ngs and animals in a much more drastic manner. In hisGuernica the expression of horror is even greater than the models he followed”(Blunt 56). Picasso did not invent his figures nor did he create monsters, butaltered prosaic symbols with abstract treatment to make their representations shockingly grotesque. One example, “the formalized features and the openmouth of the principle figure in Poussin’s The Massacre of the Innocents revealunmistakably their origin in the masks which Greek and Roman actors wore whenacting tragic parts, and it is not unlikely that Picasso also had such models inmind when he employed this device” (Blunt 47). Picasso adopted suchrecognizable features but used his personal style to make the effect far moreshocking.The crouching mother, on the far left side, holds her child in her lap,limply, with his head tilted backward, hanging lifelessly in her arms. Her head isflung upward, toward the sky, and her mouth is open as if to signify her shriekingcries. This scene is comprehensible, not just to the sympathetic mothers of theworld, but every human who could understand that “no mother holds her childthat way: it must be dead” (Fisch 25). This image relates, as well to the masksworn in Greek and Roman tragedies, which had open, gasping mouths and inwardsloping, wrinkled foreheads to signify terror and anguish. “The gesture of thehead thrown back relates closely to Roman reliefs which used this symbolism to“express the death agony,” as well (Blunt 50). The mother represent the weakmasses under the power of Fascism who have no control over their fate oftragedy. She is the mass population of Spain who despairs over its condition, butis unable to change the situation as it is helpless.Like the mother figure, the helpless Spaniards are also seen in two otherfemale characters. There are two women on the far right side of the mural whoexpress their agony with ...
