A street light illuminates the grisly scene: a wounded horse, stabbed with a sword, tramples over a corpse, a bull and a bird,side by side, rampage the street around a weeping mother holding her child while other people are running through in bloodied clothes and a woman yells to the sky in front of a burning building.
This violent scene is Spanish modernist painter Pablo Picasso’s 1937 work “Guernica.” During the Spanish Civil War, Picasso was asked by Republican Spain to contribute to their exhibit at the Paris world exhibition, according to the Museo Reina Sofía website. The recent bombing of the town Guernica by Nationalist Spain and the graphic photos published in the news inspired Picasso to paint his cubist work, which kept the name of the bombed town.
The work was adapted as the new mural by the seniors of Mr. Nathan Leventhal’s AP Art Studio class last year, continuing the tradition of adding a new work of art inside South before the start of the new year. The mural is located in the hallway between the freshman and sophomore commons.
The process of choosing the next painting for South is not an easy one. Seniors nominate different artworks to be considered for adaptation. After nominations are made numerous rounds of voting narrow down the choices. This year “Guernica” won solidly.
The main problem that had to be addressed before starting the project of painting the mural was where “Guernica” would be placed.
Mr. Leventhal explained that for some paintings the location where they would be created was obvious because of the work itself. He gave an example that the adaptation for Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel in Commons 1 “went on the ceiling because it had to.”
“‘Guernica’ is almost 12 foot by over 25 feet,” he added. “So there were some years where I didn’t have a big enough wall for Guernica.”
Student lockers between the freshman and sophomore commons were removed last year. “Taking the lockers out enabled Guernica to be an option again,” said Mr. Leventhal. It’s actually life size.”
After the location was decided, the next step was adapting the details. Mr. Leventhal said “We don’t just copy paintings. We make them Piratey- in some way South related.”
The seniors changed the streetlight to a compass. The people now wear pirate hats, hooks and eyepatches. The bull became a pirate ship; a harpooned octopus now guards treasure in place of the trampling horse; a mother no longer weeps for her child, instead a mermaid cries out while holding a cannon.
The mural is not simply a decoration. Mr. Leventhal explained, “Part of the original idea was we’re picking these famous pieces from history that you’re going to see again later in your life, and it’ll make a connection.”
Connecting to the remarkable mural is simply done by looking.. Niharika Rajiv Vellodi (‘25) and Rachael Song (‘25) admired the art style and the details of the scene.
“I notice a lot of, like monochromatic colors with pops of green and a tan yellow, and the people are drawn abstract and disfigured in a way,” said Song.
Vellodi said, “The whole painting looks abstract, it’s very interesting and action packed.”
Other students took notice of more specific details. Myra Vankar (‘28) noticed the faces. “It’s like you’re looking at the face from a side profile but both the eyes are on the side, that is what sticks out the most for me.”
Students also interact with the mural as a part of lessons for their class. For example, for a unit on art, Ms. Brandy Moncada’s Spanish IV Honors class, she said she and the students walk around the school. “We look at the different murals and we use our art vocabulary to describe them.”
Mr. Leventhal hopes to continue fostering students’ connection with well-known paintings with a project he plans for the future. He said he would like to attach a QR code beside each mural. The QR code would take them to a website that would give background on the original painting and, Mr. Leventhal said, “Explain why we did what we did.”
He added, “This will keep learning going in the hallways and into the future.”