C O N T E X T  P R O J E C T

G U E R N I C A

‘Artists who live and work with spiritual values cannot and should not remain indifferent to a conflict in which the highest values of humanity and civilization are at stake.’

P a b l o  P i c a s s o

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LEGACY

‘Guernica was the point of departure, and Hiroshima is the ultimate symbol.’

Dr Tadatoshi Akinaya

So what was the legacy of the bombing of Guernica? It was essentially the moment that, according to Professor Paul Rennie, “the machine became bigger than the man.” Not only was this the first instance of an attack on a purely civilian population, but there is hard evidence to suggest the Luftwaffe used Guernica as a trial run for the bombing raids which were later to dominate the Second World War. Overall Guernica changed the entire face of tactical warfare, and rammed home the widely held public fear that had been growing throughout the 1930s – that in later conflicts the aerial forces of warring nations would be able to wipe whole cities off the map. It introduced the concept of war being dictated far from where it was being waged, resolved not on the ground but from the air. It could be argued that the Guernica paved the way not only for World War 2 but for the Cold War also, and for the kind of tactics played out much later in Vietnam.

GUERNICA’S RESONANCE

‘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.’ Michael Leiris

Responding to the news of the bombing of Guernica with immediate outrage Picasso decided to go to war himself using the best weapon he had – a paintbrush - to create a legendary mural in support of the Spanish Republic. Using metaphor in his painting in place of a straight up depiction of the bombing, he employed his own visual language of Cubism to represent the catastrophe. The light bulb in the painting was Picasso’s representation of the sun, and a metaphor for the painting’s purpose as he saw it - to shine a light on the conflict.  ‘No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war,’ said the artist.

Artists have an obligation to make the world a better place through their art. The visual medium is instantly more accessible to the average person than in-depth political news bulletins. By visualizing conflicts artists can make millions relate to information that otherwise would not have been understood. Guernica still survives as the most important example of high art used in anti-war propaganda, a legacy that is continued to this day by artists such as Banksy painting murals on the West Bank Barrier in Palestine, and French artist JR waging stencil campaigns in the Middle East to bring attention to the conflict.

HOPE

‘There must be greatness in a painting that so effectively subsumes the past in the service of the future.’ Joseph Masheck

Picasso completed Guernica at a feverish pace. Not three months after the bombing took place, the vast mural was being exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition of 1937. It was then displayed all around the world on a tour that made it famous and widely acclaimed, and above all brought the Spanish Civil War to the world’s attention. Wherever the painting went precipitated huge outpourings of emotion and the raising of funds and support for the victims of the conflict. The painting came to embody the fight against war. Having taken up permanent residency at MOMA in New York the room containing the painting became the site of anti-war vigils during the conflict in Vietnam.

A life-size replica tapestry of the painting hangs in the United Nations building in New York. Its resonance today cannot be underestimated. Incredibly, in January 2003 with the US preparing the insurgency of Iraq on false pretexts, a blue shroud was thrown over the painting in an effort to conceal the mutilated bodies and screaming women of Picasso’s masterpiece from the blare of the TV cameras, as the US tried to justify a campaign for yet more bloodshed. Guernica is still a deafening symbol of peace.

CUBISM

Although Les Demoiselles d’Avignon marked the first introduction of Cubism into the twentieth century, it was Guernica itself that put Cubism most forthrightly on the world map due to its phenomenal popularity. The Cubist movement reassessed the way artists looked at objects by breaking them up and re-assembling them in an abstracted form, as well as seeing the objects from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. The style of Guernica is prime cubism, the depiction of the horse in the center especially, and Picasso’s use of negative space in the animal’s right leg to form the head of a bull.

PICASSO’S STANCE

‘Must thousands more die in a rain of bombs, must cities and villages be destroyed and culture obliterated.”

Commemoration of 58th anniversary of bombing of Dresden, with witnesses of bombing of Guernica.

Picasso was fervently anti-war. While living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, Picasso suffered harassment from the Gestapo; upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment one officer asked him, “Did you do that?” to which Picasso responded, “No, you did.” Perhaps the most impacting part of the painting is the figure of this disembodied soldier, which upon closer inspection reveals itself as the shattered remains of a warrior statue. This was Picasso’s critique of the entire idea of using art to glorify war. This crumbled statue mocked the idea of erecting great statues to war heroes such as Cesar and Napoleon, when art itself should be used not to glorify war but to rally against it. The artist himself could never compete against bombs with a paintbrush, but could be just as influential. The fact that Guernica is used in anti-war marches to this day, and a replica of it hangs in the United Nations building, is proof of this.

CRUELTY

‘A totally disproportionate and insufferable punishment’ George Vidal

The attack on Guernica was unique in being the first outright example of a flagrant bombing campaign waged on a totally civilian population. Far from being a military settlement, Guernica was nothing but a quiet village populated mostly by women and children left there alone in the absence of men away fighting the war for the republican army. Throughout his life Picasso often used women and children in his art as symbols of the very perfection of mankind. But in Guernica the suffering of the women and children are instead symbols of the vicitmization of a defenseless and innocent humanity. As the author Rudolf Arnheim declared, “in Picasso’s view an assault on women and children was one directed at the core of mankind.” Monday in Guernica was market day and would have attracted many people from the surrounding areas for business. This was the day chosen for the attacks. most shockingly of all the Luftwaffe responsible for the attacks believed in a doctrine of terror bombing in which civilians were deliberately targeted in order to break the will and aid the collapse of the enemy. 1,600 were killed and three quarters of the city’s buildings were destroyed. The destruction shattered the defenders’ will to resist and the nationalists took the upper hand in the war.