Art Philosophy
Tragedy in Art
The newspapers are forever mentioning the word, 'tragedy'. It usually means that there has been a death or deaths associated with a catastrophic event. Surprisingly, this is in keeping with the use of tragedy as described by Aristotle: that it should evoke the emotions of pity and fear in the presence of an action of a certain magnitude. Pablo Picasso's 1937 mural, Guernica: Testimony of War, is the epitome of tragedy in art as described by David Hume in his essay, Of Tragedy.
Hume expresses the belief that tragedy may be seen within art through the experience of passion, spirit, uneasiness and a certain pleasure brought about by an understanding of the symbolic aesthetic. He states, "The whole art of the poet is employed in rousing and supporting the compassion and indignation, the anxiety and resentment of his audience. They are pleased in proportion as they are afflicted, and never are so happy as when they employ tears, sobs, and cries to give vent to their sorrow, and relieve their heart, swollen with the tenderest sympathy and compassion" (Hume Internet source).
The mural is based on an incident that happened in 1934. Hitler had come to the aid of Francisco Franco by sending planes to destroy the non-military village of Guernica in Spain's Basque region. The entire town was decimated by the three hour siege. "Picasso found himself interested not so much in what the bombing and burning of Guernica meant politically, but rather what they meant in metaphor, what they meant in the context of individual human lives. He wanted to address emotively the destruction of his beloved country, and he already possessed a personal visual language with which to do so, one anchored in the violence, suffering, and passion of the bullring, as well as in the centuries-old Spanish belief in the essential tragedy of life, one embodied by the figure of a grieving woman, La Llorona" (Martin 38).
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