I went to Spain as a teenager and saw Guernica in person. It was the first painting to ever really have an effect on me. It's stunning. A perfect example of how art can transmit a message between people across time and space, I just knew that I was feeling how Picasso wanted me to feel.
If you have the chance to see this painting you should, no website can do it justice (although this is a very nice try).
One of the things that made seeing this painting a valuable experience for me was the plentiful background material it was shown next to… drawings, paintings, sketches etc. it showed the depth of creative process that Picasso employed.
One thing I have not seen discussed here is the fact that this painting was commissioned by the (Spanish) Republican government. Effectively, there is a degree of propaganda to the painting. No shade on the guy… my other favorite war crime painting is the executions of the third of may by Goya, and it was also a political commission.
Every time I'm in Madrid I get up early (and since in Spain you eat at like 11pm that's not easy) and go to the museum the moment it opens just to get to Guernica and get as much time with it by myself as I can.
That early, before the tour groups have made it that far into the museum, you can actually get the entire space to yourself for >30 minutes and it's never left me not weeping.
It is stunning, particularly so if you read up on the history beforehand and then see all the elements in the painting. It’s the first time I was able to appreciate a Picasso for all the complexity he put into his paintings.
I was similarly stunned by one of the Anselm Kiefers at the Bilbao Guggenheim. Some paintings can only be appreciated in person.
I had the same feeling when I saw it years ago. Dread, sadness, and a sinking stomach.
A few weeks ago I was vacationing in the Basque country, and realized Guernica (the town) was a mere half hour drive away. So we went. Although none of the town in any way reminds you of the depictions of the painting (save for some memorials), I kept feeling the same eerie dread even as I walked through a perfectly normal, pleasant sleepy town.
Guernica shocked the world. It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians, something which we have sadly normalised since WW2. but which I regard as terrorism.
Picasso also painted another great work titled "Korea" in the same vein.
War is an abomination, something we should all fight against.
There was this new theory at the dawn of air warfare called "Strategic Bombing", one of its main advocates was Giulio Dohet. The idea was that aircrafts could get behind the frontlines and bomb vital centers (civilians and production) freely. Hypothetically the morale would collapse, and lead quickly to surrendering. He even calculated that 300 tons of bombs per city over the most important cities would be enough to end a war in less than a month.
This theory couldn't be tested until late 1930's, when everyone was trying variations on the "technique", adding things like explosives, incendiary, gas... and escalating the amount of bombs needed to cause the mythical collapse. I think the record was 5 million tons of bombs over Vietnam (170 kg of bombs per capita), still the collapse didn't happen.
England and US carries the crown of the barbarism on this subject. And now the state of Israel. Check for names Frederick Lindemann, Arthur "Bomber" Harris and
Sir Hugh Trenchard
London, Bristol, Southampton, Coventry and various other English cities were heavily bombed by Germany before the UK's major bomber offensive on Germany.
> I think the record was 5 million tons of bombs over Vietnam (170 kg of bombs per capita), still the collapse didn't happen.
Unsure about the tonnage, but the parallels to current events [1] and the illusion that a bombing campaign will suffice to end a war in a matter of weeks is rather eerie to me.
I am spanish and I know the details better than you I presume.
Guernica was in many ways something both the british and republicans made stand out for propaganda.
There have been far worse things in the spanish civil wars.
For example Cabra was bombed in a day of market with the intention of killing and without being any kind of strategic strategic objective, way further than Guernica from other objectives and with more dead civilians actually.
>with the intention of killing and without being any kind of strategic strategic objective
Wikipedia says "The airstrike was carried out in the mistaken belief that Italian mechanized troops were stationed in the village. Once over the target, the pilots mistook the market's awnings for military tents." (Carlos Saiz Cidoncha, 2006)
> It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians
It had already started way before, right when armed forces started using planes, in WW1. (I was thinking even earlier, in Libya during the Italo-Turkish war of 1911, but I haven't found confirmation in a quick search)
Years ago the BBC would put on educational distance learning TV on Saturday mornings. It's where I first learned group theory [0] ...and all about Guernica [1]. Both memorable TV for a bored teenager.
the way this displayed in the Reina Sofia is fantastic. it’s set in its own room that you approach from the side so you get this experience of turning a corner and boom there’s Guernica. Gave me chills.
When we visited that room in 2012 or so the walls on the other 3 sides had Picasso's studies for the final painting.
The combination of those in proper size context to the astounding thing on that wall was... I dunno, very hard to bear? Chills and goosebumps. Just being in the presence of such genius. [Edited to add: I forgot! Many of the studies are clearly over complicated and colorful. And then you turn to see what was the final result. IMHO It's the same with genius software, in a different medium. Prose too, but maybe that's more contentious.]
There is no digital screen representation that can remotely approximate the psychic impact physical proximity to genius creates. I've felt this with many other greats as well.
I've sat alone in 3 different Rothko rooms. Damn. It's all I can say. You have to do it yourself. Tip: pan your eyes slowly while sitting in different corners.
In the autobiography of Man Ray, who was a good friend of Picasso, it's mentioned that the sketchbooks are not preliminary studies, but sketches that came _after_ he finished the painting. Aparently Picasso was still so outraged after finishing the painting, he had to keep going. Man Ray scoffs at the museumguides who explain the sketchbooks as preliminary when according to him they are not. Their original intent adds so much more gravitas to how Picaso (and other people) felt about Guernica.
The reason why I mention this is because those sketchbooks were the first time I got an insight in the process of an artist, realising that a painting doesn't just come out of thin air, but requires meticulous planning. (or so I thought) That's when I realised that anyone can be an artist and it's not just a matter of talent. Seeing the Geurnica and those sketchbooks was a pivotal moment for me to finally pick up a pencil and learn how to draw. Joke's on me... (although I realize the way Picasso works allows you to skip the planning phase, which is just not possible in other painting styles)
I'll take your word for it (Man Ray's) because... Picasso. It's interesting to contemplate though because those studies/sketches/whatever are Picasso, they're great, better than just about anybody who ever painted, but pale next to Guernica.
It’s really one of those things that you have to see in person and walk up and down along to understand. The scale of it alone is a huge part of what makes it so memorable.
Similarly for Gericault's 'Raft of the Medusa'. I had only seen it in a book and had no idea how big it was. It is enormous. Go see it if you are ever at the Louvre (much more impressive than the Moca Lisa IMHO).
It’s also perfectly contextualized. In the same wing, there’s a lot of contemporary art and ephemera from all sides of revolutionary Spain, including a model of the building in which Guernica was displayed at the World’s Fair in Paris. It’s almost poetic how it was essentially confined to a basement, as if the republicans were admitting they were on the verge of defeat by Franco.
Somewhat similar in terms of the high resolutions of its images, I also want to recommend https://artsandculture.google.com/ which not many know about, it's a great resource to see and learn about art around the world.
The day I saw the John Singer Sargent exhibition (in the National Gallery of Art) is the day I realized how overrated people like Piacasso have been in my mind, likely due to cultural programming.
I have been thinking about this painting a lot more in recent years because it always comes to mind when someone mentions AI art. It's arguably the most important piece by arguably the most important artist of the 20th Century (the "arguablies" are intentional, I'm not going to have that argument because that isn't the point of my comment, but including "arguably" makes them both statements of fact) and it's bleak, upsetting, and just flat out ugly, but that is all intentional and what makes it fascinating to look at. The goal of art isn't merely beauty. It's primarily communication. And this piece very clearly communicates the horrors of war. Sure, AI can make pretty pictures, but it can't make art because it has nothing to communicate.
Well, is Pixar’s Toy Story a work of art? Or what about Julia set renderings, where people make choices about the colors? ;)
Tongue-in-cheek aside, I do think I agree with you in that (1) art, as perceived by us human meatbags, is art because of the human element of it (if not in creation, then in perception), and that (2) AI absent explicit steering trends towards a rather bland medium.
But there’s art in everything from the blurry, out of focus, disposable film cameras, to a 5-year-old’s crayon scribble scrabbles, to the neon glitter themes we used to copy-paste over our geocities and xanga pages, and as frustrating as it is to our own sensibilities, an AI prompt “draw a pink elephant” isn’t all that different.
The element of creation is central to art. A painting or a photo of a sunset can be art, but the sunset itself is not art.
In addition, the communication doesn't need to be explicit or intentional. It can be communicating something antithetical to the artist's original intent like a blurry and out of focus photo. Or it can even be antithetical to the piece itself like a lot of modern art (Fountain[1] comes to mind). I'm also sure that the 5-year-old will happily tell you a story about why they scribbled what they did. I'm not diminishing any of those. But if all the person contributes is a prompt, the text of that prompt is the extent of their art.
> a photo of a sunset can be art
...
> But if all the person contributes is a prompt, the text of that prompt is the extent of their art.
The natural question to pose is, does that mean that when the person who pressed the shutter button in that camera, that button press was the extent of their art? Of course not; intent, sensibility, timing, understanding there's something special about what's in front of you, preparing a composition, orchestrating poses, framing to create a special composition, manipulating the medium via speed or exposure or etc to create an appropriate texture... all those and more can play a part, and the button press is just the delivery method.
Millions of photos per day are not art even if they show a pretty thing, and nobody has a problem with that. Even when we actively try to capture something special, most people will later look at their photo and say "it shows the place, but it doesn't communicate anything like what being there made me feel".
So in the same way, I think the interesting discussion will be not that AI images are not art. Millions of prompts per day will not be art, and nobody (except grifters) has a problem with that. But how can AI become another vehicle for people to produce interesting art? Perhaps there's nothing special there. But I hope people with the drive to explore and the need to communicate continue giving it a shot and prove or disprove the notion that "it's just a prompt".
But it completely is different. To you point its why a 5 year old's crayon scribble is more powerful to certain people than Guernica for instance. History is littered with gazillions of scribbles, stray notes, meaningless stuff that just goes straight in the bin. AI will do that. But for something communicates the feeeell of something you need warmth and emotional relatability.
I'm not a fan of AI "art" at all, but this particular attack does leave something to be desired.
Beyond aesthetic judgements of good/bad or intentional stance re: communication with others, there is such a thing as "process art" which could also be described as communication with oneself, or as kind of being locked into conversation with the medium, or with the universe. People will get distracted here and want to fight about whether Pollack is good, but I think that's missing the point. It just happens to be a very direct way of engaging with the dialectic tension of order / chaos that's incompressible, irreducible, and completely without substitute.. and that's just one of many dialectics you could explore.
Another self-communicative aspect of art is about exploring the limits and mastery of technique, where the details and result per se don't matter much. You can see this with a bunch of dorks building useless programming languages and doing amazing stuff with them, or see it with a smith at a forge. Someone will say this is about being a technician or a craftsman, but I'd say no, those activities typically have a practical purpose. Especially if you're doing this for the joy of it without even caring whether you're actively learning something you can apply elsewhere, then it's probably art.
I’m not sure what specifically you think you’re disagreeing with me about because I don’t see what you’re saying as incompatible with what I said. Communication with oneself or the rest of the art world is still communication.
What makes Pollock’s art “art” is the context in which it was created. It’s not like One: Number 31, 1950 would have the same reputation today if you sent it back a couple centuries in a time machine. It’s appreciated because it’s part of an ongoing conversation.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted. I don't think an artist would "one-shot" an art piece, let's say an image. At what point of the iterative process does the output become "Art"? What if the artist makes it a point to one-shot images and the ugliness of the output becomes their commentary of the current aesthetics...
I'd say it's much more about intent than the process, there are plenty of "Artists" on instagram (in quotes because I would not consider them artists), who paint by hand, surely talented people, but their images convey nothing. They are clearly marketing/branding themselves, the instagram post becomes the actual final output...I don't know.
Hole. In. One. I have so little fear of AI replacing true art because its fundamental purpose is to transfer emotions (and its the best way humanity's been able to do this) that can be indescribable in any other way than feelings. AI does not have that and so can never be a true substitute for it. it can be a tool to help someone convey that but it needs humans.
If you want to know a little bit more about Guernica but only have about 15 minutes, I recommend this video by James Payne on his "Great Art Explained" channel:
I had high hopes for the tiled image formats, which began with Microsoft Seadragon, a project they took on and closed down, as is the way. Fortunately someone forked OpenSeadragon, which is such an under-appreciated tool. Good to see an implementation.
If anyone wants to do their own tiled images, creating the tiles is the hard part, and the image processing toolkit VIPS will do that bit for you.
My wife and I visited Reina Sofia last year and saw “Guernica”. That entire wing is fantastic: the section leading into the room covers war posters and other contemporaneous works, leading you into a room dominated by the painting, with side galleries focusing on smaller studies and post-work of characters.
Aside from the subject matter I was not prepared for the size of the work. It is one thing to see on a monitor or handheld screen, and quite another to see it full-scale. It is a qualitative change, not merely a quantitative one. So while this high fidelity picture allows one to study technique, color, and changes he made while painting, I think it misses the point. I say this without having read much commentary or critique of the work, but I imagine Picasso was so overwhelmed by Guernica that he wanted any viewer to overwhelmed, too. So if they do move it, I hope it is in a similar setting - in a moderately sized room, on a wall not much larger than the work itself, inescapable.
As ridiculous as it may sound, if you plan on visiting, plan two outings: one for Guernica, and one for the rest of the museum. That room and work are emotionally exhausting, and at least for my wife and I the intensity of that wing required a cooldown period.
I would love to see this kind of thing as a Gaussian splat image, so the sheen at different angles is captured. It's somewhat important to making it look realistic.
There is an "Artwork Details" feature and in it a section "Paint residues from the act of vandalism", they are remnants of the act. I quote:
> The varnish applied in 1962 served as a layer to protect the polychrome and the red paint could be removed without damaging the original.
> At the present time, macrophotographs show reddish micro-residues, almost imperceptible to the naked eye. In some cases, this has entered the fissures.
I didn't either until I saw some of his early paintings and learned he was a brilliant classical painter from a very young age (eg. "Portrait of aunt Pepa", at 14). The later surrealism and abstraction weren't due to a lack of technical skill, but his deliberate choice to create a new visual language that would reflect the rapidly changing world around him.
That shift also reflected the era he lived in - one where visual arts played a central role in the cultural conversation - making him a true part of the zeitgeist that is hard to imagine now when visual art feels less central and more inward-looking.
A lot of what feels cliche now started with him, it only feels commonplace now as his influence was so massive.
Imagine being born in 1850 when everyone got around on horseback and paintings were realistic portrayals of people, landscapes, religious figures in muted tones. Impressionism (Van Gogh etc) arrives and is considered radical, then in 1907 you see _Les Demoiselles d'Avignon_ with its bright colors and abstract depiction of cavorting prostitutes. It would certainly provoke a reaction. The 20th Century had arrived.
Picasso was an artistic prodigy from an early age, and was talented at painting in the styles of the day like realism etc.
The reason why he is influential and not forgotten is that he took painting in an entirely new direction and was able to convey emotion and philosophical ideas (like in Guernica, for example) in a completely different way than what was typical at the time. In a lot of his work he strips things down and distorts them on purpose to show multiple perspectives, which isn't something that realism usually tries to do.
In Madrid’s military museum there is a little known painting done as a right wing responce to Guernica - The Paracuellos Massacres" (Las matanzas de Paracuellos) by José Gutiérrez Solana. The subject is the massacre of Spanish civilians by the Republican forces. It is almost as large as Guernica and done in a realistic style. As an obscure counterpoint to Guernica it has a curiosity value. It borrows heavily from the magnificent Executions of the Fifth May by Goya. Btw… All three paintings were commissioned as political statements. I remember seeing all three in one day when I was a young art student. A decidedly odd experience.
Good point - our understanding of this time period has been clouded by knee-jerk hatred, with few willing to admit that there was violence on all sides. It takes bravery to admit that a proportionate and measured response was warranted (within the bounds of international rule of law and order), given the pressures and incentives that communists were putting on Franco.
I was always puzzled by Guernica. It looks so ugly (I think most people who saw it for the first time and didn't know it was a famous painting by Picasso would agree), so how did it get so famous in the first place? Perhaps the point was that war is ugly, so the painting also had to be ugly? But it looks literally like a bad children's drawing. Maybe it got famous because a famous painter making an ugly painting on a serious subject was a novel and unconventional idea.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing! After spending a semester there during the Catalonia vote for independence (the one with riot police forcibly storming ballot locations on TV) and reading a bit of history, it seems to me that Spain has to be one of the most fractured developed states in the world.
Well, quasi-fractured I suppose: all the regionalism has lead to an also-strong federalist countermovemnt! See if you notice anything weird about the map of Spain's high-speed rail routes, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Spain#/medi...
(BTW, Spain has the second best HSR network in the world, just after China. Congrats, Spain!)
What's weird about the high speed rail network? Is it that all lines go through Madrid? Some people like to bring that up when talking about how Madrid gets everything. But the alternative to that is building the line through the middle of nowhere. If you are going North-South or East-West, it makes economical sense to stop in Madrid
I think that's already in the works. The normal train is around 3 hours (1 hour less than driving). So it's understandable that it wasn't a top priority
guys that work for military tech companies, or somehow involved in military anything: zoom in on the horse's mouth. zoom in on the eyes of the person on fire.
I went to Spain as a teenager and saw Guernica in person. It was the first painting to ever really have an effect on me. It's stunning. A perfect example of how art can transmit a message between people across time and space, I just knew that I was feeling how Picasso wanted me to feel.
If you have the chance to see this painting you should, no website can do it justice (although this is a very nice try).
I have been to a bunch of galleries and seeing a painting in person doesn't usually make a difference for me compared to seeing it in a book.
Guernica is one of the few that did. Perhaps because it's massive compared to other well known paintings.
So, I just want to say, I second your recommendation for seeing it in person.
One of the things that made seeing this painting a valuable experience for me was the plentiful background material it was shown next to… drawings, paintings, sketches etc. it showed the depth of creative process that Picasso employed.
One thing I have not seen discussed here is the fact that this painting was commissioned by the (Spanish) Republican government. Effectively, there is a degree of propaganda to the painting. No shade on the guy… my other favorite war crime painting is the executions of the third of may by Goya, and it was also a political commission.
Every time I'm in Madrid I get up early (and since in Spain you eat at like 11pm that's not easy) and go to the museum the moment it opens just to get to Guernica and get as much time with it by myself as I can.
That early, before the tour groups have made it that far into the museum, you can actually get the entire space to yourself for >30 minutes and it's never left me not weeping.
It is stunning, particularly so if you read up on the history beforehand and then see all the elements in the painting. It’s the first time I was able to appreciate a Picasso for all the complexity he put into his paintings.
I was similarly stunned by one of the Anselm Kiefers at the Bilbao Guggenheim. Some paintings can only be appreciated in person.
I had the same feeling when I saw it years ago. Dread, sadness, and a sinking stomach.
A few weeks ago I was vacationing in the Basque country, and realized Guernica (the town) was a mere half hour drive away. So we went. Although none of the town in any way reminds you of the depictions of the painting (save for some memorials), I kept feeling the same eerie dread even as I walked through a perfectly normal, pleasant sleepy town.
Guernica shocked the world. It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians, something which we have sadly normalised since WW2. but which I regard as terrorism.
Picasso also painted another great work titled "Korea" in the same vein.
War is an abomination, something we should all fight against.
There was this new theory at the dawn of air warfare called "Strategic Bombing", one of its main advocates was Giulio Dohet. The idea was that aircrafts could get behind the frontlines and bomb vital centers (civilians and production) freely. Hypothetically the morale would collapse, and lead quickly to surrendering. He even calculated that 300 tons of bombs per city over the most important cities would be enough to end a war in less than a month.
This theory couldn't be tested until late 1930's, when everyone was trying variations on the "technique", adding things like explosives, incendiary, gas... and escalating the amount of bombs needed to cause the mythical collapse. I think the record was 5 million tons of bombs over Vietnam (170 kg of bombs per capita), still the collapse didn't happen.
England and US carries the crown of the barbarism on this subject. And now the state of Israel. Check for names Frederick Lindemann, Arthur "Bomber" Harris and Sir Hugh Trenchard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing
> England and US carries the crown of the barbarism...
Germany played a part. Snark aside, v1's and 2's weren't exactly 'targetted'.
Dehousing was also inspired by the effects of German bombing of the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing#Production_and_conte...
These decisions precedes the extensive use of V1 and V2, also volume and scale matters. Thats why they got the crown.
London, Bristol, Southampton, Coventry and various other English cities were heavily bombed by Germany before the UK's major bomber offensive on Germany.
Please provide source. V2 rockets used in 1944.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
> I think the record was 5 million tons of bombs over Vietnam (170 kg of bombs per capita), still the collapse didn't happen.
Unsure about the tonnage, but the parallels to current events [1] and the illusion that a bombing campaign will suffice to end a war in a matter of weeks is rather eerie to me.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_war
Relevant ACOUP (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, Bret Devereaux's military history blog) post: https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower...
I am spanish and I know the details better than you I presume.
Guernica was in many ways something both the british and republicans made stand out for propaganda.
There have been far worse things in the spanish civil wars.
For example Cabra was bombed in a day of market with the intention of killing and without being any kind of strategic strategic objective, way further than Guernica from other objectives and with more dead civilians actually.
It is just less well known bc of who did it.
>with the intention of killing and without being any kind of strategic strategic objective
Wikipedia says "The airstrike was carried out in the mistaken belief that Italian mechanized troops were stationed in the village. Once over the target, the pilots mistook the market's awnings for military tents." (Carlos Saiz Cidoncha, 2006)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Cabra
> It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians
It had already started way before, right when armed forces started using planes, in WW1. (I was thinking even earlier, in Libya during the Italo-Turkish war of 1911, but I haven't found confirmation in a quick search)
>It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians
Mine owners hired planes to bomb striking miners at the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921
Years ago the BBC would put on educational distance learning TV on Saturday mornings. It's where I first learned group theory [0] ...and all about Guernica [1]. Both memorable TV for a bored teenager.
[0] https://youtu.be/wdYzAAG2VXs
[1] https://youtu.be/vuPNBeWmuSk
Amazing thank you. Allows me to quote my favourite art anecdote:
When Picasso was interrogated by an SS officer about his painting Guernica, “Did you do that?” Picasso replied, “No, you did.”
the way this displayed in the Reina Sofia is fantastic. it’s set in its own room that you approach from the side so you get this experience of turning a corner and boom there’s Guernica. Gave me chills.
When we visited that room in 2012 or so the walls on the other 3 sides had Picasso's studies for the final painting.
The combination of those in proper size context to the astounding thing on that wall was... I dunno, very hard to bear? Chills and goosebumps. Just being in the presence of such genius. [Edited to add: I forgot! Many of the studies are clearly over complicated and colorful. And then you turn to see what was the final result. IMHO It's the same with genius software, in a different medium. Prose too, but maybe that's more contentious.]
There is no digital screen representation that can remotely approximate the psychic impact physical proximity to genius creates. I've felt this with many other greats as well.
I've sat alone in 3 different Rothko rooms. Damn. It's all I can say. You have to do it yourself. Tip: pan your eyes slowly while sitting in different corners.
In the autobiography of Man Ray, who was a good friend of Picasso, it's mentioned that the sketchbooks are not preliminary studies, but sketches that came _after_ he finished the painting. Aparently Picasso was still so outraged after finishing the painting, he had to keep going. Man Ray scoffs at the museumguides who explain the sketchbooks as preliminary when according to him they are not. Their original intent adds so much more gravitas to how Picaso (and other people) felt about Guernica.
The reason why I mention this is because those sketchbooks were the first time I got an insight in the process of an artist, realising that a painting doesn't just come out of thin air, but requires meticulous planning. (or so I thought) That's when I realised that anyone can be an artist and it's not just a matter of talent. Seeing the Geurnica and those sketchbooks was a pivotal moment for me to finally pick up a pencil and learn how to draw. Joke's on me... (although I realize the way Picasso works allows you to skip the planning phase, which is just not possible in other painting styles)
I'll take your word for it (Man Ray's) because... Picasso. It's interesting to contemplate though because those studies/sketches/whatever are Picasso, they're great, better than just about anybody who ever painted, but pale next to Guernica.
It’s really one of those things that you have to see in person and walk up and down along to understand. The scale of it alone is a huge part of what makes it so memorable.
Similarly for Gericault's 'Raft of the Medusa'. I had only seen it in a book and had no idea how big it was. It is enormous. Go see it if you are ever at the Louvre (much more impressive than the Moca Lisa IMHO).
It’s also perfectly contextualized. In the same wing, there’s a lot of contemporary art and ephemera from all sides of revolutionary Spain, including a model of the building in which Guernica was displayed at the World’s Fair in Paris. It’s almost poetic how it was essentially confined to a basement, as if the republicans were admitting they were on the verge of defeat by Franco.
It's a fantastic museum and a highlight of Madrid.
Somewhat similar in terms of the high resolutions of its images, I also want to recommend https://artsandculture.google.com/ which not many know about, it's a great resource to see and learn about art around the world.
Seems similar to operation night watch by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/stories/operation-night-watch/...
The day I saw the John Singer Sargent exhibition (in the National Gallery of Art) is the day I realized how overrated people like Piacasso have been in my mind, likely due to cultural programming.
I have been thinking about this painting a lot more in recent years because it always comes to mind when someone mentions AI art. It's arguably the most important piece by arguably the most important artist of the 20th Century (the "arguablies" are intentional, I'm not going to have that argument because that isn't the point of my comment, but including "arguably" makes them both statements of fact) and it's bleak, upsetting, and just flat out ugly, but that is all intentional and what makes it fascinating to look at. The goal of art isn't merely beauty. It's primarily communication. And this piece very clearly communicates the horrors of war. Sure, AI can make pretty pictures, but it can't make art because it has nothing to communicate.
> The goal of art isn't merely beauty. It's primarily communication.
"Painting isn't an aesthetic operation; it's a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange, hostile world and us" - Picasso
Well, is Pixar’s Toy Story a work of art? Or what about Julia set renderings, where people make choices about the colors? ;)
Tongue-in-cheek aside, I do think I agree with you in that (1) art, as perceived by us human meatbags, is art because of the human element of it (if not in creation, then in perception), and that (2) AI absent explicit steering trends towards a rather bland medium.
But there’s art in everything from the blurry, out of focus, disposable film cameras, to a 5-year-old’s crayon scribble scrabbles, to the neon glitter themes we used to copy-paste over our geocities and xanga pages, and as frustrating as it is to our own sensibilities, an AI prompt “draw a pink elephant” isn’t all that different.
The element of creation is central to art. A painting or a photo of a sunset can be art, but the sunset itself is not art.
In addition, the communication doesn't need to be explicit or intentional. It can be communicating something antithetical to the artist's original intent like a blurry and out of focus photo. Or it can even be antithetical to the piece itself like a lot of modern art (Fountain[1] comes to mind). I'm also sure that the 5-year-old will happily tell you a story about why they scribbled what they did. I'm not diminishing any of those. But if all the person contributes is a prompt, the text of that prompt is the extent of their art.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)
> a photo of a sunset can be art ... > But if all the person contributes is a prompt, the text of that prompt is the extent of their art.
The natural question to pose is, does that mean that when the person who pressed the shutter button in that camera, that button press was the extent of their art? Of course not; intent, sensibility, timing, understanding there's something special about what's in front of you, preparing a composition, orchestrating poses, framing to create a special composition, manipulating the medium via speed or exposure or etc to create an appropriate texture... all those and more can play a part, and the button press is just the delivery method.
Millions of photos per day are not art even if they show a pretty thing, and nobody has a problem with that. Even when we actively try to capture something special, most people will later look at their photo and say "it shows the place, but it doesn't communicate anything like what being there made me feel".
So in the same way, I think the interesting discussion will be not that AI images are not art. Millions of prompts per day will not be art, and nobody (except grifters) has a problem with that. But how can AI become another vehicle for people to produce interesting art? Perhaps there's nothing special there. But I hope people with the drive to explore and the need to communicate continue giving it a shot and prove or disprove the notion that "it's just a prompt".
Is building a technofeudal entity and bootstrapping pseudo-AGI art?
But it completely is different. To you point its why a 5 year old's crayon scribble is more powerful to certain people than Guernica for instance. History is littered with gazillions of scribbles, stray notes, meaningless stuff that just goes straight in the bin. AI will do that. But for something communicates the feeeell of something you need warmth and emotional relatability.
I'm not a fan of AI "art" at all, but this particular attack does leave something to be desired.
Beyond aesthetic judgements of good/bad or intentional stance re: communication with others, there is such a thing as "process art" which could also be described as communication with oneself, or as kind of being locked into conversation with the medium, or with the universe. People will get distracted here and want to fight about whether Pollack is good, but I think that's missing the point. It just happens to be a very direct way of engaging with the dialectic tension of order / chaos that's incompressible, irreducible, and completely without substitute.. and that's just one of many dialectics you could explore.
Another self-communicative aspect of art is about exploring the limits and mastery of technique, where the details and result per se don't matter much. You can see this with a bunch of dorks building useless programming languages and doing amazing stuff with them, or see it with a smith at a forge. Someone will say this is about being a technician or a craftsman, but I'd say no, those activities typically have a practical purpose. Especially if you're doing this for the joy of it without even caring whether you're actively learning something you can apply elsewhere, then it's probably art.
I’m not sure what specifically you think you’re disagreeing with me about because I don’t see what you’re saying as incompatible with what I said. Communication with oneself or the rest of the art world is still communication.
What makes Pollock’s art “art” is the context in which it was created. It’s not like One: Number 31, 1950 would have the same reputation today if you sent it back a couple centuries in a time machine. It’s appreciated because it’s part of an ongoing conversation.
As a tool in the hands of a great artist, AI will make great art.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted. I don't think an artist would "one-shot" an art piece, let's say an image. At what point of the iterative process does the output become "Art"? What if the artist makes it a point to one-shot images and the ugliness of the output becomes their commentary of the current aesthetics...
I'd say it's much more about intent than the process, there are plenty of "Artists" on instagram (in quotes because I would not consider them artists), who paint by hand, surely talented people, but their images convey nothing. They are clearly marketing/branding themselves, the instagram post becomes the actual final output...I don't know.
Hole. In. One. I have so little fear of AI replacing true art because its fundamental purpose is to transfer emotions (and its the best way humanity's been able to do this) that can be indescribable in any other way than feelings. AI does not have that and so can never be a true substitute for it. it can be a tool to help someone convey that but it needs humans.
If you want to know a little bit more about Guernica but only have about 15 minutes, I recommend this video by James Payne on his "Great Art Explained" channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJLH7JAsBHA
I recommend all of his videos actually, they are great.
It’s a strange feeling to zoom in until the cracks of the paint fill the screen.
I had high hopes for the tiled image formats, which began with Microsoft Seadragon, a project they took on and closed down, as is the way. Fortunately someone forked OpenSeadragon, which is such an under-appreciated tool. Good to see an implementation.
If anyone wants to do their own tiled images, creating the tiles is the hard part, and the image processing toolkit VIPS will do that bit for you.
“Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt” (Hope dies last)
Keep the hope up! I created OpenZoom in my early 20s, then interned at Seadragon, and almost 20 years later, I still want to make it a reality.
Let me know if you have ideas for use cases / applications!
Easy hosting: https://zoomhub.net
Collections: https://zoomhub.net/showcase/photography/nasa
Comparison viewer: https://zoomhub-compare-viewer-demo.netlify.app/collections/...
My wife and I visited Reina Sofia last year and saw “Guernica”. That entire wing is fantastic: the section leading into the room covers war posters and other contemporaneous works, leading you into a room dominated by the painting, with side galleries focusing on smaller studies and post-work of characters.
Aside from the subject matter I was not prepared for the size of the work. It is one thing to see on a monitor or handheld screen, and quite another to see it full-scale. It is a qualitative change, not merely a quantitative one. So while this high fidelity picture allows one to study technique, color, and changes he made while painting, I think it misses the point. I say this without having read much commentary or critique of the work, but I imagine Picasso was so overwhelmed by Guernica that he wanted any viewer to overwhelmed, too. So if they do move it, I hope it is in a similar setting - in a moderately sized room, on a wall not much larger than the work itself, inescapable.
As ridiculous as it may sound, if you plan on visiting, plan two outings: one for Guernica, and one for the rest of the museum. That room and work are emotionally exhausting, and at least for my wife and I the intensity of that wing required a cooldown period.
The episode of BBC In Our Time on Guernica was very interesting
every episode of In Our Time is interesting. The new guy's doing a really good job too!
I would love to see this kind of thing as a Gaussian splat image, so the sheen at different angles is captured. It's somewhat important to making it look realistic.
The x-ray scans are interesting, I didn't knew the canvas was taped together from 33 smaller ones.
It's not. I think it's just the wooden frame behind the canvas
You're right, it's the stretcher!
I zoomed in as far as I could go and saw some occasional flecks of red. Is that just lint, or remnants of when it was defaced in the 70s?
There is an "Artwork Details" feature and in it a section "Paint residues from the act of vandalism", they are remnants of the act. I quote:
> The varnish applied in 1962 served as a layer to protect the polychrome and the red paint could be removed without damaging the original.
> At the present time, macrophotographs show reddish micro-residues, almost imperceptible to the naked eye. In some cases, this has entered the fissures.
I lack an answer, but for other interested, here is a link with more details regarding the event:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Shafrazi#Shafrazi_and_Gue...
> On February 28, 1974, Shafrazi spray-painted Picasso's 1937 painting Guernica with the words "KILL LIES ALL" in foot-high letters.
> Tony Shafrazian was born in Abadan, Iran, to Iranian Armenian parents
> In 2020, Shafrazi publicly supported Donald Trump for president.
If nothing else, the universe has a sense of humor.
I don't understand why picasso is famous and considered a great artist
I didn't either until I saw some of his early paintings and learned he was a brilliant classical painter from a very young age (eg. "Portrait of aunt Pepa", at 14). The later surrealism and abstraction weren't due to a lack of technical skill, but his deliberate choice to create a new visual language that would reflect the rapidly changing world around him.
That shift also reflected the era he lived in - one where visual arts played a central role in the cultural conversation - making him a true part of the zeitgeist that is hard to imagine now when visual art feels less central and more inward-looking.
A lot of what feels cliche now started with him, it only feels commonplace now as his influence was so massive.
Imagine being born in 1850 when everyone got around on horseback and paintings were realistic portrayals of people, landscapes, religious figures in muted tones. Impressionism (Van Gogh etc) arrives and is considered radical, then in 1907 you see _Les Demoiselles d'Avignon_ with its bright colors and abstract depiction of cavorting prostitutes. It would certainly provoke a reaction. The 20th Century had arrived.
I didn't know that, that's very cool! I'll do more research about him. Thanks!
It was a good question. Investigating why people like $popular_thing that you just don't get is a good way to broaden the mind.
I hope it leads to interesting discoveries and more art to appreciate for you!
Picasso was an artistic prodigy from an early age, and was talented at painting in the styles of the day like realism etc.
The reason why he is influential and not forgotten is that he took painting in an entirely new direction and was able to convey emotion and philosophical ideas (like in Guernica, for example) in a completely different way than what was typical at the time. In a lot of his work he strips things down and distorts them on purpose to show multiple perspectives, which isn't something that realism usually tries to do.
put philosophical ideas in to paintings is an awesome idea! I'll look more of him. Thanks!
Another one to see in Madrid is the much earlier but similarly arresting painting by Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808 [0].
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808
In Madrid’s military museum there is a little known painting done as a right wing responce to Guernica - The Paracuellos Massacres" (Las matanzas de Paracuellos) by José Gutiérrez Solana. The subject is the massacre of Spanish civilians by the Republican forces. It is almost as large as Guernica and done in a realistic style. As an obscure counterpoint to Guernica it has a curiosity value. It borrows heavily from the magnificent Executions of the Fifth May by Goya. Btw… All three paintings were commissioned as political statements. I remember seeing all three in one day when I was a young art student. A decidedly odd experience.
Good point - our understanding of this time period has been clouded by knee-jerk hatred, with few willing to admit that there was violence on all sides. It takes bravery to admit that a proportionate and measured response was warranted (within the bounds of international rule of law and order), given the pressures and incentives that communists were putting on Franco.
I was always puzzled by Guernica. It looks so ugly (I think most people who saw it for the first time and didn't know it was a famous painting by Picasso would agree), so how did it get so famous in the first place? Perhaps the point was that war is ugly, so the painting also had to be ugly? But it looks literally like a bad children's drawing. Maybe it got famous because a famous painter making an ugly painting on a serious subject was a novel and unconventional idea.
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A b9mbing that was not worse than Cabra's bombing or Paracuellos killings but for some reason it stayed at the top like a myth.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing! After spending a semester there during the Catalonia vote for independence (the one with riot police forcibly storming ballot locations on TV) and reading a bit of history, it seems to me that Spain has to be one of the most fractured developed states in the world.
Well, quasi-fractured I suppose: all the regionalism has lead to an also-strong federalist countermovemnt! See if you notice anything weird about the map of Spain's high-speed rail routes, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Spain#/medi...
(BTW, Spain has the second best HSR network in the world, just after China. Congrats, Spain!)
What's weird about the high speed rail network? Is it that all lines go through Madrid? Some people like to bring that up when talking about how Madrid gets everything. But the alternative to that is building the line through the middle of nowhere. If you are going North-South or East-West, it makes economical sense to stop in Madrid
The fact that Valencia and Barcelona are still not connected, for example
I think that's already in the works. The normal train is around 3 hours (1 hour less than driving). So it's understandable that it wasn't a top priority
Most soldiers are ordinary people.
Isn't the wound much much older than 90 years?
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guys that work for military tech companies, or somehow involved in military anything: zoom in on the horse's mouth. zoom in on the eyes of the person on fire.
All this fuss over 3 measly hours of bombings... What kinda painting are we going to make for Gaza?
almost fell for it
when you put this stuff in perspective the lies really start to fall through