Descripción
It was painted by Picasso in Paris on 2 May 1937 and is in the Museo del Prado, Cason del Buen Retiro, Madrid.
The oil painting “Horse’s Head” has been reproduced as a motif on other posters.
The first six drawings of the horse, one of the most controversial symbols in “Guernica”, were made by Picasso on 1 May, using blue paper.
On 20 May, Picasso again drew two profiles of horses’ heads and the head of the mother with a dead child, in which the tongue is in a position reminiscent of the distortions he applied to the horse’s head.
The horse was a very significant symbol for Picasso. The position of the horse’s head, teeth and nose in the final version of “Guernica” is different from that in this study. But in both, the tongue is shaped like a large dagger blade. This is what Pierre Daix called the “tongue of a dagger”. Without a doubt, Picasso has managed to give extraordinary strength to the expression of the horse’s head, which distills the aggressiveness produced by the pain that permeates the painting.
The image of the horse is violent, but extremely attractive, if we judge it apart from the other images in the painting. It makes us feel a genuine and sincere rejection of any act of barbarism.
