Modern art has always been a controversial topic. To this day, many debate whether modern art should be considered ‘art’ due to its abstract characteristics and oftentimes vague messages; however, modern art can be as highly influential as other styles of art.
Guernica (1937) by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso is considered one of the most influential pieces of art of all time. It was a piece commissioned by the Spanish Republican government for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, but its influence far surpassed the Spanish Official’s expectations.
Picasso had received the commission while residing in Paris in January of 1937, however for the next three months he did not manage to produce anything. During this time, Spain was in the midst of a civil war which started in 1936 when fascist right-wing Nationalists revolted against the elected Republican government. The Nationalists were supported by Nazi Germany, and so they allowed the Nazis to test and practice a military tactic, blitzkrieg, in which they mass-bombed an area with speed and surprise in order to create psychological shock and disorganization in the Republican side. The subject of this tactic was a village in northern Spain of no strategic military value: Guernica.
On April 26th, 1937, Nazi bombers unleashed 100,000 pounds of explosives on the civilian population over the course of three hours, then twenty fighter planes attacked the area killing more civilians. The attack was devastating asit killedand wounded a third of the innocent village population.
When Picasso heard the news, he immediately started working on new sketches for his commission piece. Picasso had always been an apolitical artist who did not mix politics with art, however this event had completely shocked him and changed that fact. Within the span of thirty-five days, he had finished the massive painting Guernica .
Guernica included overlapping elements and figures in the painting to create an overwhelming image. It depicts terrified women in utter chaos; one screams as she holds her limp child in her arm, one peers through a window with a candle in her hand, one seems to be running away from something, and another seems to be screaming with her hands in the air. A bull and a horse are included in the painting, and so is a dead and mutilated soldier who lays on the ground, a broken sword in hand.
The bull in the painting is thought to symbolize fascism or even Francisco Franco himself, the leader of the Nationalist forces. It stares directly at the viewer, and has a cold expression contrasting to the terrified expressions of other figures in the painting. At the very center of the painting, the horse shouts and screams in pain from the wound on its chest; however its head remains high as it struggles to survive. It is said that the horse embodies the people of Guernica during the tragedy.
The whole painting is done in a monotonous black and white color, which creates a gloomy and mournful atmosphere and could also symbolize how Picasso had found out about the bombing itself; through the black and white pages of a newspaper. But surprisingly so, Guernica included no specific scenes from the Bombing of Guernica, rather he fabricated a scene that depicted the suffering and intensity of war in general.
Picasso aimed to show the horrors and devastation of warfare, and with Guernica , he succeeded. The Spanish officials thought of it to be too avant-garde, since Picasso included elements of cubism when they preferred a more traditional-styled painting, however the painting had attracted much attention from audiences around the world. This led to the painting being transported all over the world, including Amsterdam and Stockholm, raising money for the Republican cause.
A few years later, World War II had begun, which made the scene depicted in Guernica all too familiar to even more people around the world. The Spanish Civil War had also concluded, with Franco and the Nationalist forces standing victorious. This deeply upsetted Picasso, and he would not allow Guernica to be displayed in Spain under Franco’s rule. And so he sent the painting off to multiple states in the US, one again raising money but this time for Spanish refugees escaping the fascist rule.
Guernica became a symbol for antiwar and remains so even today. The depiction of the fear, suffering, and the chaos of war serves as a silent yet powerful reminder to protect and preserve peace. Yet today, we still witness such horrors, which is exactly why Guernica remains relevant to this day.
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