Focus on this artwork and discuss the Description.
Like Picasso's painting Guernica, the painting addresses the horrors of war, in this case depicting the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the most notable events of the Second World War. Jorn's impression of warfare is conveyed above all in the process behind the painting. Indeed, his thick coating of colour is more of a process in its own right than a representation, revealing war as a phenomenon beyond man's understanding. Stalingrad could be seen as an enormous battlefield where all traces of mankind and civilisation were buried under layers of snow. An outline of a body or the suggestion of a face can perhaps be discerned but under the surface, the destruction and upheaval are already fading from memory. Jorn sees war as a tragedy of madness, completely devoid of heroism. Created at a time when mankind lived under the threat of nuclear war, the painting can be seen as the artist's personal expression of a world lamenting its own end.
Second World War Picasso Battle of Stalingrad Guernica