Guernica (painting)

''Guernica'' (; ) is a large 1937 oil painting by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.Richardson (2016)Picasso, Pablo.
Guernica.
' Museo Reina Sofía. ''(Retrieved 2017-09-07.)'' It is one of his best-known works, regarded by many art critics as the most moving and powerful anti-war painting in history. It is exhibited in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.

The grey, black, and white painting, on a canvas tall and across, portrays the suffering wrought by violence and chaos. Prominent in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, screaming women, a dead baby, a dismembered soldier, and flames.

Picasso painted ''Guernica'' at his home in Paris in response to the 26 April 1937 bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country town in northern Spain that was bombed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. Upon completion, ''Guernica'' was exhibited at the Spanish display at the 1937 Paris International Exposition, and then at other venues around the world. The touring exhibition was used to raise funds for Spanish war relief. The painting soon became famous and widely acclaimed, and it helped bring worldwide attention to the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War.

Commission

In January 1937, while Pablo Picasso was living in Paris on Rue des Grands Augustins, he was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to create a large mural for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris World's Fair. This piece was to help raise awareness of the war and raise necessary funds. Picasso, who had last visited Spain in 1934 and would never return, was the Honorary Director-in-Exile of the Prado Museum.

Picasso worked somewhat dispassionately from January until late April on the project's initial sketches, which depicted his perennial theme of an artist's studio. Then, immediately upon hearing reports of the 26 April bombing of Guernica, poet Juan Larrea visited Picasso's home to urge him to make the bombing his subject. Days later, on 1 May, Picasso read George Steer's eyewitness account of the attack, which originally had been published in both ''The Times'' and ''The New York Times'' on 28 April, and abandoned his initial idea. Acting on Larrea's suggestion, Picasso began sketching a series of preliminary drawings for ''Guernica''.

Historical context

Bombing of 26 April 1937

During the Spanish Civil War, the Republican forces were made up of assorted factions such as communists, socialists, anarchists, and others with differing goals. Yet they were united in their opposition to the Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, who sought a return to pre-Republican Spain based on law, order, and traditional Catholic values.

Guernica, a town in the province of Biscay in Basque Country, was seen as the northern bastion of the Republican resistance movement and the center of Basque culture. This added to its significance as a target.Arhheim, (1973) p. ??? Around 4:30 p.m. on Monday, 26 April 1937, warplanes of the Nazi Germany Condor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, bombed Guernica for about two hours.Ray (2006), 168–171. In his journal for 30 April 1937, von Richthofen wrote:

Other accounts state that since it was Guernica's market day, its inhabitants were congregated in the center of town. When the bombardment began they were unable to escape because the roads were full of debris and the bridges leading out of town had been destroyed.

Guernica was a quiet village 10 kilometers from the front lines, and in-between the front lines and Bilbao, the capital of Bizkaia (Biscay). But any Republican retreat towards Bilbao, or any Nationalist advance towards Bilbao, had to pass through Guernica. Wolfram von Richthofen's war diary entry for 26 April 1937 states, "K/88 he Condor Legion bomber forcewas targeted at Guernica in order to halt and disrupt the Red withdrawal which has to pass through here." Under the German concept of tactical bombing, areas that were routes of transportation and troop movement were considered legitimate military targets. The following day, Richthofen wrote in his war diary, "Guernica burning".Beevor (2006), 233.

The nearest military target of any consequence was a war product factory on Guernica's outskirts, but it went through the attack unscathed. Thus, the attack was widely condemned as a terror bombing.

Guernica's aftermath

Because a majority of Guernica's men were away, fighting on behalf of the Republicans, at the time of the bombing the town was populated mostly by women and children.Preston (2007). 12–19. These demographics are reflected in ''Guernica''. As Rudolf Arnheim writes, for Picasso: "The women and children make ''Guernica'' the image of innocent, defenseless humanity victimized. Also, women and children have often been presented by Picasso as the very perfection of mankind. An assault on women and children is, in Picasso's view, directed at the core of mankind."

''The Times'' journalist George Steer, a Basque and Republican sympathizer, propelled this event onto the international scene and brought it to Pablo Picasso's attention. Steer's eyewitness account was published on 28 April in both ''The Times'' and ''The New York Times'', and on the 29th it appeared in ''L'Humanité'', a French Communist daily. Steer wrote:

Picasso lived in Paris during the German occupation during World War II. A widely repeated story is that a German officer once asked him, upon seeing a photo of ''Guernica'' in Picasso's apartment, "Did you do that?", and Picasso responded, "No, you did."

Creation

''Guernica'' was painted using a matte house paint specially formulated at Picasso's request to have the least possible gloss. American artist John Ferren assisted him in preparing the monumental canvas, and photographer Dora Maar, who had been working with Picasso since mid-1936 photographing his studio and teaching him the technique of cameraless photography, documented its creation. Apart from their documentary and publicity value, Maar's photographs "helped Picasso to eschew color and give the work the black-and-white immediacy of a photograph", according to art historian John Richardson.

Picasso, who rarely allowed strangers into his studio to watch him work, admitted influential visitors to observe his progress on ''Guernica'', believing that the publicity would help the antifascist cause. As his work on the mural progressed, Picasso explained: "The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and the death of art. How could anybody think for a moment that I could be in agreement with reaction and death? ... In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call ''Guernica'', and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death."

Picasso worked on the painting for 35 days, and finished it on 4 June 1937.

Composition

The scene occurs within a room where, on the left, a wide-eyed bull with a tail suggesting rising flame and smoke as seen through a window stands over a grieving woman holding a dead child in her arms. A horse falls in agony in the center of the room, with a large gaping hole in its side, as if it had just been run through by a spear or javelin. The horse appears to be wearing chain mail armor, decorated with vertical tally marks arranged in rows.

A dead and dismembered soldier lies under the horse. The hand of his severed right arm grasps a shattered sword, from which a flower grows, and the open palm of his left hand contains a stigma, a symbol of martyrdom derived from the stigmata of Christ. A bare light bulb in the shape of an all-seeing eye blazes over the suffering horse's head.

To the horse's upper right the head and extended right arm of a frightened female figure appears to have floated into the room through a window, and she witnesses the scene. In her right hand she carries a flame-lit lamp, and holds it near the bare bulb. From the right, below the witness, an awe-struck woman staggers towards the center, looking into the blazing light bulb with a blank stare.

Daggers that suggest screaming have replaced the tongues of the horse, the bull, and the grieving woman. To the bull's right a dove appears on a cracked wall through which bright light from the outside shines.

On the far right a fourth woman, her arms raised in terror, her wide open mouth and thrown back head echoing the grieving woman's, is entrapped by fire from above and below. Her right hand suggests the shape of an airplane.

A dark wall with an open door defines the right side of the room.

A "hidden" image formed by the horse appears in ''Guernica'': The horse's nostrils and upper teeth can be seen as a human skull facing left and slightly downward.

Another hidden image is of a bull that appears to gore the horse from underneath. The bull's head is formed mainly by the horse's entire front leg which has the knee on the ground. The leg's knee-cap forms the head's nose. A horn appears within the horse's breast.

Symbolism and interpretations

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."

When pressed to explain the elements in ''Guernica'', Picasso said,

In ''The Dream and Lie of Franco'', a series of narrative sketches Picasso also created for the World's Fair, Franco is depicted as a monster that first devours his own horse and later does battle with an angry bull. Work on these illustrations began before the bombing of Guernica, and four additional panels were added, three of which relate directly to the Guernica mural.

According to scholar Beverly Ray, the following list of interpretations reflects the general consensus of historians: "The shape and posture of the bodies express protest"; "Picasso uses black, white, and grey paint to set a somber mood and express pain and chaos"; "flaming buildings and crumbling walls not only express the destruction of Guernica, but reflect the destructive power of civil war"; "the newspaper print used in the painting reflects how Picasso learned of the massacre"; "The light bulb in the painting represents the sun"; and "The broken sword near the bottom of the painting symbolizes the defeat of the people at the hand of their tormentors".

Alejandro Escalona said, "The chaos unfolding seems to happen in closed quarters provoking an intense feeling of oppression. There is no way out of the nightmarish cityscape. The absence of color makes the violent scene developing right before your eyes even more horrifying. The blacks, whites, and grays startle you—especially because you are used to see war images broadcast live and in high-definition right to your living room."

In drawing attention to a number of preliminary studies, the so-called primary project, that show an atelier installation incorporating the central triangular shape which reappears in the final version of ''Guernica'', Becht-Jördens and Wehmeier interpret the painting as a self-referential composition in the tradition of atelier paintings such as ''Las Meninas'' by Diego Velázquez. In his ''chef d'oeuvre'', Picasso seems to be trying to define his role and his power as an artist in the face of political power and violence. But far from being a mere political painting, ''Guernica'' should be seen as Picasso's comment on what art can actually contribute towards the self-assertion that liberates every human being and protects the individual against overwhelming forces such as political crime, war, and death.

Exhibition

1937 Paris International Exhibition

''Guernica'' was unveiled and initially exhibited in July 1937 at the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition, where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had huge pavilions. The Pavilion, which was financed by the Spanish Republican government at the time of civil war, was built to exhibit the Spanish government's struggle for existence contrary to the Exposition's technology theme. The Pavilion's entrance presented an enormous photographic mural of Republican soldiers accompanied by the slogan:

: We are fighting for the essential unity of Spain.
: We are fighting for the integrity of Spanish soil.
: We are fighting for the independence of our country and for the right of the Spanish people to determine their own destiny.

The display of ''Guernica'' was accompanied by a poem by Paul Éluard, and the pavilion displayed '' The Reaper'' by Joan Miró and ''Mercury Fountain'' by Alexander Calder, both of whom were sympathetic to the Republican cause.

At ''Guernica''s Paris Exhibition unveiling it garnered little attention. The public's reaction to the painting was mixed. Max Aub, one of the officials in charge of the Spanish pavilion, was compelled to defend the work against a group of Spanish officials who objected to the mural's modernist style and sought to replace it with a more traditional painting that was also commissioned for the exhibition, ''Madrid 1937 (Black Aeroplanes)'' by Horacio Ferrer de Morgado. Some Marxist groups criticized Picasso's painting as lacking in political commitment, and faulted it for not offering a vision of a better future. In contrast, Morgado's painting was a great success with Spanish Communists and with the public. The art critic Clement Greenberg was also critical of ''Guernica'', and in a later essay he termed the painting "jerky" and "too compressed for its size", and compared it unfavorably to the "magnificently lyrical" '' The Charnel House'' (1944–1948), a later antiwar painting by Picasso.

Among the painting's admirers were art critic Jean Cassou and poet José Bergamín, both of whom praised the painting as quintessentially Spanish. Michel Leiris perceived in ''Guernica'' a foreshadowing: "On a black and white canvas that depicts ancient tragedy ... Picasso also writes our letter of doom: all that we love is going to be lost..." Jean Cocteau also praised the painting and declared it a cross that " eneralFranco would always carry on his shoulder."

European tour

''Guernica'', for which Picasso was paid 200,000 francs for his costs by the Spanish Republican government, was one of the few major paintings that Picasso did not sell directly to his exclusive contracted art dealer and friend, Paul Rosenberg. However, after its exhibition Rosenberg organised a four-man extravaganza Scandinavian tour of 118 works by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and Henri Laurens. The tour's main attraction was ''Guernica''.

From January to April 1938 the tour visited Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Göteborg. Starting in late September ''Guernica'' was exhibited in London's Whitechapel Art Gallery. This stop was organized by Sir Roland Penrose with Labour Party leader Clement Attlee, and the painting arrived in London on 30 September, the same day the Munich Agreement was signed by the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. It then travelled to Leeds, Liverpool, and, in early 1939, Manchester. There, Manchester Foodship For Spain, a group of artists and activists engaged in sending aid to the people of Spain, exhibited the painting in the HE Nunn & Co Ford automobile showroom for two weeks. ''Guernica'' then returned briefly to France.

American tour

After Francisco Franco's victory in Spain, ''Guernica'' was sent to the United States to raise funds and support for Spanish refugees. It was first shown at the Valentine Gallery in New York City in May 1939. The San Francisco Museum of Art (later renamed the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) gave the work its first museum appearance in the United States from 27 August to 19 September 1939. New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) then mounted an exhibition from 15 November until 7 January 1940, entitled: ''Picasso: 40 Years of His Art''. The exhibition, which was organized by MoMA's director Alfred H. Barr in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago, contained 344 works, including ''Guernica'' and its studies.

At Picasso's request the safekeeping of ''Guernica'' was then entrusted to the Museum of Modern Art, and it was his expressed desire that the painting should not be delivered to Spain until liberty and democracy had been established in the country. Between 1939 and 1952, ''Guernica'' traveled extensively in the United States. Between 1941 and 1942, it was exhibited at Harvard University's Fogg Museum twice.

Between 1953 and 1956 it was shown in Brazil, then at the first Picasso retrospective in Milan, Italy, and then in numerous other major European cities before returning to MoMA for a retrospective celebrating Picasso's 75th birthday. It then went to Chicago and Philadelphia. By this time, concern for the state of the painting resulted in a decision to keep it in one place: a room on MoMA's third floor, where it was accompanied by several of Picasso's preliminary studies and some of Dora Maar's photographs of the work in progress. The studies and photos were often loaned for other exhibitions, but until 1981, ''Guernica'' itself remained at MoMA.Timeline
part of a series of web pages on ''Guernica'' in PBS's ''Treasures of the World'' series. Accessed 16 July 2006.

During the Vietnam War, the room containing the painting became the site of occasional anti-war vigils. These were usually peaceful and uneventful, but on 28 February 1974, Tony Shafrazi—ostensibly protesting Second Lieutenant William Calley's petition for habeas corpus following his indictment and sentencing for the murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre—defaced the painting with red spray paint, painting the words "KILL LIES ALL". The paint was removed with relative ease from the varnished surface.Hoberman 2004

Establishment in Spain

As early as 1968, Franco had expressed an interest in having ''Guernica'' come to Spain. However, Picasso refused to allow this until the Spanish people again enjoyed a republic. He later added other conditions, such as the restoration of "public liberties and democratic institutions". Picasso died in 1973. Franco, ten years Picasso's junior, died two years later, in 1975. After Franco's death, Spain was transformed into a democratic constitutional monarchy, ratified by a new constitution in 1978. However, MoMA was reluctant to give up one of its greatest treasures and argued that a monarchy did not represent the republic that had been stipulated in Picasso's will as a condition for the painting's delivery. Under great pressure from a number of observers, MoMA finally ceded the painting to Spain in 1981. The Spanish historian Javier Tusell

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