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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPicasso’s War: The Masterpiece that Changed the World
No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.
-- Pablo Picasso
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Guernica. 1937. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Monday, April 26th, 1937 was a busy market day in Guernica, the cultural capital of the Basque people, when twenty-five bombers of Hitlers Condor Legion, accompanied by twenty Italian Fiat Fighters, dumped one hundred thousand pounds of high-explosive and incendiary bombs on the village. The attack lasted for over 3 hours. Terrified inhabitants who tried to escape the bombs were cut down by the strafing machine guns of the accompanying fighters. Seventy percent of the town was destroyed and sixteen hundred people killed or wounded.
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The attack was launched on the orders of the Nationalist leader, General Franco, who was waging a war against the republican government of Spain. Guernica had served as a testing ground for a new Nazi military tactic: blanket bombing a civilian population to demoralize the enemy -- Guernica had no strategic value as a military target. Franco, the Germans and the Italians, denied any responsibility for the attack but few were fooled.
Before the attack Pablo Picasso had agreed to paint a large mural for the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 Paris Worlds Fair. The devastation of Guernica gave him his subject and he poured his rage onto canvas -- Cubism with a conscience in the words of art historian Simon Schama.
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Stylistically a broad canvas with chopped up images, the work taken as a whole is paradoxically unified in its impact, perhaps because it was painted over a three month period by the artist as a full throttle cry of pain. Picasso made the decision that it should be devoid of color -- black, white and gray only --what his contemporary Barnett Newman would later discuss in The Ideographic Picture as the greyer, softer chaos that is tragedy. He placed the attack at night, highly suggestive of unseen terrors that come out of deepest darkness. Picasso also seems to be commenting here about the shock effect on a public who consumed its news through the black and white of newspapers by using a newsprint design in the murals images.
Artist Nicholas Lacy-Brown points out the prominence of female grief present, notably the mother with a dead baby in her arms, and that weeping women are common in Spanish art, comparing Picassos treatment to icons of the Maria Dolorosa and the Virgin Mary with her dead son spread across her knees, a kind of Spanish Pieta.
Simon Schama devotes an entire segment of the TV series The Power of Art to Guernica. In it he describes the human eye with an incandescent filiment as the naked light bulb in the torturers cell (and indeed a cell window appears over the head of the screaming man on the pictures right side). An outstretched arm brings a candles flame -- an offer of flickering hope or a hopelessly weak light against such a glowing menace?
But Schama also calls our attention to the paintings further religious reference: the stigmata occurring on the fallen warriors hand that echoes Goyas indelible imagery of the stigmata on a peasants hand before the invading French soldiers guns.
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Many art experts provide extensive analysis of Picassos use of the bullfight references -- the proud and disengaged stillness of the bull at the far left and the horses anguished cry and raised body. Lacy-Brown suggests that the horse is the artists symbiology of Spanish pride and fighting power against brutality used against them. That the bull remains untouched by this tragedy emphasizes that the drama going on around him remains an exclusively human one... A fallen warrior (or matador?) lies dead at its feet, his broken sword still clutched in his hand. The bulls impervious stance is perhaps the hope that resistance to the Franco regime will be steadfast until the dictator is gone and Spain is free.
Picasso, however, had commented that the viewers must decide the meaning of the symbols in his work, according to their own individual interpretations.
The painting continued to be a rallying cry against fascism after the Fair. It toured European capitals and in 1939 the mural arrived in New York for a fund-raising visit to support Spanish war relief. During that time the Museum of Modern Art had become its semipermanent home where it stayed safely from the bombs and other violence of war in Europe. Picasso was fine with letting his masterpiece reside there, saying It will do the most good in America. Sadly, the artist did not outlive Franco, who continued to want to reclaim the painting for Spain. But it had been Picassos stern wish that it not be returned until public liberties were restored to his country.
Unfortunately, for Americas audience, the MoMAs exhibit space was cramped, low ceilinged and harshly lit, diminishing the impact of the highest note in the museums collection.
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Ironically, in 1967, 400 artists responding to the Vietnam War signed a petition urging Picasso to withdraw it from the United States for the duration of the war. Once again, Guernica was enmeshed in a political and bloody crossroads. It was not until 1981, six years after Francos death, that the canvas was returned to Spain. And to the bitter end MoMA fought, but ultimately lost, its possession of the work.
In Madrid Guernica was lodged temporarily at the woefully unprepared Prado (a situation that became a bit of a hot mess all of its own) while a rancorous regional fight broke out as to where it should have a permanent home. In 1997, the new modern art Guggenheim Museum opened in Bilbao, the capital of the Basque region. Frank Gehry had designed dedicated space to hold the work, in a room he called The Chapel. The masterpiece belonged here, the Museum argued, as Bilbao was its rightful home. Bitter accusations against the Madrilenos ensued. They would not even allow the mural to be exhibited at the Guggenheims opening because there were renewed fears (not publicly expressed) that once the Basque nationalists got it, they would not let it return. Madrid said only that the canvas was in such a delicate condition that a move would damage it irrevocably -- it had suffered in being moved thirty-two times over its life. La Reina Sofia, the national museum of 20th century art established in 1992 in Madrid, would be at long last Guernicas permanent home.
Guernica at La Reina Sofia
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But still the mural provoked controversy. A tapestry of Guernica done in brown and taupe was donated to the United Nations by Nelson Rockefellers estate in 1982. It resides just outside of the Security Council room, intending to remind world leaders of the horrors of war. It was there in early 2003 that Secretary of State Colin Powell was to make his statement about the casus belli necessitating U.S. aerial bombardment, codename shock and awe, of Baghdad. Powell would be standing in front of the 20th centurys most iconic protest against wars inhumanity as his backdrop --- the optics for the Bush administration would be unfortunate, to say the least. When the announcement was made, a blue UN curtain and flags had been hastily arranged to cover the tapestry. Sadly, it was -- like the painting -- a prophecy of things to come.
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bombardment of Baghdad March 20, 2003
Note: On May 12, 1999, the New York Times reported that, after sixty-one years, in a declaration adopted on April 24, 1999, the German Parliament formally apologized to the citizens of Guernica for the role the Condor Legion played in bombing the town. No apology has yet been issued by the Spanish government for its role in the attack.
GeorgeGist
(25,323 posts)for Chris Kyle.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)a huge mistake for our country and a tragedy for the people of Iraq...do we never learn?
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)OKNancy
(41,832 posts)don't ruin a great thread with Obama bashing.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,718 posts)I knew Picasso had done the painting to honor the destruction of the village Guernica, but I did not know the rest of the history.
How ironic that Powell stood in front of a copy to make his announcement about "shock and awe." And how horrifying.
Thank you, my dear CTyankee!
K&R
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)And the irony was not lost on LOTS of people both here and abroad.
I will bet that Powell, if he has a conscience, has regrets about that day.
catnhatnh
(8,976 posts)in a 7th grade social studies book and the image stayed with me. Years later I saw the painting with a friend at MOMA and was truly shocked-the textbook gave no hint as to the size of the piece which was overwhelming-but the book also never mentioned it was done in black and white-for over a decade I had assume only the textbook photo was black and white and had expected vivid colors in the actual painting...
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)to me, it violates the artist's intention which should be inviolate. Giving in to the temptation to introduce color into it defeats the purpose of the piece. That's an essay all to itself...nonetheless I am glad it still is at the UN...
catnhatnh
(8,976 posts)but a good friend with an MFA has knocked one or two rough edges off. Even I knew it was a treasure.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)provoke. Franco tried very hard to blame the republican government for instigating the attack on Guernica. My essay doesn't touch on the Cold War's impact on this painting. It was intense. There were some real evil lies told by the McCarthyites about the truth behind this work of art.
Glad to hear about your "conversion"! You are NOT a PHilistine if you are open to art's message and power. It is in human nature to love art. And art always saves you...
brush
(53,876 posts)I think it was sometime in the '80s before it was shipped back to Spain.
Yes it's huge and has incredible impact . . . must be close to thirty feet wide.
Picasso was not a good person to the women in his life but he was genius apart from most other artists.
panader0
(25,816 posts)I've seen the Goya--never noticed the stigmata....
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Leave it to Simon Schama to search that out...
Brigid
(17,621 posts)I'm so jealous!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)nearby and we could just walk over and to see it.
The whole visit took a toll on my arthritic back....be advised that the Prado is VAST. Prepare a list of what you MUST see and plan accordingly!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)Please write a book about art and it's place in history. I'll be first in line to buy it. I always look forward to Fridays and always search out your posts.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)people about art and I figure that a website such as DU appreciates that. So I try to dedicate it to that audience.
Please also know that I research these extensively. They are not all my original thoughts. Some are but many are those that I have read in preparation for my essays. These are people who have enriched me and I try to credit them for enriching others here on DU even further. I have my own ideas and advance them but there are others who know far more than I about art.
Hekate
(90,829 posts)Brigid
(17,621 posts)And I love the Goya too. Must go to Madrid to see them.
marked50
(1,371 posts)virgdem
(2,127 posts)in 1967 when it was displayed at MoMA in New York. Even though it was not the best displayed work of art, it still had great impact with the audience as a memorable and important piece of art.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)but it was out on loan everywhere for a lot of its tenure there. I feel bad for MoMA but they really were bad about returning it...they were really scared about losing their big "anchor" painting...BTW, they replaced the space with Jackson Pollock's "One."
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)It's another great choice for modern art as well, since 'One' can be viewed as a reaction to the chaos caused by the atomic bomb. This was pointed out in Rollo May's book The Age of Anxiety.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)he was kinda overcome by it...but he got over it. I think the whole art world in New York in the early1940s was pretty much overcome with Picasso, but oh, what wonders were produced in that era! New York was the art mecca of the world...
nuxvomica
(12,447 posts)Also, folks might want to check out Henri Rousseau's "la Guerre", which I think was source of inspiration for Picasso's masterpiece.
I was fortunate to see "Guernica" at MOMA in the early 70s. No reproduction can do it justice yet it is always powerful and moving in any presentation. Thanks for posting this history.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)him in front of the mural. Of course, he had the most sensitivity to its power. He knew the winds of war were coming and pulled whatever strings he could to get the mural covered up. It was an embarrassment. Even NYT columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a scathing piece about it in the NYT.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)is an anti-fascist art masterpiece. I'm glad it has a permanent home.
malaise
(269,186 posts)the painting and your wonderful historical presentation on the proceedings.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)what a fascinating insight it is into the art of late 1930s and early 1940s in both Europe and the U.S. Thank god "Guernica" was here instead of Europe during WW2.
malaise
(269,186 posts)That's my take
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)surrealAmerican
(11,364 posts)Despite the odd, low-ceilinged spaced, it was very effective. Even there, it was hard to walk away from. You just stood transfixed, mere inches from the work.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I get your point, tho.
Actually, this painting might have just moved to a new space in our art lived experience, and that might be very different from my own older viewpoint...not sure what that is, tho...hmmm
underpants
(182,901 posts)It was a topic of discussion and very educational.
Pure optics. Or, as Frank Rich aptly described the W years - Empty Spectacle
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)kinda stupid of Bush to decree to Negroponte to get the mural covered...it got extensive coverage in the press and was an embarrassment to the Administration...stupid to the max...who did the think they were kidding?
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)in the name Of freedom.
He would have done a painting about Iraq and gaza.
if he was alive..........he hated terror like is displayed now as defensive agression against civilians.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)As always, thank you for taking the time and making the effort.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)There are new generations out there that need to know it exists!
struggle4progress
(118,356 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Gernica has an indelible place in history...
brer cat
(24,615 posts)Thank you for all the effort you put into the Friday art threads, CTyankee. It is appreciated.
2naSalit
(86,802 posts)for these highly educational posts! I love art and I have come to look forward to your Friday posts to feed my mind with worthy info.
Hekate
(90,829 posts)Vietnam was heavily on our minds, of course. I was in my second year of college, and it hung in my apartment during those years. It's rolled up in a tube in the garage now...
Thanks as always, CTy, for a beautiful and meaningful essay. The viewer can feel Picasso's outrage shimmering in that painting, and it speaks to every war that ever was and ever will be, as a timeless testament to man's inhumanity to man.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)it was a weekday, I was alone in the room, except for a guard, and I was spending a lot of time studying the painting.
This middle-aged woman walks around the corner, looks at the painting, and declares in a thick Brooklyn accent, and in a loud voice:
"They cawl this AHT? They cawl this AHT? A two-yea old could paint better than this!" and then she stomped out of the room. The guard and I couldn't stop laughing.
Brigid
(17,621 posts)But I don't know if I would be laughing or crying.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Sirte, 2012
Damascus, 2013
Gaza, 2014
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)From Warsaw to London to Dresden to Hiroshima to Nanking to Gaza to Baghdad and on and on and on.
demmiblue
(36,898 posts)K&R
Octafish
(55,745 posts)And warriors.
And poets.
And journalists.
Thank you for another outstanding OP and thread, CTyankee! Picasso was profound, as were the people who stood with him. The Spanish Civil War was prelude to the barbaric events of the last century and through the present day.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Thank you so much for your post. Spain has seemingly infinite wonders. I thought my trip there in 2010 changed my life. I loved the art, the architecture and the food. And it was beautiful. I loved the Basque region, even tho it was very cold when I visited and even had snow. Bilbao's Guggenheim was a terrific experience.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Thank you for sharing that. My wife and her parents traveled in Spain. Hearing your description, and the exemplary article above, makes me want to see Iberia, its treasures and marvelous people more than ever. My favorite book is the Cervantes and everything by Borges.
PS: While he was Flemish, Prado has the Bosch, if memory serves...
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Yeah, the Spanish have this art thing going...all the way back to Velasquez...quite a history.
Oh and god I loved the Spanish cuisine. It's funny that when you order a green salad at a restaurant in Spain there is tuna in it...
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)edhopper
(33,619 posts)and also in Madrid.
It is an amazingly powerful painting.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)walking distance of each other and only one I haven't browsed. I was in the Prado and the Reina Sofia but not the Thysen-Bornesemism (sp.). I spent so much time in the Prado and then had to dash to the Reina Sofia I had no time to get to the last one. They are helpfully all in one section of Madrid.
I'd like to get back to Madrid but I think the south of Spain and a stay in Barcelona call me...
edhopper
(33,619 posts)You must go to the Sorolla House. Simply wonderful.
I went to th T B but I can't remember which paintings were where.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Same general area as the Museums. If I remember right.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)and the collection including Velasquez, Rubens, and Hieronymous Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights".
Many a masterpiece there.
appalachiablue
(41,177 posts)Paris' Picasso Museum in the Marais finally reopened last fall; we went late-90s when still under renovation in the same elegant 17th c. baroque Hotel Sale. It holds a lot of his work & favorite pieces by other artists. In grad. school the art of Spain was a major focus, Murillo, Zurbaran, El Greco, Goya & Picasso, what a genius.
Milos Forman directed the Spanish produced film, "Goya's Ghosts" (2006) with Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem & Stellan Skarsgard as Goya. Parts of the Goya story are fiction but the script & cast are excellent with ample realism & horrors of the Napoleonic era of turmoil in Spain 1792. There must be a film about Picasso but I can't recall, unlike two at least for Van Gogh.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I love the whole sequence from the 30s to the 50s in NYC. Fabulous era for art in America.
All those artists from Europe had to take refuge in NYC during he war. It was a real surge of art in that city at that time...
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)"The Power of Art" which is a book as well.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)my favorite part of Guernica.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)that portray it more benignly. What I saw was a tie in with the cell window over the screaming man in the right.
I must say that when I was gathering images off Google for this thread, I was mesmerized by that last image of our bombing of Baghdad. The comparison to Guernica was chilling. What Picasso did was horrifyingly prescient.
An interesting account in a longish book on Guernica that I used to research this essay was de Kooning's reaction to this mural. He was a refugee from the Nazis and had seen the utter devastation of Rotterdam which IIRC was payback for our Dresden bombing. de Kooning was shaken by Picasso's masterpiece. I would take that as an authentication of Picasso's artistry.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)Harper's cover 2003
Will we ever forget the draping of the tapestry reproduction of Guernica that hangs in the UN--while Colin Powell delivered his call to war in 2003?
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)instances surrounding this painting. There was a huge amount of information about the Cold War and the vicious lie that republican planes did the bombing (!) which would be a thread all of itself. And of course the attempt at defacement while at MoMA, which mercifully did no permanent harm.
Of course, all this wrangling just further proves Schama's point: the power of art.
I expect that there will be further arguments as time goes on. After all, the tapestry is still hanging outside of the Security Council uncovered...
P.S. In a later interview Picasso said he DID make that remark to the German officer in his studio. And yes, he had started thinking about the World's Fair mural when Guernica was bombed. He produced it in a remarkably short time.
Gernika is the Basque name for the town we call Guernica.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)proves the power of art--even still, silent, old-fashioned art--which has perhaps even more power in this age of endless proliferation of images flitting across our screens. Guernica continues to accrue totemic status. And we need art to do that.
The UN is a fitting place for the tapestry. So symbolic that they covered it up for Powell. Says it all.
Hear no evil, see no evil while perpetrating evil.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)when it comes to violating the basic integrity of the piece. Picasso made a very clear choice. Mark Rothko wondered why Picasso chose to omit color. But Picasso really influenced Rothko's art that we all hail today as huge breakthroughs.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)it is starker in black and white and that was the original concept and should have been adhered to. And it contrasted with Picasso's other works. Today it probably wouldn't have been colorized and maybe wouldn't even be made at all, but I like it in the UN.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)hired a very good Aubusson weaver to do a tapestry. It hung in Rockefeller's upstate NY home. After his death, his widow Happy donated it to the UN. Originally, I had planned on putting a photo of the tapestry in this thread but it annoyed me a little too much. It's true to the basic design of the painting but the colorization is what I can't fathom.
I saw some very fine tapestries of Goya paintings at the excellent MFA exhibit of Goya works (some privately held and never lent out before) that just closed a couple of weeks ago. The tapestries were variations also...of the complete design, altho they were very well done...
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)--yes the sepia tones must have been done to make it warmer. I wonder if the size is the same--it appears to be smaller.
This tradition of doing weavings of paintings is interesting...one way to get the huge size that no photo reproduction can do (certainly not then). I like the idea that it has texture. But I agree with you entirely that it should have been done in b&w.