Guernica - Picasso Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid
Picasso completed this huge work in 1937 after the bombing of the small Basque town Guernica by German forces supporting General Franco that same year. In a post blitz, post holocaust, post atom bomb age attacking a civilian population in this manner is, sadly, nothing new, but in 1937 it was an outrage. It changed the shape of warfare, the rule of engagement, who was and who was not fair game in warfare. It was of course the shape of things to come, a precursor of the blitzkrieg, London, Coventry, Liverpool. It was also a precursor to Dresden and all the other towns and cities flattened on either side of the channel during WW2.
Guernica is often said to be Picasso’s antiwar painting, but some of the elements had been used before by Picasso, the bull, the horse, the weeping woman had all been seen in earlier work so can not be said to be new. Picasso uses these motifs in this picture because they are familiar, if you have seen his previous work you can recognise them, but here they mean something new, the bull is Franco, the horse is Spanish Republic and the weeping woman it’s people. The familiar takes on new meanings and in doing so becomes strange and deformed. The confusion of heads bodies and limbs all tell of horror.
The lines on the horse’s body are often said to represent newsprint and together with the monochrome effect of the work this is said to represent a front page photograph of the event. I disagree with this interpretation; I think the lines on the horse are likely to represent the flimsy quilted body ‘protection’ worn by horses in the cruellest of arenas; the bullring. This quilting is so ineffectual that the horse is often gored to death through it. The horse (Spanish Republic) has no chance against the might of the bullish Franco and the Luftwaffe.
The horse’s cry of pain would be nothing new in the horrors of the bullring just as civilian suffering would become nothing new in Europe in WW2. After Guernica civilians’ in Europe were no longer spectators; they were now part of the fight and they had little protection from the bombing raids. The monochrome is because colour does not belong here. There is no need to paint red blood and gore; the scene says it all in black and white. It tells of suffering, it shouts of horror and loss.
Guernica is the last great history painting. It is a last attempt by the artists of the early 20th century who thought art could save the world, sadly, it did not. Guernica was first shown in 1937 and the war machine rumbled on despite the clear message.
Is this painting widely considered to be anti war?
The answer to that is yes, and the most telling testament to this is the fact that the tapestry replica that hangs in the UN building in New York, was covered up when Powell and Negroponte posed for the TV cameras in front of it and argued for war in Iraq in February 2003.
