*It is widely recognized that Picasso was an extremely patriotic Spaniard. This patriotism is easily seen in any of his historical paintings of this time, most notably Guernica, in which he vividly depicts the horrors and atrocities of the Spanish Civil War. In Guernica, a massive mural painted on commission, Picasso uses the bull and other animals as well as screaming human forms to express his contempt for Franco’s regime as a overall feeling of death is felt from this painting (Chipp).
*The oviform, as Marrero explains, “is obtained by describing a circumference and then drawing a diameter, followed by a semi-circle on each radius, on one side and the other of the original diameter.” By then erasing the diameter, the circle has been in half in the only other possible way. This can be interpreted as being symbolic of the contrasting dualisms in life. Picasso often used this concept in his paintings, especially after 1937.
Bull’s Skull, Fruit, Pitcher
Tete de Taureau, Fruit, Pitchet
Pablo Picasso
Spanish(French School), 1881-1973
Oil on canvas, 1939
? Barnes, Rachel, ed. Picasso by Picasso. London: Bracken Books, 1990.
? Chipp, Herschel B. Picasso’s Guernica: History, Transformations, Meanings. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.
? Penrose, Roland. Picasso at Work. With introduction and text. Photographs by Edward Quinn. New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., n.d.
? Harwood, Jeremy, ed. How to Draw & Paint Still Life. London: New Burlington Books, 1986.
? Marrero, Vinvente. Picasso and the Bull. Translated by Anthony Kerrigan. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1956.
? Packard, Fred M. The Effects of War on the Works of Two Spanish Painters — Goya and Picasso. Master’s Thesis for Kent State University, 1961.
? Picasso, Pablo. Bull’s Skull, Fruit, Pitcher (Tete de Taurea, Fruit Pichet). Exhibited at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1939.
? Rubin, William, ed. Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1980.
? Souchére, Dor de la. Picasso in Antibes. New York: Pantheon Books, 1960.