What is your impression of this painting by Picasso? Strange? Bizarre? Weird? - I agree, it is strange looking but it is about a horrible true story that happened in 1937 in Spain.
In 1937, the Spanish dictator, Franco, was fighting a civil war in Spain. Around the area of a Spanish town called Guernica, there were a group of Basque people who did not support General Franco. Franco was upset with them and he called on his friend in Germany, Hitler, to have his airplanes come over and help him out.
The Germans were happy to assist Franco.
They wanted to try out their new idea of saturated bombing and see what
it would be like to blast an area with a lot of bombs and Guernica would
be great target practice for them. The German Air Force sent forty-three
bombers and fighters to Spain, carrying 100,000 pounds of high-explosive,
shrapnel, and incendiary bombs. The pilots were given orders to bomb "without
regard to the civilian population." (Thomas & Witts, 63)
The planes flew into the town unannounced
at 4:30 pm, the busiest time during a market day, when the streets were
jammed with people, including peasants from the countryside. At an altitude
of 400 feet the Germans dropped bombs for a little over
three hours. When the bombs started to fall, people rushed to the
city square believing it to be the safest open space. Nobody would ever
know how many people were in the plaza, perhaps three to four hundred,
but those in the middle of the plaza had no chance. One of the survivors
saw the first people die in Guernica: "A group of women and children. They
were lifted high into the air, maybe twenty feet or so, and 
they
started to break up. Legs, arms, hands, and bits and pieces flying everywhere."
(Thomas & Witts, 228) The central part of the town was destroyed, 721
dwellings or the equivalent of 71% of the town. It took three days to put
out all the fires within the central portion of the town.
The following day, the London Times newspaper wrote about the bombing:
"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 aeroplanes consisting of three German types, Junkers, and Heinkel bombers and Heinkel fighters did not cease unloading on the town bombs weighing from 1000 pounds downward and, it is calculated, more than 3000 two-pounder aluminium 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. The whole of Guernica was soon in flames . . . " (London Times, 1937)
You can imagine the horror and the screaming from the terrifed, the bereaved and the injured. Some of the loudest screaming came when the facade of the hotel collapsed onto a group of children playing in front of it. The childrens' mothers were desperately tearing at the hotel's rubble trying to locate their innocent children.
The world was totally outraged when they heard of this incredible brutality. Franco and the Germans had to quickly think up a story to justify their actions. They claimed that they were trying to knock out a stone bridge that led into Guernica. This was a ridiculous story because the bridge was only 75 feet long and 30 feet wide, supported by two slim pillars.There was no need to use 400 pounds of explosives for every square yard of the bridge and to assemble the largest air force ever in order to remove it.
Remember, Guernica was not even an important strategic target during the Spanish Civil War. It's destruction was essentially seen as a test run to try out the idea of saturation bombing. (The Germans were so successful in Guernica that during World War II they used this blitzkreig technique to destroy cities throughout Europe.)
At the time this happened, Picasso, a Spaniard
by birth, was living in Paris and was trying
to figure out a composition for a painting that he had been commissioned
to do for the Spanish pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. When
Picasso heard about Guernica, he was outraged about the bombing and the
senseless brutality of his fellow men. He decided that the world needed
to remember what had happened there and he immediately set about to paint
a picture that would show the affects of war from the victims' point of
view. In twenty-four days, he created his twenty-five foot long masterpiece,
Guernica, from beginning thumbnail sketches to finished painting.
Picasso chose Cubism for this painting.
Why do you think it is so effective? Remember when the survivors told what
they had seen after the bombs were dropped - various body parts flying
through the air? What better form to show the hideousness of war than through
the use of cubism where the picture's plane can be broken to show different
angles at the same time and fragmented bodies can be designed into the
composition. Notice the arm on the bottom center of the painting. It is
marked by ragged striations which suggest nerves and the pain involved
with amputation, yet it is still clutching a sword. Also, a decapitated
head and arm with swollen fingers look like the results after rigormortis
has set in.
Picasso did not paint actual scenes of
the destruction but chose figures to symbolically represent various aspects
of it. Some of the first images that came to Picasso's mind were of the
bullfight, a theme of great importance to Spanish culture and himself.
The bull is standing triumphally over the carnage and could stand for the
Spanish people, which he believed would rise from the rubble and be survivors.
Another interpretation of the bull is that it represented all brutality
in the world, including those who ordered the bombing. A horse rears its
head obviously in pain. It's tongue is a triangular shape, mimicking the
sharpness of sound that an animal would make when in pain. A bird also
lifts its head and crys out. Notice the flower growing from behind the
amputated arm that is holding the sword. The flower is another sign that
there will be rebirth in Guernica. A woman is leaning out of a window holding
a lamp to illuminate the scene for the world to see. She could also be
symbolizing civilization or history. The lamp and its rays reach out at
the top of the scene illuminating the tradegy and could also symbolize
the triumph of compassion over cruelty.
There is some nudity in the picture but
Picasso wasn't doing it to be pornographic. Imagine if airplanes flew overhead
right now and without
warning,
started to drop bombs. The force of the bombs could very likely force the
clothes off you. That is a reality of war. Notice the woman on the left
hand side of the painting holding her limp baby in her arms, shrieking
in agony. At a moment like that, she would not be concerned with
her clothes being partially removed from her body as she would be with
the horror of holding her dead child. Another woman is also partially naked
as she runs across the front of the painting. If bombs were dropping around
us, our instincts would be to run and save ourselves; being partially naked
wouldn't be our first concern. This is a reality of war.
Picasso painted Guernica in blacks, whites,
and grays. These were particularly good colors to choose because war is
not a pretty subject. Also, when working in cubism, artists tend to use
colors that are closely associated with each other so it helps tie all
the various pieces of the painting together.
Guernica radically changed artists' perceptions
of how to paint war. Approximately eighty years before Guernica, Manet
painted the Fifer. It is a picture of a young boy, playing his flute
as he happily marches off to war. Very few war pictures before Picasso
showed the ugliness and brutality of war.
Some of the impact of Guernica comes from
the frightening combination of the ludicrous and the grotesque with the
tragic. The eyes of the people and animals are askew in their heads. The
peoples' hands and feet are swollen as if rigormortis has set in and look
like hideous mutations. All these gross deformities, all the ugliness ih
the painting are reminders that death by war is obscene. I cannot imagine
any better way to communicate the horror of the event than by using cubism
to break up the shapes and distort the images. Yes, it is an ugly painting,
but war is ugly.
>Click here if you want to know more about Picasso.
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