Fighting the War#93032 48” X 66” oc
According to the testimony of artworks, Spain suffered at least twice the destruction of the war. Picasso’s “Guernica” and Goya’s “Third of May, 1808” and etchings. Though Napoleon forbade pillage of his soldiers upon the occupation of conquered lands, specially in Spain, and condemned and executed those who found guilty of pillage, uncontrollable incidents occurred frequently. The atrocity of massacre and the cruelty of war filled Goya’s etching in abundance and Picasso’s painting in particular. Picasso’s “Guernica” is the best-known 20th-century work of art. It related to a specific historical event. The monumental presentation of the theme is phenomenal. Picasso employed his innovated synthetic Cubistic treatment in exaggeration, distortion, symbolism yet well-controlled virtuosity. It’s a allegorical description of the destructive war yet not without hope for peace and justice. In T. F. Chen’s “Fight the War”, David’s three-dimensional Napoleon rides his horse into Picasso’s two-dimensional battlefield and takes the central stage. With this sudden invasion of a colorful Napoleon on horseback, the originally black-white-blue Guernica gains colors as a sign of hope. Though we do our best to avoid the war, when war is inevitable, it’s better to fight the war in order to stop the war, as dropping atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to stop the Second World War.
– T. F. Chen |