Comments on: Guernica

Guernica

Kronos_to_Earth — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:57:53 -0800

A 3D Exploration of Picasso's Guernica (flash movie via)

By: Fuzzy Skinner

Fuzzy Skinner — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:05:48 -0800

By: BoringPostcards

BoringPostcards — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:07:11 -0800

Man.... I just got a chill like the first time I ever saw a Brothers Quay film, or the time I saw "What's Opera, Doc?" on a huge movie screen. That's a brilliant, brilliant animation.

By: gottabefunky

gottabefunky — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:21:26 -0800

Borked.

By: gottabefunky

gottabefunky — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:23:51 -0800

Nope, just slow.

By: munchingzombie

munchingzombie — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:43:31 -0800

Outstanding. Thank you so much for posting.

By: hexatron

hexatron — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:24:33 -0800

Neat. It looks like a lot of work. I mean, it's a work of art with the most ot the art carefully removed. If Picasso had wanted to created a sculpture, he was quite competent to do it himself.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:25:05 -0800

Can't this be done in Worldwide Telescope? Seriously, this is great. Thanks.

By: notsnot

notsnot — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:29:23 -0800

At first, I thought "Isn't this missing the point?" but...man. THat was excellent.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:02:23 -0800

Very nice. Thanks.

By: lilac girl

lilac girl — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:10:03 -0800

Thanks. That was great. I wonder how long it took to make it?

By: signal

signal — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:41:35 -0800

Looks like a lot of work, but doesn't really add anything to the original piece (or its understanding), any more than a model of the Eiffel Tower in toothpicks adds to the actual building.

By: MaryDellamorte

MaryDellamorte — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:46:32 -0800

It's a neat video and all, but I think it takes away from the art aspect of the piece. Cubism is about showing the subject from different vantage points on a 2D surface. Showing it as 3D defeats the purpose.

By: Sam.Burdick

Sam.Burdick — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:07:50 -0800

I found it helpful. Both the description of WHY picasso's guernica was created in the first place (something that was never discussed in the art history classes I took in college) and the fact that the 3D view allowed me to tease out the objects in the frame. Yes, I can't see and understand Magic Eye posters either. My brain can't rez em out.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:14:21 -0800

Hey, wow, that was really quite good. I was prepared to dislike it based on a general notion that art shouldn't be treated this way, but I think it is respectful to the original work. I also think this kind of visual exploration in 3D, when done this well, could be of enormous educational use: I'm thinking children's art appreciation, in particular.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:03:45 -0800

I'm with the skeptics. It was a good animation, and it's interesting in its own way, but it's somewhat at odds with the very idea of cubism. I would have liked it more, perhaps, if each part broken out had been used as a discussion point about the painting. As it was, it's just ... like a magic eye trick.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:20:17 -0800

This 3D exploration is WONDERFUL! Guernica is my favorite piece of artwork. I recently bought this 3000 piece puzzle of it, and I've been working at it all week (in between studying for finals—doing puzzles keeps me sane and zen and happy). I feel like the process of working on a puzzle like this has really made me pay attention to every shade, line, curve and color of the original artwork. I feel as though I've been analyzing this masterpiece 1 inch at a time. You get a pretty good appreciation for it when you stare so closely for so long. But seeing the 3D vid of it has brought the art to life in a whole new way. Also, the first comment in this thread, by Fuzzy Skinner, points to a related video that I believe is not the original work (the original was widescreen and the soundtrack song on was a cover of Duran Duran's "The Chaffeur", and it throbbed in time with...you get the idea). The original (AWESOME) video was featured here, in this MetaFilter post from 2004. Since the FPP is so old, some of the links are wonky. Click here to go straight to video. If you have problems, you may need to go to this page, where you can choose a format (the QuickTime link is borked, sadly) and get the DivX plugin.

By: Phanx

Phanx — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:38:16 -0800

MaryDellamorte encapsulates the problem neatly. But to my slight surprise I did find the animation interesting; it drew attention to some assumptions about the content of the picture which I didn't realise I was making. If you could really enter the world of Guernica, it wouldn't be like this, of course. Instead of being 3D and static, I suppose everything would still look 2D but would be constantly flowing and changing shape. That would be an animation worth watching, but I suppose only Picasso could have produced it.

By: Arnolfini

Arnolfini — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:56:39 -0800

Aren't computers brilliant! Wonder what the man himself would make of this?

By: bru

bru — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:33:25 -0800

This is a very original idea, beautifully done. It highlights how every single character in the painting is grieving, howling, wailing. Somehow, for me, it adds sound to Guernica. Thanks, Kronos_to_Earth.

By: MaryDellamorte

MaryDellamorte — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:38:01 -0800

Picasso is rolling around in his grave right now.

By: signal

signal — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:24:10 -0800

This reminds me somehow of those people who stand in front of abstract paintings and loudly proclaim what they 'see' in them. To me the problem is not 2d->3d (there is Cubist sculpture after all), but rather the idea that the original painting is an incomplete window onto some other form (in this case, a three dimensional form) and that this animation somehow rescues or reveals this.

By: Jakey

Jakey — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:46:09 -0800

Showing it as 3D defeats the purpose. To me the problem is not 2d->3d (there is Cubist sculpture after all), but rather the idea that the original painting is an incomplete window onto some other form I can kind of get what you're saying here, but it's really a question of attitude. Comments like these are really kind of defensive and give the impression that you see the original work as inviolate and not open to commentary (although I don't necessarily think that this really represents what either of you meant). This work really is, at heart, a commentary on Guernica. From the about page in the original link: It provides the unusual opportunity to view the painting from a unique perspective, revealing aspects that would normally stay hidden from the casual viewer. This implicitly requires the animator to choose the aspects that they feel are important in the painting, revealing the animators thoughts on the original. The animation is taking the place of your eye, wandering around the canvas. I would say that the finished animation is also a very minor work in its own right. To paraphrase Gaiman paraphrasing Pratchett, art is a stew. You take stuff out of the pot, you put stuff back. The stew bubbles on. This particular artist has lifted out a side of beef and chucked in a couple of slices of carrot, but what they hey, anything goes.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:51:58 -0800

To paraphrase Gaiman paraphrasing Pratchett, art is a stew. You take stuff out of the pot, you put stuff back. The stew bubbles on. This particular artist has lifted out a side of beef and chucked in a couple of slices of carrot, but what they hey, anything goes. To build on the paraphrasing, though -- this particular film basically showed me "hey, this was a side of beef, here." I hadn't noticed the...beefiness of it before. What I'm trying to say is -- the film pointed out details I hadn't noticed before, and I did appreciate that. It hasn't moved me to tears or anything, but I did come away thinking, "oh, there was a spearpoint there? Huh, hadn't noticed that. Okay, neat."

By: signal

signal — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:52:05 -0800

It provides the unusual opportunity to view the painting from a unique perspective, revealing aspects that would normally stay hidden from the casual viewer. This is what I have a problem wiuth (both explicitly here and implicitly in the animation itself), the conceit that the animator is 'revealing' things that where hidden, and somehow giving 'the casual viewer' a greater insight in to the painting.

By: newmoistness

newmoistness — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:31:10 -0800

This is excellent. I have to strongly disagree with MaryDellamorte. Painting, as Picasso practiced it, was not "about" any preconceived programmatic goal, and "Cubism" was a term appled to his painting after the fact by critics trying to keep up with what was, for Picasso, a very intuitive and open-ended exploration. Cubism is about showing the subject from different vantage points on a 2D surface may have been true for the minor academic painters who were following after Picasso around 1912, and certainly describes one aspect of Picasso's approach, but it's a ridiculously incomplete notion of what's happening in Guernica. Picasso talked about painting as an exorcism, and the expressionistic qualities of Guernica, as well as Picasso's deployment of a consitent set of personal symbols, are at least as important to the painting as the visual grammar of Cubism. On a more trivial note, I always viewed the pointed shape on the horse's side as the wound itself, not the spearpoint. Now I wonder if it's one, or the other, or both simultaneously.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:50:26 -0800

I thought it was really neat. Like others, I think it actually gave me a better perspective on a work that I've seen many, many times. And that, in and of itself, is a novel enough reason to appreciate the video. It also really reminded me of a level from the video game Psychonauts, which is about as high a compliment as I can give.

By: MythMaker

MythMaker — Sat, 17 May 2008 09:24:05 -0800

It's really quite beautiful and revealing. I agree that it could be used as a teaching tool to help art students learn to read a painting like this. Thanks.

By: gorgor_balabala

gorgor_balabala — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:18:14 -0800

It looks like it was fun to make, but it adds nothing to the original work. Why? First, it's much harder to get the whole picture when you're flying around it like it's Mount Rushmore. Second, what's fun about Picasso is that the third dimension is playfully IMPLIED. It doesn't take a special visual acuity to grasp it. It is stated in the most blatant, primal, grotesque terms. There is a very good reason why this is an important work of art, the least not being that it is a savagery upon figuration. When you restore the dimensions to the figure, all of the grotesqueness and the savagery (which it comments on by its very technique) disappear.

By: gorgor_balabala

gorgor_balabala — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:18:55 -0800