If you took anyway the meaning of symbols - guns, flag, oil fields, canteen and helmet ... what does it tell you?

A woman is crying a out a sick, possibly dying/dead, man. There is fire, dismemberment and expressions of anguish.

In Picasso’s work there is light being shined on horrors - dismemberment and expressions of anguish. The broken sword and bull are symbolic on meaning so I won’t comment.

Personally I don’t much care for either painting. It is interesting to view abstract art as trying to reach someone without relying on historical symbolism.

Which one gets the message of “war is wrong” across more blatantly? At a glance the second one. Once you look more closely the first does hands down for me - maybe I’m overly influenced by the poor quality of the second in regards to the images being obviously lifted from several different sources and clumsily mashed together.

Just to reiterate, not keen on either tbh. I can appreciate the message in the first and enjoy the idea of shining a light on the horrors portrayed.

Ingmar Bergman writing about the theatre:

“Nothing is; everything represents. The moment the curtain is raised , an agreement between stage and audience manifests itself. And now, together, we’ll create!”

I think this applies to all art, it has to have an audience engage otherwise nothing happens: without agreement there’s no moment of creation. Like I said, all art has its own audience that’s prepared or ready to engage and reject what it doesn’t like as ‘poor art’. These are all unique relationships.

Whatever you might think, this is as elitist as those Shakespearean supporters who insist Shakespeare is a genius. I imagine that each audience would prefer to see ‘their’ art taught in schools, too.

Obviously presenting something to others that they won’t engage with (Shakespeare in school) is not going to create this relationship. To get students to engage with Shakespeare you might have to do a lot of work before hand about art and theatre and the years around the end of the 16th century to get them interested enough to engage.
“Transformers” would take a lot less time than that, though there may still be other films doing just as much without all the action, which is really male orientated and probably leaves the girls cold.

Which one of the two provides more experience, a sense, a feeling, of "war is wrong"? — Henri

I don’t think the intention was necessarily ‘War is wrong’. Does that mean all war is wrong? I think it’s more that war is a horror. The first one is Picasso working out his own symbols and techniques about how he feels. The second one is just ‘Transformers’, almost comical in its strident efforts, and drowning in clumsy cliche.

But there is a message there, not experience. To me (again), the experience was an air raid; the painting is a comment (i.e. a message) on the actual event, which I don't think Picasso experienced. :chin: — Pattern-chaser

I don’t think one has to necessarily be at the event to experience it. Picasso’s experience of the bombing could be what was impressed on him by the nature of the bombing. It’s about his response to the horror. It’s a personal message to the world. Who understands it is another matter.

I don’t think one has to necessarily be at the event to experience it. Picasso’s experience of the bombing could be what was impressed on him by the nature of the bombing. It’s about his response to the horror. It’s a personal message to the world. Who understands it is another matter. — Brett

Yes, the message/experience thing is probably a semantic misunderstanding. As for the rest of what you say, it's what I was trying to say, but better put. :up:

My tendencies are towards formalism. What I primarily care about when it comes to paintings is shapes and textures and colors/hues, overall composition, etc. I care more about semantic content when it comes to fiction--where I have a preference for fantasy in its broadest sense (so that it includes horror, SciFi, etc.) as well as action, crime, comedy, but even with films and novels, I care at least as much about formal aspects.

You might have had different opinion if Picasso wasn't heavily promoted to you as one of the genius artists of 20th century and Guernica as masterpiece. But he was promoted as such because meaninglessness is promoted, not because he created great art.

Picasso represents politics that today says there is no gender. That's what it is.

Do you think unisex bathrooms for children in schools just happened out of thin air? It's just the latest step in a march of meaninglessness, which previously brought forward Picasso and other abstract "geniuses".

Second painting is not especially great, I would say it's good, but Guernica is quite flat when you take away the name and the extra info and the promotion. There are more impressive cave paintings.

As for the non-subtlety of the second painting, war is not subtle. Woman's expression, the main thing in the painting, is strong, not "clumsy cliche". That's how pain for the loss of the loved one looks like. If you find the scene comical, that's actually sad. But perfectly in line with meaninglessness.

Would it make a difference if I told you I hate Picasso?

I certainly wouldn’t have a different opinion about the pics you posted - I may have been more inclined to say nice things about the first but I recognised it instantly.

Basically ... you couldn’t be more wrong :)

This one was sold for over 100 million dollars.



I don't know if it's worth that much. Maybe 50, 60 million dollars tops, eh? Maybe Picasso connoisseurs, message extractors, or even hardware engineers, can tell.

Van Gogh's works of art, to me , are average at best. But then again, he did cut off his own ear.

But he was promoted as such because meaninglessness is promoted, not because he created great art. — Henri

He created great art because I love his work.