Guernika

We have been asked to choose a piece of art that is meaningful for us. This is not an easy topic because, in my opinion, every piece of art is somehow meaningful. Yet only few touch someone’s heart. I don’t really have a favorite artist or style, neither in music nor in fine arts. However, today, I would like to talk a little bit about a painting that really impressed me when I first saw it: Picasso’s Guernika.
After being for decades in New York’s MoMa, fortunately, in 1982, the painting came back to Spain. The country, shortly after the triumph of democracy, celebrated its arrival and the end of a dictatorship that began when it was painted. Today, this huge painting (3.5 x 7.5 m) hangs in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.
In 1936 the Spanish Civil War was started and Picasso was asked by the republican government to paint a canvas for the Republic Pavilion at the Universal Exhibition of 1937 in Paris. The bombing of the city of Guernika by Nazi Germany Luftwaffe determined the topic of the painting. Guernika was the first bombarded city ever and it was the training, the beginning, of the horrors of World War II.
Picasso used the most modern techniques in order to express such hecatomb. Using a white and grey palette, we observe a series of images and symbols that transmit that pain. We see symbols that truly represent Spain, like a dying horse, which Picasso had already used in other bullfighting scenes. There is also a bull. People are screaming, flapping around, scared, in a crowded room illuminated just by the light of a candle and a lonely light bulb. A mother is carrying her dead baby. She is screaming with a grimace of pain. We can see a woman in flames, trying to escape. The bombs and fire, however, did not exempt anyone. Over 1600 civilians died. They were innocent people.
Since its first exhibition in Paris, the painting became a symbol against war. When I saw it, I couldn’t avoid feeling choked. I thought of the millions of people who have died in wars and who are still dying. I wish that more than art were aware of war.