War, Violence and Guernica

NONVIOLENCE, 16 Sep 2024

Biju Negi - TRANSCEND Media Service

We all harbour hundreds of small wishes and dreams throughout our lives. On a warm July Sunday, at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, seeing Picasso’s “Guernica” may have been a humbling realization of my one such little dream. More importantly, in a world shrouded by war, violence, hatred and greed, Guernica’s is the message that we need to remember and re-adhere to in this 21 Sep-2 Oct “Peace and Nonviolence.”

There is great art and there is great artist. And then, there is Pablo Picasso’s Guernica! Then, there is Pablo Picasso, and there is his Guernica (pronounced Gernika).

Pablo Picasso is the most well-known, original, inventive and influential artist of the modern 20th century era, and his Guernica is widely regarded as the most deeply moving and emphatic painting against war in history.

In September 1936, the Spanish Republican government appointed Picasso as the Director of the Museo del Prado (the Spanish National Arts Museum, Madrid). At the time, Picasso had been living in Paris for some years but while he accepted his appointment, he did not return to Spain as the government had desired. The last he was in Spain was in 1934 and, in fact, he was never to return to Spain to live, and so, in effect, remained the Prado Museum’s Director-in-exile. A few months later, in January 1937, the Spanish government commissioned Picasso to create a work of art for the Spanish pavilion at the “International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life” to be held in Paris from May-November 1937.  And Picasso got down to collecting his thoughts and working on some initial sketches for the Pavilion.

But the situation back in Spain was already beginning to turn grim. The 1936 elections had led to the formation of a popular front government – a coalition of Republicans, communists and socialists parties, and also supported by  separatists and militant anarchists. But, soon thereafter, there were military uprisings in garrison towns throughout the country engineered by the opposing Nationalist party, led by the military junta (whose General Francisco Franco was soon to become a major figure) and supported by conservative elements in the clergy, military and landowners as well by the extreme right Falange conglomeration. The confrontation ignited the Spanish Civil War.

Elsewhere in Europe, right-wing, fascist and authoritarian ideology was on the rise and right-wing regimes were already ruling in many countries, besides pro-Fascist and pro-Nazi political parties already in existence in some others.

However, in August 1936, to prevent the Spanish Civil War from spreading into a full-fledged war across Europe, over two dozen nations, including France, Great Britain, Italy, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a Non-Intervention Agreement on Spain. But sooner than later, Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union reneged the agreement. The Nationalists in Spain were militarily supported with troops, tanks and planes by the Nazi Germany and Italy, while the Soviet Union along with International Brigades comprising volunteers from dozens of countries came in support of the Republicans. In effect, with England and France not intervening, the Republicans had to do with meagre and dwindling resources and by April 1938, the Nationalists gained an upper hand and considerable Republican forces began fleeing into France. In March 1939, Madrid fell and the remaining Republican forces too surrendered. The Spanish Civil War’s end saw the establishment of “El Caudillo” (The Leader) Francisco Franco’s dictatorship which lasted until his death in 1975.

The three-year long Spanish Civil War had extracted heavy casualty and over 500,000 people are said to have died and of those, of which about 200,000 died through systematic killings, mob violence, torture or other brutalities.

Before January 1937, Picasso had been nowhere near political in his work. But at the time, when he was commissioned to do the mural for the Spanish Pavilion, Dora Maar a surrealist artist and photographer and also an anti-fascist activist, was Picasso’s lover and partner. She is believed to have urged him to be more politically creative. Indeed, during his early preparations for the Spanish Pavilion, with Picasso already supportive of the Republicans and perturbed by the Spanish Civil War, Dora Maar is said to have provided the impetus for his first overtly political work The Dream and Lie of Franco (Part I and Part II), imparting the terror of war and condemning Franco as a monstrous figure. In January 1937, Picasso initially started with 14 scenes (to which after 1939, he was to add 4 more), which were sold as a series of postcards “specifically for propaganda and fundraising purposes” for the Spanish Republican cause.

But then, on 26 April 1937, Guernica happened!

Lying on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, bordering France, Guernica was a village/little town in the Basque Country. Located about 10 km from the front lines and somewhat militarily strategic, Guernica was believed by the Nationalists to be the northern bastion of the Republican influence and resistance, though it was really unfortified and undefended.

26 April 1937 was Monday and “market day” for the people of Guernica. As most of the men were away fighting on behalf of the Republicans, there were essentially women and children who had congregated in the centre of the town for their weekly essential shopping. All too suddenly, the warplanes of the elite German Cordor Legion invaded the Guernica sky and the initial bombing targeted the roads and the bridges leading out of the town, thereby destroying all escape routes for the assembled women and children.

The German Cordor Legion was being commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, whose journal entry for 26 April 1937 stated that Guernica was targeted “…to halt and disrupt the Red withdrawal which has to pass through here.” The following day, Richthofen wrote in his diary, “Guernica burning”, and on 30 April 1937, he wrote that when his squadron arrived “there was smoke everywhere” from the attack by initial bombings, and since nobody could see the roads, bridges and suburbs, they “just dropped everything right into the centre.”

In a macabre display of air power for over three hours, the little township of Guernica lay devastated, with its over 200 inhabitants/civilians killed. This large scale wanton killing of the civilians in a war, shocked the world and was widely condemned. However, such warfare was soon to become common and, as many were to later comment that when Nazi Germany and Italy provided the Nationalists with men and material support in its rebellion against the Republicans, Spain became a military laboratory to test their latest weaponry – new methods of tank and air warfare – under battlefield conditions. Many others believed that the Spanish Civil War proved to be a dress rehearsal for the greater World War II to come in September 1939. And some went a step further to even conjecture that Guernica was a possible precursor to Hiroshima-Nagasaki as well.

In an eyewitness account in The Times and The New York Times of 28 April 1937, journalist George Steer wrote,

“Guernica, the most ancient town of the Basques and the centre of their cultural tradition, was completely destroyed yesterday afternoon by insurgent air raiders. The bombardment of this open town far behind the lines occupied precisely three hours and a quarter, during which a powerful fleet of airplanes consisting of three types of German and Heinkel bombers, did not cease unloading on the town bombs weighing from 1,000 lbs. downwards and, it is calculated, more than 3,000 two-pounder aluminum incendiary projectiles. The fighters, meanwhile, plunged low from above the centre of the town to machine gun those of the civilian population who had taken refuge in the fields.”

That very day Picasso’s friend and poet Juan Larrea visited him and urged him to shelve his initial sketches for the Spanish pavilion and instead make the bombing of Guernica the subject of his painting. On 1 May, Picasso himself read George Steer’s account of the attack which deeply shook him and urged by Larrea’s suggestion, he abandoned his initial ideas for the mural and began working on a series of preliminary sketches for what ultimately developed into his painting – the Guernica.

Sensing the urgent need and importance of Guernica, Dora Maar through her contacts gained access to a space in a large building near Notre-Dame, which provided Picasso with an ideal working studio. It was there, Picasso worked on Guernica, while Dora closely observed and documented every phase of its creation. According to art historian John Richardson, Dora’s photography “helped Picasso to eschew colour and give the work the black-and-white immediacy of a photograph.” In keeping with the sombre and tragic theme of the painting, Picasso was keen that it should have minimum gloss and so for his painting, he used specially formulated matte house-paint!

As Guernica was to be his work in the anti-fascist cause and so to give it as much publicity as possible, in a rare departure from his usual work ethic, Picasso allowed influential visitors to observe his work in progress. As he said, “The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom….. In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica….. I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death.”

Guernica was completed on 4 June 1937, in just 35 days! This was a remarkable achievement, considering the painting’s physically massive spread across a canvas 3.49 mts by 7.76 mts (11 ft 5 in by 25 ft 6 in).

Though often spoken of as a war painting, Guernica is specifically not one, with its utter lack of physical battle depiction.  Instead, what we see is – a grieving woman holding a dead child in her arms; a fallen horse in agony with a gaping hole in its side and its nostrils and upper teeth set as a human skull; a bull close by; a newspaper clipping; a bare light bulb over the suffering horse’s head and a hand holding a lamp reaching out; another woman blankly staring into the blazing light bulb; a dismembered, dead soldier under the horse, his severed arm grasping a broken sword from which a flower is growing; a frightened woman’s head and extended right arm reaching through a window……

All these are not war scenes but the aftermath of war with distorted figures in a disjointed composition,. Critics have stated the painting reveals a carefully orchestrated symphony of symbolism – chaos, destruction and suffering, yet also a sense of defiance and resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

But when asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, “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.” Elsewhere, explaining the depiction of bull and horse, which are important creatures in Spanish culture, Picasso matter-of-factually stated, “…..This bull is a bull and this horse is a horse… 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.”

In July 1937, Guernica was exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. But it was after Paris, when it travelled to Great Britain and early next year became part of an entourage to the Scandinavian countries that Guernica started to draw the world’s attention to Spain and helping raise awareness and funds for the Republicans. In 1939, Guernica travelled to the USA to raise funds and support for Spanish refugees. Apart from being exhibited at other centres, it was part of “Picasso: 40 Years of His Art” repertoire exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art from November 1939 to January 1940.

In 1939 too, after Franco’s victory in Spain, when Guernica first came to the New York Museum of Modern Art, Picasso had already laid the condition – and had even drawn a legal document to that effect – that the painting must not enter Spain as long as Franco ruled and until the country returned to democracy with restoration of “public liberties and democratic institutions.”

When World War II broke out, Picasso was already under surveillance, and fearing the Nazi occupation of France, he entrusted the New York Museum of Modern Art with Guernica’s future safekeeping. It was from there, over the next 15-20 years, the painting travelled extensively across the world. Though initially created in reaction to the horrendous bombing of innocent civilians in a small town during the Spanish Civil War but with no obvious references to or depiction of the specific attack, in Guernica Picasso created a universal, timeless theme of suffering, grief and resilience that resonated with audiences worldwide, transcending cultural and linguistic barriers. Capturing the brutality, unimaginable suffering and chaos wrought by war and violence on the people and society, yet evoking empathy and human resilience in a single work of art, Guernica is a testament to Picasso’s genius as an artist and his commitment to peace and humanity.

The painting returned to New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1956 for Picasso’s retrospective celebrating his 75^th birthday. However, Guernica’s extensive globe-trotting had left it in a very fragile physical state, which became a matter of serious concern, and it was then decided to not move it anymore from the Museum’s premises. There it was given a permanent room and alongside were displayed some of his preliminary studies of the painting and Dora Maar’s photographs of the Guernica’s work in progress. It was also decided that should there be a need or demand for Guernica’s exhibition elsewhere, only his preliminary studies and Dora Maar’s photographs would be allowed to travel and not the main painting.

In 1968, Franco urged an interest in having Guernica come to Spain, but Picasso vehemently refused to allow that. Indeed as Jean Cocteau, a leading avant-garde artist and poet-writer, had declared at the painting’s inauguration in 1937 that Guernica would be a cross that “Franco would always carry on his shoulder.”

Picasso died in 1973 and Franco, two years later, in 1975. After Franco’s death, Spain was transformed into a democratic constitutional monarchy with a new ratified Constitution in 1978. It was now time for Spain to lay claim on Guernica but it took considerable pressure and extensive negotiations, before the New York Museum of Modern Art gave up its most treasured painting. It was in 1981 that Guernica finally returned to Spain – in time for the artist’s birth centenary in October 1981. As per Picasso’s Will, Guernica was placed in the Museo del Prado (Prado Museum, Madrid). Still a polarizing force for the nation which was recovering from nearly four decades of dictatorship, it was displayed under bulletproof glass and remained so for another 14 years before the glass cover was removed.

In a final relocation, Guernica was shifted in 1992 to the Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid), which houses the capital’s national collection of the 20^th century art. At one time, the Basque Nationalists have also laid claim over Guernica, and advocated its shift to Basque Country, but Reina Sofia refused, reasoning that the painting was too fragile to be moved. That is where the matter rests.

In decades following its creation, Guernica has also grown to become a talisman for anti-war stand, peace and human rights activism and protests the world over. In 2017, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the creation of Guernica at the Reina Sofia Museum, titled “Pity and Terror: Picasso’s Path to Guernica”, one of the curators Anne M. Wagner stated that while curating the exhibition, they “came across images showing reproductions of Picasso’s masterpiece being carried in protests all over the world, from Calcutta to Ramallah to South Carolina.”

Today, over 87 years later, its powerful visual imagery and Picasso’s own uncompromising, unflagging moral stance on it, continue to make Guernica an indelible and powerful political statement. In becoming a symbol for Hiroshima-Nagasaki and all other places and events where defenceless civilians have been massacred, it also continues to challenge viewers to confront uncomfortable truths and questions and to face the consequences of violence and conflict. On the creation of Guernica, Anne M. Wagner may have put it best when she said “It was a tremendous circumstance for Picasso and the history of art, Republican art, protest art, and humankind.”

There are two telling examples of what the world and powers that be have come to on war and violence, and of Guernica and Picasso standing up to war and fascism with dogged commitment to peace and nonviolence.

In 1955, Nelson Rockefeller had evinced an interest in buying Guernica. Picasso refused. Rockefeller then commissioned French textile artist Jaqueline de la Baume Durrbach and her husband Rene Durrbach to do a tapestry copy of the painting, which later in 1985 was loaned by the Rockefeller Estate to the UN, and where it continues to hang on the wall outside the UN Security Council at the UN headquarters in New York City.

I wonder what Picasso would have thought of this, but in an utterly ludicrous, cynical, shameful and controversial happening, it was in front of the tapestry Guernica on 5 February 2003 that Colin Powell, the then US Secretary of State placed in front of the country the Government’s arguments favouring a war on Iraq, and which was executed barely a month later! Of course, at the Press Conference, the tapestry was conveniently covered behind a blue curtain, which otherwise would have certainly made for a very inconvenient backdrop with, not to miss, the horse’s hindquarters appearing just above the faces of the speakers!

The second example, an anecdote, sums it up – a German officer is believed to have visited Picasso (possibly as part of surveillance) at his Paris studio and upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment, allegedly asked,

“Did you do that?”

Picasso is said to have responded,

“No, you did!”

Today, over 87 years later, who remembers Francisco Franco?

________________________________________________

Biju Negi – I am an activist and coordinate Hind Swaraj Manch, a small initiative around Gandhian thought and practice – inspired by his book with the same name, written almost 115 years ago. Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, India – hind.swaram@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 16 Sep 2024.

Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: War, Violence and Guernica, is included. Thank you.

If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.

Share this article: email mastodon facebook 🔗 copy link

This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.

There are no comments so far.