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Picasso Guernica painting in full, with the bull, the wounded horse, the lamp and crying figures. An art and history printable; get the free PDF.
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Download PDFPrintA wide mural with a bull, a wounded horse, an eye-shaped lamp, a mother holding her child, a fallen warrior with a broken sword and figures with arms raised.
Stick to black, white and grays, just like the original painting.
Talk as a class about how war affects ordinary people and how peace can be protected.
Picasso made dozens of preparatory sketches before he began the mural.
The Picasso Guernica painting is far more than a famous artwork. It is a powerful protest against war. On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Gernika was bombed by German and Italian planes supporting Francisco Franco's forces. It was market day, and many civilians lost their lives.
Picasso was living in Paris at the time. The Spanish Republic had asked him to create a large work for its pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, and after reading about the attack, he made it the subject. He worked quickly on an enormous canvas, nearly twenty-six feet wide, using only black, white and gray, like newspaper photos.
There are no planes or bombs in the painting, only the suffering they caused. A mother wails while holding her child, a horse cries out in pain, a fallen soldier grips a broken sword with a tiny flower growing from it and a bull stands watching. Above everything glows a lamp shaped like an eye.
Picasso never fully explained his symbols, so each viewer can find their own meaning. The message, though, is clear: war brings terrible pain to ordinary people. That is why Guernica has become a worldwide symbol of peace.
