La Guernica

If we analyze this piece using Bang's methods of interpretations we'd find:

i That the center of the page, the point of most attraction, is dominated by the image of the panicked horse.

ii The horse itself consists of many jagged portions that lend to the feeling of fear and foreboding that the picture invokes. Indeed, there is an abundance of jagged edges in the picture that emphasize and add to that feeling of panic, hysteria and fear.

iii Even the organic shapes that usually invoke a sense of peace and safety (the humans and animals) are far rougher than their real life counterparts, and the lack of symmetry proves to be somewhat unsettling.

iv The background is primarily black, again adding a sense of fear to the picture.

v The sense of freedom that the upper half could potentially invoke (according to Bang) is significantly diminished in that there is almost a lack of an upper half. Most of the picture is dominated by the large figures screaming in fear and this is what our eyes focus on.

vi I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this, but did anyone see how the lamp at the top looks like the eye of Sauron from "Lord of the Rings"?


Okay. i think that should be sufficient analysis for this entry. I would like to end this post with a little anecdote:

When Picasso was painting the picture, a German soldier asked him "did you do this?".

Picasso calmly replied, "No, you did."

Okay, that was a badly told anecdote, but I thought that exchange was pretty cool. Hey, I can't help it if I'm bad at telling stories! It was more dramatic when I read it in Reader's Digest many years ago, honest!