Guernica by Pablo Picasso Courtesy of Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernica is certainly the his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention. This work is seen as an amalgmation of pastoral and epic styles. The discarding of color intensifis the drama, producing a reportage quality as in a photographic record. Guernica is blue, black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (25.6 ft) wide, a mural-size canvas painted in oil. This painting can be seen in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. Interpretations of Guernica vary widely and contradict one another.

This extends, for example, to the mural's two dominant elements: the bull and the horse. Art historian Patricia Failing said, "The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso's career." Some critics warn against trusting the polital message in Guernica. For instance the rampaging bull, a major motif of destruction here, has previouse figured, whether as a bull or Minotaur, as Picasso' ego. However, in this instance the bull probably represents the onslaught of Fascism. Picasso said it meant brutality and darkness, presumably reminiscent of his prophetic. He also stated that the horse represented the people of Guernica. The Genesis of a Masterpiece : PICASSO'S GUERNICA History, Transformations, Meanings by Herschel B.

Chipp (University of California Press: $37.50; 248 pp.) - latimes The Genesis of a Masterpiece : PICASSO'S GUERNICA History, Transformations, Meanings by Herschel B. Chipp (University of California Press: $37.50; 248 pp.) May 07, 1989 |Hugh Thomas | Thomas is the author of "Spanish Civil War" (Harper & Row) . Guernica, as everyone now knows, is a small town in the Basque provinces. It was heavily bombed, unexpectedly, in the course of the Spanish civil war by German aircraft in the service of Gen. Francisco Franco's nationalist forces advancing on Bilbao. About half the town was flattened and about 1,000 people were killed. The Basques had no aircraft for defense. The outrage does not seem large by the standards of later years, but, at the time, there was a real outcry. Friends of the Spanish Republic seized on the event as an indication of how far the Nazi air force would go in pursuit of power.

The protest was such that the Spanish nationalist propaganda department in Burgos fabricated an extraordinary tale claiming that the Basques themselves had blown up Guernica. It was not possible to check or expose this story, because Franco's troops occupied the town a day or two later. But in Paris, a city where the international protest had been the most vehement, Pablo Picasso, a resident for many years, set about his famous painting that makes the name of this Basque town a historic landmark. The full story of Picasso's painting is well told in a beautiful and scholarly volume by Herschel B. Chipp, professor of art history at UC Berkeley. The originality of the book is threefold: First, and most important, he integrates the history of the painting with the history of the Spanish civil war and its aftermath. Second, he discusses in a way that no one else has, to my knowledge, the various inspirations of Picasso for the painting.

(These were not all political, since Picasso was not a political person and had only once before, in the series "The Dream and Lie of General Franco," ventured into painting that was connected with contemporary events.) Third, the book is sumptuously illustrated with 50 large plates and a great many smaller ones that illustrate the possible influences on Picasso at the time. Chipp does not allow himself to be drawn into any new interpretation of the events leading to the destruction of Guernica. This is rather a pity, for there still remain, 51 years after the event, questions of whether Franco knew of the bombing before it happened, and whether, if he did, he was aware of the sacred meaning the town held in Basque life. My guess is that he did not know either. The background to the concealment of the Guernica affair is also something that I should myself like to know more about. I suspect, however, that Luis Bolin, who seemed a most courteous man when I knew him as Spanish consul general in New York in the 1960s, carried that secret with him to the grave.

But whoever thought up this propagandistic tale could scarcely have believed that it would be fewer than 33 years before the truth would begin to be told in Spain by writer Vicente Talon, whom Chipp quotes. On the other hand, the book has two exceptionally revealing chapters on how "Guernica" traveled from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to Madrid in 1981. The complexities attending this great return were compounded by the desire of Picasso to return the painting to a republican, not just a free, Spain. But then, on one occasion, he gave conflicting instructions. This was all sorted out successfully by lawyers, among whom Roland Dumas, now foreign minister of France, seems to have played a main part. MOMA deserves congratulations for its intelligent forbearance in the affair. As for the art criticism in the book, Chipp is particularly illuminating in his discussion of where "Guernica" fitted in the series of paintings, or drawings, in which Picasso had explored, before 1937, the theme of bullfighting. His tauromaquiacal phase was, in 1937, just ending.

The reader also may be interested to know the extent to which the appearance of women in the painting can be related to Picasso's previous depictions of his then-companion Marie-Therese Walter. Walter had not long before she finally supplanted Picasso's wife, Olga, but soon would be dethroned herself by Dora Maar. The analysis of the criticisms that "Guernica" received at the time is interesting too--particularly the patronizing blast delivered at the Spanish artist by an arch-conventional critic of Marxist persuasion, Anthony Blunt. The notes and appendices in the book seem to be a model of careful scholarship. Included also is a copy of the accounts that the Spanish Embassy in Paris kept in 1937 showing that Picasso netted the sum of 150,000 francs for his expenses. MORE: 15 Fascinating Facts About Picasso's ‘Guernica’ | Mental Floss 15 Fascinating Facts About Picasso's ‘Guernica’ getty images Like us on Facebook You already know Pablo Picasso’s 1937 painting Guernica is among his most revered works, but do you know how and why he created the anti-war masterpiece? 1.

GUERNICA WAS A COMMISSIONED PAINTING. As the 1937 World’s Fair approached, members of Spain’s democratic government wanted the Spanish pavilion at Paris’ International Exposition Dedicated to Art and Technology to feature a mural that would expose the atrocities of Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his allies. Naturally, these organizers set their sights on one of Spain’s most celebrated painters, Pablo Picasso, who had first gained recognition in the 1910s with his adoption of cubist artistic expression. 2. PICASSO HADN’T BEEN TO SPAIN IN OVER THREE YEARS. Picasso didn’t have to go far to work on a piece for the Paris exhibition—he had lived in France since 1904. An expat who was vocal about his opposition to the militant autocracy of his home country, Picasso crafted the tribute to the war-torn Spanish city without having set foot within the nation’s borders since 1934. He would never return to Spain. 3. FRANCO’S FORCES BLAMED THE BOMBING DEPICTED IN THE PAINTING ON THEIR RIVALS.

Picasso’s painting depicts the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937. Franco’s German and Italian allies in the Spanish Civil War carpet-bombed Guernica, a stronghold of Republican opposition to Franco’s Nationalists, for hours. Casualty estimates vary from 200 to 1000 deaths. To make matters worse, Franco and his allies blamed the horrific attack on Republican forces. 4. AN ARTICLE IN THE TIMES INSPIRED PICASSO. Picasso didn’t witness the Guernica atrocities firsthand, but he was deeply moved by a report of the event written by South African-British journalist George Steer for The Times. The article, titled, “ The Tragedy of Guernica: A Town Destroyed in Air Attack: Eye-Witness’s Account ,” was attributed in print to “Our Special Correspondent.” 5. HE BEGAN WORKING ON THE PAINTING AT THE LAST MINUTE. Getty Images Picasso was so affected by Steer’s Guernica story that he scrapped all pending plans to devote himself to the pavilion mural.

The artist began work on what would be one of his earliest politically inclined pieces on May 1, 1937, approximately three weeks before the scheduled launch of the exhibit. Guernica was not completed until early June, about two weeks after the pavilion opened. 6. PICASSO SIMULTANEOUSLY PUT TOGETHER ANOTHER CRITIQUE OF FRANCO. The fact that Picasso cranked out what is now known as one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century in just over a month is impressive enough in its own right, but Guernica wasn’t even the sole focus of the artist’s attention during this time. In January 1937, Picasso had published a set of etching and aquatint prints, collectively titled The Dream and Lie of Franco . On June 7 of the same year, around the same time that he delivered Guernica to the Spanish pavilion, Picasso added a second batch of images to The Dream and Lie of Franco. 7. AN EARLY VERSION OF THE PAINTING WAS MORE EMPOWERING. Unsurprisingly, Guernica evolved between its inception and completion.

One of Picasso’s earliest drafts of the painting included a raised fist, a universal symbol of solidarity in resistance to oppression. Opponents of Franco’s reign had embraced the emblem during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso depicted the fist empty-handed at first, then grasping a sheaf of grain . Ultimately, he deleted the image altogether. 8. ANOTHER STAGE OF GUERNICA INVOLVED COLOR. Guernica is one of history’s most recognizable grayscale paintings, but at one point during the piece’s development, Picasso entertained the idea of adding color to the project. He included a red teardrop sprouting from a crying woman’s eye, as well as swatches of colored wallpaper. None of these elements made the final cut. 9. PICASSO REFUSED TO TALK ABOUT THE PAINTING’S SYMBOLISM. Scholars have long tried to decode the significance of the symbols in Guernica, especially the horse and bull figures. Naturally, Picasso was probed to explain the use of these creatures in his painting.

He never offered anything more revelatory than “This bull is a bull and this horse is a horse,” adding , “If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.” 10. EARLY REVIEWS OF THE PAINTING WEREN’T ALL POSITIVE. Getty Images Today, Guernica is celebrated as one of Picasso’s premiere achievements. But it wasn’t always hailed as a masterpiece. Among the piece’s leading detractors were American critic Clement Greenberg (who called Guernica “jerky” and “compressed”), French painter and communist Edouard Pignon (who maligned the painting for its misplaced political message and lack of empathy for the working class), French philosopher Paul Nizan (who shared Pignon’s sentiments, and further called Guernica a product of the bourgeoisie mentality), and American abstract painter Walter Darby Bannard (criticizing in particular the painting’s counterintuitive scale). 11.

NAZI GERMANY TOOK POTSHOTS AT GUERNICA. Due to both Guernica’s antifascist message and Adolf Hitler’s personal aversions to modern art, the official German guidebook for Paris’s International Exposition recommended against visiting Picasso’s piece, which it called “a hodgepodge of body parts that any four-year-old could have painted.” 12. YEARS LATER, GERMANY USED THE PAINTING IN A MILITARY CAMPAIGN. Apparently misunderstanding the nature of Guernica and its antiwar stance, the German military used the painting in an ill-conceived recruiting advertisement in 1990. The ad featured the slogan , “Hostile images of the enemy are the fathers of war.” 13. THE PAINTING INSPIRED A PICASSO EXCHANGE WITH A GESTAPO OFFICER. Almost as famous for his biting wit as he was for his artistic prowess, Picasso once treated a German Gestapo officer to a sharp rejoinder in reference to the painting’s depiction of the atrocities of fascism and war.

When asked by an officer about a photo of the painting, “Did you do that?” Picasso is said to have replied , “No, you did.” 14. THE PAINTING WAS VANDALIZED BY AN ANTIWAR ACTIVIST. Getty Images At one point its long residency at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, Guernica suffered an act of politically-charged defacement. In 1974, Tony Shafrazi —who would later become a respected art dealer—spray-painted the words “KILL ALL LIES” over the painting. Upon his apprehension by museum security, Shafrazi famously shouted , “Call the curator. I am an artist.” 15. THE PAINTING WAS COVERED UP DURING A SPEECH MADE BY COLIN POWELL. From 1985 to 2009, the United Nations adorned the entrance of its Security Council with a tapestry reproduction of Guernica. In February 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered a televised speech on site at the UN, testifying in favor of America’s imminent declaration of war on Iraq.

A large blue curtain covered the tapestry during Powell’s speech. Conflicting reports attributed the decision to obscure Guernica both to journalists thinking the violent imagery would be unpleasant for viewers of the broadcast, and to the Bush Administration deeming the display of such a recognizable antiwar painting inappropriate for the backdrop of Powell’s promotion of military action. 8 Things You May Not Know About Picasso - History in the Headlines 8 Things You May Not Know About Picasso April 8, 2013 By Jesse Greenspan Picasso’s “'Femme assise pres d'une fenêtre.” Share this: 8 Things You May Not Know About Picasso Author 8 Things You May Not Know About Picasso URL Google Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973, having become arguably the most famous artist of the 20th century. His productivity was unmatched, with tens of thousands of works to his name, including groundbreaking abstract paintings such as “Guernica.” To this day, he remains so popular that entire museums in Barcelona, Paris and elsewhere are devoted to his career, and his pieces can fetch over $100 million at auction. Below, explore eight facts about the prolific and influential artist. 1.

Picasso was considered a child prodigy. Born in Málaga on the southern coast of Spain in 1881, Pablo Picasso could supposedly draw before he could talk. By age 13 he was said to have out-mastered his father, an art teacher. As a result, his father allegedly handed over his brushes and palette to Picasso and swore that he would never paint again. Soon after, Picasso sought admission to an art school in Barcelona. Although a month was normally allowed to complete the entrance examination, he finished his in a single day. Much later, he stated that he could draw “like Raphael” when he was young. “But it has taken me my whole life to learn to draw like a child,” he added. 2. Picasso constantly changed his painting style. As a teenager, Picasso painted fairly realistic portraits and landscapes. He then went through his so-called blue and rose periods from 1901 to 1906, in which he depicted such things as poverty-stricken children and circus scenes, respectively. “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” a distorted portrait of five prostitutes that is considered one of his most revolutionary pieces, came in 1907.

It opened the door for Cubism, an abstract style that reduces subjects to geometric forms. By 1912 Picasso had invented collage by attaching oilcloth, newspaper clippings and other materials to the surface of his paintings. This, along with an increased emphasis on color, precipitated a transition from what’s known as Analytic Cubism to Synthetic Cubism. Later in life, he practiced a form of Neoclassicism and recreated paintings from such masters as Diego Velázquez, Édouard Manet and Eugène Delacroix. At various times, he also incorporated Surrealist, Expressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Symbolist elements into his art. 3. Picasso had help with the creation of Cubism. Picasso ran in the same bohemian social circles as a slew of other artists and writers, including Henri Matisse, Gertrude Stein and Max Jacob. But his closest collaboration came with Georges Braque, with whom he co-founded Cubism around 1909 and whose paintings from the time appear remarkably similar to his own.

The pair, who were influenced by such things as ancient Iberian sculpture, African masks and Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne, regularly visited each other’s studios and exchanged ideas. In Braque’s words, it was rather “like two mountaineers roped together.” Their working relationship, which produced an increasingly abstract common technique, lasted until 1914, when Braque enlisted in the French army at the beginning of World War I. 4. Picasso was not just a painter. Though best known for his painting, Picasso experimented with a number of different mediums, including sculpture, ceramics, drawing and printmaking. From 1917 to 1924, he even designed the curtain, sets and costumes for a handful of ballets. The earliest of those, “Parade,” featured a dancer who would become his first wife and the mother of his first child (his three other children were born out of wedlock). Picasso started writing poetry in 1935, and he also authored two plays in the 1940s. 5. Picasso actively opposed Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.

The Spanish Civil War kicked off in July 1936 when military officers led by Francisco Franco revolted against the democratically elected Second Republic. Picasso, a Republican supporter, soon completed a series of anti-Franco etchings and made the first political statement of his life, saying the military caste was “plunging Spain into an ocean of misery and death.” Even more notably, he painted “Guernica” for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. Inspired by an incident in which Nazi German planes flying for Franco bombed civilians in the town of Guernica, Picasso depicted a wounded horse, a decapitated soldier, a woman with a dead baby in her arms and other images of war. The enormous painting, more than 25 feet in length, waited out most of the Franco years at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It finally returned to Spain in 1981 and now resides at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid. 6. Picasso spent most of his life as an expat. In his youth, Picasso moved from Málaga to La Coruña to Barcelona to Madrid and then back to Barcelona again.

He left Spain for the first time in 1900, taking an extended trip to Paris, and by 1904 he had settled permanently in the French capital. He would never live in Spain again, though he did return for a few visits prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Picasso even stayed in France during World War II, when the occupying Nazis barred him from showing his work. The artist later relocated to southern France, where he remained prolific until the very end of his life. 7. Picasso became a communist at age 62. Picasso joined the French Communist Party in 1944, right after Paris had been liberated from the Nazis. “I have found there all whom I respect most, the greatest thinkers, the greatest poets and all the faces of the resistance fighters,” he explained at the time. The following decade, Picasso painted “Massacre in Korea,” which portrayed U.S. soldiers as futuristic knights about to attack pregnant women and children. He also sketched a drawing as part of a failed effort to save Greek communist leader Nikos Beloyannis from the firing squad, and he even did a portrait of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. But he did not always toe the party line.

The French communists officially condemned his Stalin picture for being insufficiently revering, and in 1956 he signed a protest letter against the Soviet invasion of Hungary. 8. More Picasso paintings have been stolen than those of any other artist. As of last year, Picasso had 1,147 works listed as stolen, missing or disputed, more than twice as many as any other artist, according to the Art Loss Register. The most recent theft occurred in October, when robbers made off with a Picasso and six other paintings that were on exhibit at a Dutch museum. A Picasso was likewise lifted from a Greek museum in January 2012, and in May 2010 a Picasso was among five paintings taken from the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. Tags Guernica 75 Years of Impact for Picasso’s Greatest Painting - Artlyst Guernica 75 Years of Impact for Picasso’s Greatest Painting 22 July 2012 / Art Categories Art News , News / Art Tags Guernica , Pablo Picasso / / / / / 2012 marks the 75th anniversary of one of the most infamous moments of the Spanish Civil War and the European inter-war period.

On 26 April 1937, at the request of military dictator Francisco Franco, Hitler’s Luftwaffe bombed the Basque city of Guernica. While certainly a tragedy, the attack was not the most deadly of the civil war, though it is most remembered thanks to Pablo Picasso’s iconic painting. Picasso, living at the time in Paris, read about the attack in the newspaper and was subsequently inspired to create what has become one of his great masterpieces. The canvas reaches 20×30 feet making the viewing experience almost immersive and all the more powerful. Painted almost entirely in black and white, the painting refers to Picasso’s second-hand experience of the event by alluding to newspaper images. As a Spanish native who spent his early life living all throughout the country, news of the bombing of Guernica was especially horrific. Franco chose the small city of Guernica (or as the Basques spell it: Gernika) because though not the largest in the region, it was the official seat of the Basque government and very symbolic in Basque identity.

The Basque region straddling the border of Spain and France has long expressed separtist leanings with many hoping for autonomy, and this would not be acceptable in Franco’s desire to build a new Spain. Though born in the south of Spain, Picasso spent four years in A Coruna, a town in Galicia in western Spain, and his teenage years in Barcelona, the major cultural and political centre of Catalonia. Galicia, Catalonia, and the Basque region each harbor unique identies within Spain and Gallego, Catalan, and Euskera respectively are official languages in addition to Spanish. It is likely that the experiences of his youth led to an even greater sympathy for the Basque people. The painting was initially displayed at the 1937 Paris International Exposition in the Spanish pavilion attracting great attention to the artist and the tragic event. With Europe on the brink of the Second World War, the fear expressed in the painting was soon to become reality for many. What is it though about this one painting that has left such an imprint on our collective memory of the event?

Of course many who survived the attack are no longer alive today, but people around the world are familiar with the events of 26 April though primarily through art, not history. The grief-stricken faces, contorted poses, and dramatic abstraction create a feeling of frenzy and terror that is not seen in many other works. The simultaneous simplicity of the colour palatte and complexity of composition create a narrative and a mood that remains with viewers long after seeing the painting. Today Guernica resides in the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid’s modern and contemporary art museum, though it spent a considerable amount of time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Picasso and others felt the painting would not be safe while Franco was in power, so until the dictator passed away in 1975, the painting was held across the Atlantic Ocean to protect it from being destroyed eventually returning to spain in 1981. Even years after the painting was produced, the work holds a political significance beyond the artistic merit. Particularly after the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was built drawing public attention once again to the Basque Region, many Basques wanted the painting to return to it’s origins, not of production but of inspiration.

Officials at the Reina Sofia and the government in general are reluctant to part with such an important work that draws tourists into the museum. They claim the work is too fragile to travel and there is an undertone that implies it will be better taken care of and more frequently viewed in the Spanish capital than in the north. Some art workers in the Basque region have also expressed concerns about the practicality of moving the work north. The question, really, is of identity and symbolism instead of the actual physical location. Today Guernica is still a quiet Basque city and has been rebuilt and restored after the destruction of the bombing. The city remains the symbolic capital for the Basque people and has created a Peace Museum to promote peace throughout the world while referencing the significance of their town. Even though the painting is halfway across the country, a full-scale replica is painted as a mural on a stone wall placing the history of the town within the contemporary landscape. It is amazing to see how powerful art can be in retelling a narrative, shaping opinions, while also retaining a sense of universality. Guernica is an iconic piece of modern artwork that has not only commemorated an isolated event, but also represents the horrors of war and the healing nature of art.

Words: Emily Sack © ArtLyst 2012 Related Posts The Independent Art Voice ArtLyst is the UK’s most popular art information website. Art is at the core of everything we do. We demystify this complex subject to evoke reaction and inspire interaction, while providing up-to-date, multi-media art news, reviews and exhibition listings. Guernica - History Learning Site Guernica Citation: C N Trueman "Guernica" historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 25 May 2015. 16 Aug 2016. Guernica In April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques – a group who had withstood the advances of the army since the Spanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region’s resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler’s air force.

In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published “The Total War” (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army’s advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy’s army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by “air-delivered terror”. Franco’s Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One. It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans.

The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil war would not give the same results as a city that was untouched. The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion’s inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre. By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins.

1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a mission and returned intact. The raid was to have enormous consequences in the diplomatic workings of Europe with Chamberlain’s three meetings with Hitler in September 1938. Chamberlain, above all else, feared the possibility of a southern English city being similarly bombed. Therefore, what happened in Guernica in April 1937, was to impact what happened in western Europe in 1938. It also acted as a stimulus for Britain to modernise her outdated Royal Air Force. Picasso, Guernica (article) | Khan Academy Picasso, Guernica Email What would be the best way today to protest against a war? How could you influence the largest number of people? In 1937, Picasso expressed his outrage against war with Guernica, his enormous mural-sized painting displayed to millions of visitors at the Paris World’s Fair.

It has since become the twentieth century’s most powerful indictment against war, a painting that still feels intensely relevant today. Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 349 cm × 776 cm. (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid) Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 349 cm × 776 cm. (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid) Antiwar icon Much of the painting’s emotional power comes from its overwhelming size, approximately eleven feet tall and twenty five feet wide. Guernica is not a painting you observe with spatial detachment; it feels like it wraps around you, immerses you in its larger-than-life figures and action. And although the size and multiple figures reference the long tradition of European history paintings, this painting is different because it challenges rather than accepts the notion of war as heroic. So why did Picasso paint it? Commission Postcard of the International Exposition, Paris, 1937 (from a series of 20 detachable cards, edited by H.

Chipault) Postcard of the International Exposition, Paris, 1937 (from a series of 20 detachable cards, edited by H. Chipault) In 1936, Picasso (who was Spanish) was asked by the newly elected Spanish Republican government to paint an artwork for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair. The official theme of the Exposition was a celebration of modern technology. Yet Picasso painted an overtly political painting, a subject in which he had shown little interest up to that time. What had happened to inspire it? Crimes against humanity: an act of war Guernica in ruins, 1937, photograph (German Federal Archives, bild 183-H25224) Guernica in ruins, 1937, photograph (German Federal Archives, bild 183-H25224) In 1936, a civil war began in Spain between the democratic Republican government and fascist forces, led by General Francisco Franco, attempting to overthrow them.

Picasso’s painting is based on the events of April 27, 1937, when Hitler’s powerful German air force, acting in support of Franco, bombed the village of Guernica in northern Spain, a city of no strategic military value. It was history’s first aerial saturation bombing of a civilian population. It was a cold-blooded training mission designed to test a new bombing tactic to intimidate and terrorize the resistance. For over three hours, twenty five bombers dropped 100,000 pounds of explosive and incendiary bombs on the village, reducing it to rubble. Twenty more fighter planes strafed and killed defenseless civilians trying to flee. The devastation was appalling: fires burned for three days, and seventy percent of the city was destroyed. A third of the population, 1600 civilians, were wounded or killed. Picasso hears the news On May 1, 1937, news of the atrocity reached Paris. Eyewitness reports filled the front pages of local and international newspapers. Picasso, sympathetic to the Republican government of his homeland, was horrified by the reports of devastation and death. Guernica is his visual response, his memorial to the brutal massacre.

After hundreds of sketches, the painting was done in less than a month and then delivered to the Fair’s Spanish Pavilion, where it became the central attraction. Accompanying it were documentary films, newsreels and graphic photographs of fascist brutalities in the civil war. Rather than the typical celebration of technology people expected to see at a world’s fair, the entire Spanish Pavilion shocked the world into confronting the suffering of the Spanish people. Later, in the 1940s, when Paris was occupied by the Germans, a Nazi officer visited Picasso’s studio. “Did you do that?” he is said to have asked Picasso while standing in front of a photograph of the painting. “No,” Picasso replied, “you did.” World traveler When the fair ended, the Spanish Republican forces sent Guernica on an international tour to create awareness of the war and raise funds for Spanish refugees. It traveled the world for 19 years and then was loaned for safekeeping to The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Picasso refused to allow it to return to Spain until the country “enjoyed public liberties and democratic institutions,” which finally occurred in 1981.

Today the painting permanently resides in the Reina Sofia, Spain’s national museum of modern art in Madrid. What can we see? This painting is not easy to decipher. Everywhere there seems to be death and dying. As our eyes adjust to the frenetic action, figures begin to emerge. On the far left is a woman, head back, screaming in pain and grief, holding the lifeless body of her dead child. This is one of the most devastating and unforgettable images in the painting. To her right is the head and partial body of a large white bull, the only unharmed and calm figure amidst the chaos. Beneath her, a dead or wounded man with a severed arm and mutilated hand clutches a broken sword. Only his head and arms are visible; the rest of his body is obscured by the overlapping and scattered parts of other figures. In the center stands a terrified horse, mouth open screaming in pain, its side pierced by a spear. On the right are three more women. One rushes in, looking up at the stark light bulb at the top of the scene.

Another leans out of the window of a burning house, her long extended arm holding a lamp, while the third woman appears trapped in the burning building, screaming in fear and horror. All their faces are distorted in agony. Eyes are dislocated, mouths are open, tongues are shaped like daggers. Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 349 cm × 776 cm. (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid) Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 349 cm × 776 cm. (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid) Color Picasso chose to paint Guernica in a stark monochromatic palette of gray, black and white. This may reflect his initial encounter with the original newspaper reports and photographs in black and white; or perhaps it suggested to Picasso the objective factuality of an eye witness report. A documentary quality is further emphasized by the textured pattern in the center of the painting that creates the illusion of newsprint. The sharp alternation of black and white contrasts across the painting surface also creates dramatic intensity, a visual kinetic energy of jagged movement.

Visual complexity On first glance, Guernica’s composition appears confusing and chaotic; the viewer is thrown into the midst of intensely violent action. Everything seems to be in flux. The space is compressed and ambiguous with the shifting perspectives and multiple viewpoints characteristic of Picasso’s earlier Cubist style. Images overlap and intersect, obscuring forms and making it hard to distinguish their boundaries. Bodies are distorted and semi-abstracted, the forms discontinuous and fragmentary. Everything seems jumbled together, while sharp angular lines seem to pierce and splinter the dismembered bodies. However, there is in fact an overriding visual order. Picasso balances the composition by organizing the figures into three vertical groupings moving left to right, while the center figures are stabilized within a large triangle of light. Symbolism There has been almost endless debate about the meaning of the images in Guernica. Questioned about its possible symbolism, Picasso said it was simply an appeal to people about massacred people and animals.

”In the panel on which I am working, which I call Guernica, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain into an ocean of pain and death.” The horse and bull are images Picasso used his entire career, part of the life and death ritual of the Spanish bullfights he first saw as a child. Some scholars interpret the horse and bull as representing the deadly battle between the Republican fighters (horse) and Franco’s fascist army (bull). Picasso said only that the bull represented brutality and darkness, adding “It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words. The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.” In the end, the painting does not appear to have one exclusive meaning. Perhaps it is that very ambiguity, the lack of historical specificity, or the fact that brutal wars continue to be fought, that keeps Guernica as timeless and universally relatable today as it was in 1937.

Text by Lynn Robinson Guernica | Spain | Britannica.com Guernica Alternative Titles: Gernika-Lumo, Guernica y Luno Similar Topics Santiago de Compostela Guernica, in full Guernica y Luno, official Spanish-Basque composite Gernika-Lumo, city, just northeast of Bilbao , Vizcaya provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Basque Country , northern Spain . The city, on the Río de Plencia (Butrón) near the inlet of the Bay of Biscay , is the statutory capital of the former lordship of Vizcaya, sacred to the Basques. It is symbolized by a venerable oak, the Guernikako arbola (tree of Guernica), under the branches of which the batzarraks (councils) of Vizcaya met to determine defense policies and to receive royal assurances of fueros (charters of privileges), which were retained from the Middle Ages through the 19th century.

In 1366 Count Tello organized Guernica as an enclave, autonomous from the surrounding district of Luno, a status that endured until 1882, when Guernica and Luno were united as a municipality . Guernica, oil on canvas by Pablo Picasso, 1937; in the Queen … © DeA Picture Library After surviving the Carlist Wars of the 19th century, Guernica led the futile agitation for an independent Basque state in 1932. On April 26, 1937, the city was heavily bombed by German planes, an incident that inspired Pablo Picasso’s famous painting Guernica (1937). The city’s architectural highlights include the Council or Parliament House (1824–33), the Tribunales (law courts), and the church of Santa María la Antigua (1418). Industries include food processing, furniture making, metalworking, and ammunition manufacturing. Tourism is an added source of income. Pop. (2007 est.) mun., 16,171. Learn More in these related articles:

Question: What city, heavily bombed in the Spanish Civil War, was featured in a painting by Picasso?
Answer: Guernica