Artifacts are symbols that remind individuals of their culture and other critical events. From ancient times, human beings developed artifacts to enhance meaning, rules, and beliefs. The Great Wave and Guernica are among the famous artifacts ever created. The Great Wave was created in 1832 by Katsushika Hokusai as part of the woodblock print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji ( Guth, 2015). It was made during the Edo Period in Japan. The image visualizes inhabitants in three boats attempting to cross large waves. Pablo Picasso created the Guernica painting in 1937 at Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid. The painting was made during the modernism age, and it represents the human impact of mechanized war ( Clark, 2013).
The Great Wave Painting by Hokusai
Guernica Painting by Picasso
Both the Great Wave and Guernica paintings depict the theme of suffering. Hokusai expresses the theme of suffering by illustrating inhabitants in the three boats about to be hit by an enormous wave. If stricken, lives and property would be lost. The art symbolizes tsunamis, hurricanes, plane crashes, or other tragedies from water bodies ( Guth, 2011). Picasso in Guernica shows suffering through reacting to the casual bombing practice by the Nazis on Guernica, during the Spanish Civil War ( Rhodes, 2013). The portrait indicates people and animals in an open room ailing due to the war. There is a crying woman with a dead child in her arms; a bull stands over her. Also, a horse falls after being hit.
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The theme directly relates to my life experience. As a child, I witnessed several people dying and many succumbing to injuries following terrorist attacks on a nearby city. Like a painting, the incident is still stuck in my head. Since then, I have been advocating for peace and security by creating images with touching messages.
References
Guth, C. M. (2015). Hokusai’s Great Wave: Biography of a global icon . University of Hawaii Press.
Guth, C. M. (2011). Hokusai's Great Waves in Nineteenth-Century Japanese Visual Culture. The Art Bulletin , 93 (4), 468-485.
Rhodes, R. (2013). Guernica: Horror and inspiration. Bulletin of the atomic scientists , 69 (6), 19-25.
Clark, T. J. (2013). Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica (Vol. 56). Princeton University Press.
