Picasso

Today was our day to take in some artistic culture with a visit to the Museo Nacional de Centro Arte Reine Sofia which was staging an exhibition by Pablo Picasso featuring his 1937 masterpiece "Guernica"

Guernica is a mural-sized oil painting on canvas completed in June 1937, at his home on Rue des Grands Augustins, in Paris. The painting, which uses a palette of gray, black, and white, is regarded by many art critics as one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history. Standing at 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) wide, the large mural shows the suffering of people wrenched by violence and chaos. Prominent in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, and flames.

The painting was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italian warplanes at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. Upon completion, Guernica was exhibited at the Spanish display at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (Paris International Exposition) in the 1937 World's Fair in Paris and then at other venues around the world. The touring exhibition was used to raise funds for Spanish war relief. The painting became famous and widely acclaimed, and it helped bring worldwide attention to the Spanish Civil War. [Wikipedia]

Having seen numerous of his other paintings in the display and reading some of his thoughts etc. you have to say it is typical Picasso - bodies "distransformed", angry, violent etc.

Other paintings (no photos allowed) on display mainly featured stylised women and it comes across that he did not necessarily see women as things of beauty - "there are only two types of women, goddesses and doormats"

Looking at his paintings you start wondering about how his mind works and I guess his quote that "I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them" for us sums Picasso's genius up especially when he developed the Cubism style.

There was one Picasso outside of the main display which was completed in 1901 (pre-Cubism) - Bust of a Smiling Woman and which could be photographed 

Also there were some Salvador Dali paintings on display and one completed in 1925 took our fancy!

The Face of the Great Masturbator

Of interest is the fact that currently Dali is in the news as his body was to be exhumed today so that DNA samples could be taken to settle some paternity issue!

For folk that are not overly interested in the art world today was a enjoyable, enlightening day.