Knowing Pablo Picasso

GUERNICA

1937. Oil on canvas.

349,3 x 776,6 cm.

Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid.

The painting was commissioned by the government of the Second Republic in Spain for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris, in the context of the Spanish Civil War. The reason that prompted Pablo Picasso to create the scene represented in this great painting was the news of the bombings carried out by German aviation on the Basque town that gives its name to the work, known to the artist through the dramatic photographs published, among other newspapers, by the French newspaper L'Humanité. Conceived as a gigantic poster, the large canvas bears witness to the horror of the Spanish Civil War, as well as a premonition of what was to happen in World War II. The chromatic sobriety, the intensity of each and every one of the motifs, determine the extreme tragic character of the scene, which was to become the emblem of the heartbreaking conflicts in society today.

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PABLO PICASSO

(Málaga, Spain 1881-Mougins, France 1973).

Hello, my name is Pablo Ruiz Picasso, you probably already know me, I became one of the most famous and important painters of the 20th century.

I was born in Malaga, a city in southern Spain, on October 25, 1881, my family did not have much money but I had a very happy childhood with my two sisters Lola and Concepción, always surrounded by aunts and cousins who took care of us. My father José Ruiz y Blasco was a painter, he always wanted to be a great artist and was a drawing professor at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Telmo, he taught me everything he knew and that's how I started painting. My mother María Picasso López was strong, cheerful and optimistic and always had great confidence in my abilities. As a child she used to tell me, "If you become a soldier, you will become a general, if you become a priest, you will become a Pope." I wanted to be a painter, and I became Picasso.

As a child my father forced me to paint, he trained me and besides playing what I liked the most was painting. At the age of eight I made my first painting "The little picador" "that I will keep all my life.

In 1891, the whole family were forced to leave Malaga and we moved to La Coruña, in the north of Spain, on the Atlantic coast, we did not have much economic stability, so my father took a teaching position at the School of Fine Arts . La Coruña was cold and rainy, it was not easy to adapt.

I also attended my father's classes, at that time I loved painting landscapes and portraits, I surprised everyone with my ability.

In 1895 we moved again this time to Barcelona, a prosperous city on the Mediterranean coast.

When I was 16 years old, my uncle gave us money for me to go to Madrid to study at the most prestigious art school in all of Spain: the San Fernando School of Fine Arts. I was very excited but I was quickly disappointed by the conservative and rigid methods and I preferred to spend my time in the Museums, I spent hours in El Prado Museum learning from Goya and El Greco. Little time passed to return to Barcelona, there I had many friends painters, bohemian writers, we used to get together in a bar called Els Quatre Gats, there they organized exhibitions, concerts. readings and other events, it was there where I had my first individual exhibition Presenting only portraits of my friends that we hung with pins as we had no money to frame them.

I was very happy in Barcelona, however I wanted to explore new ways of painting and to live new experiences so I went to Paris, the capital of art at that time.

I went through different stages in my development as an artist; the blue period, the pink period, the classism, I even created my own style: cubism. Experiment with many techniques of painting, collage, sculpture, ceramics ... any excuse to create. I did not have a specific style, my stylistic freedom made me go from one style to another without transition and I revolutionized the art world of the 20th century, I had many loves, many friends, children, all of them were an important part of my work, because what I painted was life.

In 1973, at the age of ninety-one, I died of pulmonary edema at my country home in Mougins, France.

It is estimated that I was the author of some 13,500 paintings and designs, 100,000 prints or engravings, 34,000 illustrations for books and 300 sculptures or ceramics, in addition to having the largest number of museums named after me, so I was very prolific.

"The main enemy of creativity is good taste."