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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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 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 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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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 51.2 ms ] threadWhen Picasso was interrogated by an SS officer about his painting Guernica, “Did you do that?” Picasso replied, “No, you did.”
[0] https://youtu.be/wdYzAAG2VXs
[1] https://youtu.be/vuPNBeWmuSk
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.
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/...
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 was similarly stunned by one of the Anselm Kiefers at the Bilbao Guggenheim. Some paintings can only be appreciated in person.
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.
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/stories/operation-night-watch/...
Picasso also painted another great work titled "Korea" in the same vein.
War is an abomination, something we should all fight against.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJLH7JAsBHA
I recommend all of his videos actually, they are great.
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.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808