Assignment 22: Fictional Character, Fictional Life--Amir Abou-Jaoude

Pablo Picasso was the famed Cubist artist of the 20th-century. Starting with his Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907, Picasso pursued an abstract aesthetic in which traditional artistic subjects were broken up into geometric shapes and flat planes. Critics of Picasso believed that his art was groundbreaking, but they felt it lacked emotion and true meaning. After all, a Cubist painting could not capture the spirituality of The Last Supper or the pathos of The Death of Marat, could it?

In 1937, the organizers of the Paris Exhibition invited Picasso to create a piece of art for the Spanish Pavilion. However, Picasso suffered from a kind of artist's block. He could not find anything to paint. Then, the small Spanish Basque town of Guernica was bombed by Nazi forces. There were no military targets in the town, but many civilians died. Picasso felt that he had to paint something to immortalize the victims of the bombing. He created horrific images of the bombing--a woman on the floor, crying out, a horse neighing in terror, and a mother cradling her dead child in her arms. These images were mixed with traditional Spanish imagery of bulls and horses to create a singular statement on the horrors of war.

Picasso's painting is filled with many figures, all representing a different aspect of the bombing. One of the figures that stands out the most is a candle bearer, rushing into the room, shining light on the horrible events that have happened in Guernica. Art historians have theorized that Picasso is the candle bearer, as his painting has put the bombing firmly in the public conscious.

As I was thinking about this prompt, I realized that I admired Guernica's candle bearer. If I could be any fictional character, I would want to be him. He runs into the room and sheds light on the darkness--the darkness represented by the evil electric light hanging above all the characters. He represents the conscious of the world, decrying the horrors of the bombing. I would always like to stand for what I believe is right and not be swayed by what is convenient or what everyone else is doing or saying. I would like to work in the arts, and I hope that in the future, my art will shed light on what everyone else is afraid to look at or has not explored. The candle bearer allows us never to forget what happened at Guernica, and I would like my art to be firmly imprinted in people's minds. The candle bearer may represent Picasso, but in a more general sense, it represents the duty of the artist in society. In the future, I would like to fulfill that duty to the best of my ability.