying to come in, and for safety reasons he pulls a big plant in front of the door to prevent it from opening. Instead, David Langley, his colleague, enters from the other door, which Bean hadn't noticed. He sees the painting is not on the wall and Bean shows him what he's done, horrifying David, who thinks he'll be fired and sued for this. The painting is put back and David and Bean leave. 

In the same night, Mr. Bean breaks into the museum, distracts the security guard by mixing an entire bottle of laxative into his cup of coffee and changing the men's room key with another key, to keep him out of the security office to buy time, so he won't be seen on the cameras. He then swaps the painting with a poster of it, sticking it onto the frame with chewing gum, and proceeds to cover the poster with raw egg yolk and heating it with a hairdryer, making it look like a real painting. Mr. Bean kept the actual painting for himself, and later took back his home in London, where he hung it on his bedroom wall.

This shows that the painting is so important. Popularly known as “Whistler’s Mother,” this painting appeared radical in its time for its spare, unsentimental, and unflattering portrayal of the painter’s mother. As noted in the quote above, Whistler insisted that the sitter’s identity was secondary to the painting’s aesthetic purpose: to organize shape and color in a pleasing manner.

While some understood Whistler’s goals, many wanted to derive some sentimentality from the portrait. More than one critic suggested that Whistler had depicted his mother “after her death.” Another complained that the work was the "experiment of an eccentric.” Nevertheless, the painting was shown in several European venues, receiving mixed reactions along the way. A critic wrote in the London Times in 1872: “An artist who could deal with large masses so grandly might have shown a little less severity, and thrown in a few details of interest without offence.” A Parisian critic wrote in 1884: “It was disturbing, mysterious, of a different colour from those we are accustomed to seeing. Also the canvas was scarcely covered, its grain almost invisible; the compatibility of the grey and the truly inky black was a joy to the eye, surprised by these unusual harmonies.”

More than a decade after the painting was first shown, the French government purchased it to be displayed at the Luxembourg Museum. Whistler was ecstatic about his vindication. He said, “Just think—to go and look at one’s own picture hanging on the walls of Luxembourg—remembering how it was treated in England—to be met everywhere with deference and treated with respect…and to know that all this is…a tremendous slap in the face to the Academy and the rest! Really it is like a dream.” (December 1884) The honor of having his work displayed in such a prestigious institution helped the artist attract and secure wealthy American patrons and elevated his reputation in Europe as a bold, dynamic painter.

Who Was Whistler’s Mother?
Anna McNeill Whistler was a model woman according to the Victorian standards of her day: she was pious, submissive, and her life centered on domestic issues. She lived in three countries, witnessed the United States Civil War, often served as her son’s art agent and, later in life, was fascinated by the eclectic group of individuals that formed her son’s artistic circle.

She suffered great tragedy at an early age, losing her husband and three of her children to illness while the family lived in Russia. In 1863 she moved to London and lived on and off with James and her other children. She was very involved in James’s life, and was familiar with his fellow artists, students, patrons and collectors. She wrote that the: “artistic circle in which he is only too popular, is visionary and unreal tho so fascinating.”

As was customary for a woman of her social class, Anna Whistler kept in touch with her family and friends through letters. Today, her correspondence is used by historians seeking to understand the social issues of the day, and by art historians who find her descriptions of her son’s work and life an invaluable resource. Following is an excerpt from a letter to her sister where she discusses sitting for her portrait: “I was not as well then as I am now, but never distress Jemie [James] by complaints, so I stood bravely, two or three days, whenever he was in the mood for studying me as his pictures are studies, and I so interested stood as a statue! But realized it to be too great an effort, so my dear patient Artist who is gently patient as he is never wearying in his perseverance concluding to paint me sitting perfectly at my ease.”

Mother of Gods

Coatlicue was the Aztec “Mother of Gods,” associated with the earth and the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The compact, monumental stone effigy. It depicts the goddess as symbol of creation and destruction (the earth gives but also takes away). She wears a skirt of carved serpents, representing fertility, and a necklace of severed hands, hearts, and skulls.

Some read it as Coatlicue’s head, composed of the heads of two facing snakes, whose eyes and fangs become her own. Others have said that the sculpture portrays a decapitated Coatlicue in which snakes coil out of her severed neck. This interpretation more directly references one of two myths, in which one of Coatlicue’s 400 children called upon her siblings to kill their mother. The ferocity of the imagery, which is incised and carved in relief, though shocking, was typical of preColumbian societies.

In Aztec mythology Coatlicue was actually a priestess whose job was to maintain the shrine on the top of the legendary sacred mountain Coatepec. One day, as she was sweeping, a ball of feathers descended from the heavens and when she tucked it into her belt it miraculously impregnated her. 

The resulting child was none other than the powerful Aztec god of warHuitzilopochtli. However, Coatlicue's other offspring, her daughter Coyolxauhqui, herself a powerful goddess, and her sons the Centzon Huitznahua were outraged at this shameful episode and they stormed Mt. Coatepec with the intention of killing their dishonoured mother. The plot came unstuck, though, when one of the Huiztnaua lost heart and decided to warn the still unborn Huitzilopochtli. Rising to his mother's defence the god sprang from the womb fully-grown and fully-armed as an invincible warrior. In another version the god springs from his mother's severed neck but either way, with his formidable weapon, the xiuhcoatl which was actually a ray of the sun, the warrior-god swiftly butchered his unruly siblings and chopping up Coyolxauhqui into several large chunks he lobbed the pieces down the mountainside. The myth may also symbolise the daily victory of the Sun over the Moon and stars.

This battle would be commemorated with the setting up of the Templo Mayor at the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. The giant pyramid was covered in snake sculpture and even the shadows cast by its steps were designed to reference Mt. Coatepec. A further link to the myth was the large stone placed at the base of the pyramid which has a relief carving of the dismembered Coyolxauhqui.

In another myth involving the goddess she warned the Mexica of their future demise. The Aztec ruler Motecuhzoma II had sent a party of 60 magicians to visit Coatlicue in the mythical ancestral home of the Mexica, Aztlan, in a quest for supreme knowledge. However, overburdened with gifts, these hapless magicians got bogged down in a sand hill and the goddess revealed that the Aztec cities would fall one by one. Then, and only then, would her son Huitzilopochtli return to her side.

In art Coatlicue is most famously represented in the colossal basalt statue found at Tenochtitlan which now resides in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. The figure is 3.5 m high, 1.5 m broad and depicts the goddess in her most terrible form with a severed head replaced by two coral snakes, representing flowing blood. She wears a necklace of severed human hands and hearts with a large skull pendant. She also wears her typical skirt of entwined snakes whilst her hands and feet have the large claws which she uses to rip up human corpses before she eats them. This may reference the connection between Coatlicue and the star demons known as the tzitzimime, who the Aztecs believed would devour the human population if the sun should ever fail to rise. At her back her hair hangs down in 13 tresses symbolic of the 13 months and 13 heavens of Aztec religion. 

Interestingly, the base of the statue is carved with an earth monster, even though it would never be seen. The statue was discovered in 1790 CE but was thought so terrifying that it was immediately reburied.

The Swing

Have you ever watch the most popular animated film, Frozen? I'm pretty sure you do. I'm sure that you've watch it several times, don't you? 

Well, Frozen is a 2013 American 3Dcomputer-animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures.

One of Anna's big numbers is "For the First Time in Forever." As she sings this, she leaps into a swing in a painting. This isn't just any painting, it is the Rococo-era French painting "The Swing" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The painting is depicted/copied in the film by Disney background artist Lisa Keene and is far from an exact duplicate, as you can see below. Clearly, it wasn't intended to be any kind of duplicate, not least because the original has some, er, connotations that don't really fit into a Disney animated feature film. It is what is known as an "homage."

The Rococo style of art was characterised by lightness, grace, playfulness and intimacy and emerged out of France around the beginning of the 18th century and in the following century spread throughout Europe.  The actual word rococo is thought to have been used disapprovingly by a pupil of Jacques-Louis David who ridiculed the taste, which was in vogue in the mid-18th century.  He combined the artistic genres of rocaille, which prospered in the mid 16th century and was applied to works that depicted fancy rock-work and shell-work, and barocco (baroque) genre. 

The featured for today is Jean-Honoré Fragonard, whose works are amongst the most complete embodiments of the Rococo spirit.   He has been described as the “fragrant essence” of the 18th century.  He was famous for the fluid grace and sensuous charm of his paintings and for the virtuosity of his technique.  The painting by Fragonard featured today is probably his most famous and is the oil on canvas work entitled The Swing which he completed in 1767 and which is now part of the Wallace Collection in London.

The Swing, also known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing, is an 18th-century oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard in the Wallace Collection in London. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the rococo era, and is Fragonard's best known work.

The painting depicts a young man hidden in the bushes, watching a woman on a swing, being pushed by an elderly man, almost hidden in the shadows, and unaware of the lover. As the lady goes high on the swing, she lets the young man take a furtive peep under her dress, all while flicking her own shoe off in the direction of a statue of the Greek god of discretion and turning her back to two angelic cherubim on the side of the older man.

The lady is wearing a bergère hat(shepherdess hat) which is ironic since shepherds are normally associated with virtue because of their living close to nature, uncorrupted by the temptations of the city.

According to the memoirs of the dramatist Charles Collé, a courtier (homme de la cour) asked first Gabriel François Doyen to make this painting of him and his mistress. Not comfortable with this frivolous work, Doyen refused and passed on the commission to Fragonard. The man had requested a portrait of his mistress seated on a swing being pushed by a bishop, but Fragonard painted an ugly layman.

This style of "frivolous" painting soon became the target of the philosophers of the Enlightenment, who demanded a more serious art which would show the nobility of man.

Notice by comparing the animated version to the original painting how, in her version, artist Lisa Keene emphasized the flying shoe but dropped the hidden lover in the bushes, and also retained the drone pushing her. The original painting is about the guy watching in the bushes, a voyeuristic quality that puts him and you the viewer in the same position, both watching the naughty but happy girl. The makes you - the viewer - part of the illicit transaction, with the oblivious gentleman pushing the swing unaware of both the hidden lover and you. Without the guy in the bushes, the painting is just about a free-spirited young girl having fun with her boyfriend. Its focus shifts completely so that it's all about the princess in a Disney Princess animated film. Very Disney-like changes.

As background, Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker who lived from 1732 to 1806 in Paris. The man worked like a madman, painting some 550 quality paintings during the final years of the French Monarchy. "The Swing" is one of his more interesting paintings, because it shows a man pushing a lady on a swing while another man, hidden from the guy pushing the lady, is watching the lady fly up into the air. It is pretty clear that the hidden fellow is looking up the lady's dress, but she doesn't care, perhaps because they are having an affair and the first fellow - boyfriend/husband/whatever - is clueless. That may explain why she looks so happy. This kind of ribaldry was frowned upon in serious paintings back in the day, but Fragonard earned a good commission for it anyway. I mean, it's a good painting, and I'm not just saying that because it's old and respected. Fragonard clearly was pushing the limits with "The Swing" during that puritanical age, but Keene managed to tone it back down again.

Style of Rebirth

    Renaissance art is the painting, sculpture and decorative arts of that period of European history known as the Renaissance, emerging as a distinct style in Italy in about 1400, in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature, music and science. Renaissance art, perceived as a royalty of ancient traditions, took as its foundation the art of Classical antiquity, but transformed that tradition by the absorption of recent developments in the art of Northern Europe and by application of contemporary scientific knowledge. Renaissance art, with Renaissance Humanist philosophy, spread throughout Europe, affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early Modern age.

    In many parts of Europe, Early Renaissance art was created in parallel with Late Medieval art.

    The influences upon the development of Renaissance man and women in the early 15th century are those that also affected Philosophy, Literature, Architecture, Theology, Science, Government and other aspects of society.

    Many of the new ideas and attitudes that marked the Renaissance times were portrayed in art. A new idea called humanism put a focus on human interests, needs, and abilities. This new idea changed how artists painted their subjects as well as the choice of subjects they painted.

    Many new techniques were introduced during the Renaissance. These techniques helped to enhance the quality and realism of the art. 

Perspective - perspective is drawing or painting a picture such that it looks like there are three dimensions. It gives the illusion that some objects in the painting are further away than others. 

Balance and Proportion - Drawing subjects such that they are the correct size when compared to each other. 

Use of Light and Dark - Many artists starting using light and shadows in their works to add drama, perspective, and timing to their art. 

 

Caravaggio used light and shadow to create drama

Sfumato - This was a technique used by Leonardo da Vinci to add additional perspective and dimension to paintings. It was a way of blurring the lines between subjects. This technique was used in Leonardo's Mona Lisa. 

 

The Mona Lisa used the sfumato technique

Foreshortening - Another technique that added perspective and depth to paintings, foreshortening is a way of shortening lines to give the illusion of depth.

Chiaroscuro - The term chiaroscuro refers to the fine arart painting modeling effect of using a strong contrast between light and dark to give the illusion of depth or three-dimensionality. This comes from the Italian words meaning light (chiaro) and dark (scuro), a technique which came into wide use in the Baroque Period.

One Art

     It has been said that the glorious Roman Empire fell to its knees before one mortal man. Which such a statement simplifies the historic events leading to Rome’s demise and glorifies the impact of Jesus of Nazareth and his teachings on the citizens of the empire, it does capture the reality of Christianity’s far reaching effects. Among the world’s religions, Christianity ranks first terms of followers —over two billion in number. 

   

    Historical information about Jesus is scant, although in recent years scholars have attempted to piece together a biography. Christians rely, rather, on the literary sources of the Gospels of the New Testament or Christian Bible, for their sense of Jesus life and times and activities.

     Christianity in its most rudimentary form began around 27 CE and had relatively few adherents for the first few centuries. Most early Christians were among the poorest in society and they suffered brutal persecution at the hands of the Roman emperors.

    Representation of Jesus changed dramatically over time, from that of a teacher and shepherd tending his flock to a king enthroned with royal attributes. Likewise, places of worship grew from underground chapels to grand structures that rivaled the basilicas of the Roman empire. 

 

   Christian art is known for its catacombs and cathedrals. It shows representation of the events in Jesus' life. There are a lot of beautiful cathedrals in the world. What if one day, all the artworks are based in only one era? What if it is all Christian Art? Maybe, all artist are hard to create just one style. It's difficult to focus on one thing. All of the artworks are redundant. It's not pleasing to the eye. It's good if there's a lot of ideas to show. 

Classical Temple

Greek sculpture and architecture reached their height of perfection during the Classical period. Greece embarked upon a period of peace—albeit short-lived—and turned its attention to rebuilding its monuments and advancing art, drama, and music. The dominating force behind these accomplishments in Athens was the dynamic statesman Pericles. His reputation was recounted centuries after his death by the Greek historian Plutarch. On the one hand, Plutarch described the anger of the Greek city-states at Pericles’ use of funds that had been set aside for mutual protection to pay for his ambitious Athenian building program. On the other hand, Plutarch wrote glowingly about postwar Athens: “in its beauty, each work was, even at that time, ancient, and yet, in its perfection, each looks even at the present time as if it were fresh and newly built. . . . It is as if some ever-flowering life and unaging spirit had been infused into the creation of these works.”

After the Persians destroyed the Acropolis, the Athenians refused to rebuild their shrines with the fallen stones that the enemy had desecrated. What followed was a massive building campaign under the direction of Pericles. Work began first on the temple that was sacred to the goddess Athena, protector of Athens. This temple, the Parthenon, became one of the most influential buildings in the history of architecture.

Constructed by the architects Ictinos and Callicrates, the Parthenon stands as the most accomplished representative of the Doric order, although it does include some Ionic elements. The Parthenon has stood atop the Acropolis of Athens for nearly 2,500 years and was built to give thanks to Athena, the city's patron goddess, for the salvation of Athens and Greece in the Persian Wars. The building was officially called the Temple of Athena the Virgin; "Parthenon" comes from the Greek word parthenos, "virgin."

Throughout its long life, the Parthenon has functioned most importantly as a Greek temple, but has also been a treasury, a fortress, a church, and a mosque. Today, it is one of the most recognizable icons and popular tourist attractions in the world.

Replacing an older temple destroyed by the Persians, the Parthenon was constructed at the initiative of Pericles, the leading Athenian politician of the 5th century BC. It was built under the general supervision of the sculptor Phidias, who also had charge of the sculptural decoration. 

The temple was still intact in the 4th century AD, but by that time Athens was no more than a provincial city of the Roman Empire with a glorious past. Sometime in the 5th century the great statue of Athena was looted by one of the Emperors, and taken to Constantinople, where it was later destroyed, possibly during the sack of the city during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

The subsequent history of the Parthenon is interesting and shocking. It was used as a Byzantine church, a Roman Catholic Church, and a mosque. The Parthenon survived more or less intact, although altered by these successive functions, until the seventeenth century, when the Turks used it as an ammunition dump in their war against the Venetians. Venetian rockets hit the bull’s-eye, and the center portion of the temple was blown out in the explosion. The cella still lies in ruins, although fortunately the exterior columns and entablatures were not beyond repair.­