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Lot Essay
Mohammad El-Rawas is a renowned Lebanese artist, well-known for his complex assemblages, faceted and multi-layered images often quoting from European art and photography. The present lot is a striking example of his internationalist tendencies and the fragmentation of the composition anticipated his more recent mixed media assemblage works.
This painting is a celebrating tribute to Modern art's most powerful anti-war statement, Guernica. The latter, a masterpiece by Picasso conveys the horrors of war after the bombing of the town of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. By adapting this illustration to Lebanon's experience of the war, El-Rawas comments on the damages of war in general and his piece constitutes a generic plea against the barbarity and terror of war, with chaos and brutality reigning over civilisation.
With a rough brushstroke, a dark palette and a stylised depiction, El-Rawas's work echoes the collective psyche, the anger and despair of the people. By depicting the American flag against a black background, the artist gives a strong political undertone to his work and subtly alludes to Western imperialism and its effect on the region. Moving to the foreground, the viewer finds the civilians shrouded, one on top of another in agony, raising hands while crying out to the heavens, desperate for help and recognition as the city burns under their feet.
Revisiting Picasso's Guernica, the artist's manifest against war and its atrocities, is undeniably a politically charged painting offering a visual account of the devastating and chaotic impact of war on men, women and children, in this case specifically on civilian life and communities. It is a symbol of Lebanon itself surrendering brutal attacks, a true testimony of the horror caused by the civil war and one of the artist's greatest paintings from his early career.
This painting is a celebrating tribute to Modern art's most powerful anti-war statement, Guernica. The latter, a masterpiece by Picasso conveys the horrors of war after the bombing of the town of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. By adapting this illustration to Lebanon's experience of the war, El-Rawas comments on the damages of war in general and his piece constitutes a generic plea against the barbarity and terror of war, with chaos and brutality reigning over civilisation.
With a rough brushstroke, a dark palette and a stylised depiction, El-Rawas's work echoes the collective psyche, the anger and despair of the people. By depicting the American flag against a black background, the artist gives a strong political undertone to his work and subtly alludes to Western imperialism and its effect on the region. Moving to the foreground, the viewer finds the civilians shrouded, one on top of another in agony, raising hands while crying out to the heavens, desperate for help and recognition as the city burns under their feet.
Revisiting Picasso's Guernica, the artist's manifest against war and its atrocities, is undeniably a politically charged painting offering a visual account of the devastating and chaotic impact of war on men, women and children, in this case specifically on civilian life and communities. It is a symbol of Lebanon itself surrendering brutal attacks, a true testimony of the horror caused by the civil war and one of the artist's greatest paintings from his early career.