The art of anti-war
JournalNews column
Before the spring of 1937, there was a fair every Monday in the Basque village of Guernica in northern Spain.
Shoppers and merchants packed the village square on the afternoon of April 26 that year when church bells started sounding alarms.
For the three hours and 15 minutes, the German Luftwaffe, in support of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist army involved in the Spanish Civil War, launched an attack on the surprised villagers.
More than 25 German bombers dumped 100,000 pounds of high-explosive and incendiary bombs until the Guernica dissolved into rubble. Villagers fled for cover, but fighter planes strafed machine gun fire upon them.
"They kept just going back and forth, sometimes in a long line, sometimes in close formation,” said one eye-witness. “It was as if they were practicing new moves."
Fires burned for three days, 70 percent of Guernica was destroyed and 1,600 civilians — of a population of 5,000 — were killed or wounded.
German spin doctors claimed the target was a bridge on the edge of town, chosen in order to cut off the fleeing troops that opposed Franco. But not a single hit was scored on the bridge — nor any other conventional targets such as the railway station and small-arms factory nearby.
History tells us that Hitler ordered the attack on Franco’s behalf to break Basque resistance to his Nationalist army, and that Guernica served as the testing ground for a new Nazi military tactic - blanket-bombing a civilian population to demoralize the enemy.
Guernica was apparently destroyed for bombing practice.
Pablo Picasso, the greatest and most misunderstood modern artist, had already agreed to paint a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the upcoming World’s Fair in Paris when word of Guernica’s bombing spread through Europe.
Inspired by newspaper photographs detailing the horror of the bombing, Picasso worked quickely and three months later delivered a mural — over 25 feet wide and 11 feet high — to the World’s Fair. He used familiar imagery — bulls, horses, melacholy women — but the nightmarish tableau of twisted forms and agonizing faces in stark black-and-white shapes were a clear indictment of the violence and brutality of war.
His mural — titled “Guernica” — succeeded as both an artistic masterpiece and an effective political statement. For months and years afterward, “Guernica” became a symbol of anti-war sentiment, first touring Europe for anti-fascist causes, then later in America to raise funds for victims of the Spanish Civil War. The Museum of Modern Art became its semi-permanent home, a location Picasso approved. “It will do the most good in America,” he said in 1956.
It has since become one of the most recognizable paintings of the modern era.
In 1981, “Guernica” went to Spain for the first time in honor of the late artist’s 100th birthday, and in 1985, the estate of Neslon D. Rockefeller donated a tapestry copy of “Guernica” to the United Nations, where it has since hung outside the Security Council’s chamber, a frequent backdrop for U.N. news reports and a fitting symbol of the ideals of the United Nations.
But on Feb. 5, 2003, U.N. officials covered up the reproduction of “Guernica” with flags and blue curtains so that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell could present the American case for war against Iraq.
Before the spring of 1937, there was a fair every Monday in the Basque village of Guernica in northern Spain.
Shoppers and merchants packed the village square on the afternoon of April 26 that year when church bells started sounding alarms.
For the three hours and 15 minutes, the German Luftwaffe, in support of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist army involved in the Spanish Civil War, launched an attack on the surprised villagers.
More than 25 German bombers dumped 100,000 pounds of high-explosive and incendiary bombs until the Guernica dissolved into rubble. Villagers fled for cover, but fighter planes strafed machine gun fire upon them.
"They kept just going back and forth, sometimes in a long line, sometimes in close formation,” said one eye-witness. “It was as if they were practicing new moves."
Fires burned for three days, 70 percent of Guernica was destroyed and 1,600 civilians — of a population of 5,000 — were killed or wounded.
German spin doctors claimed the target was a bridge on the edge of town, chosen in order to cut off the fleeing troops that opposed Franco. But not a single hit was scored on the bridge — nor any other conventional targets such as the railway station and small-arms factory nearby.
History tells us that Hitler ordered the attack on Franco’s behalf to break Basque resistance to his Nationalist army, and that Guernica served as the testing ground for a new Nazi military tactic - blanket-bombing a civilian population to demoralize the enemy.
Guernica was apparently destroyed for bombing practice.
Pablo Picasso, the greatest and most misunderstood modern artist, had already agreed to paint a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the upcoming World’s Fair in Paris when word of Guernica’s bombing spread through Europe.
Inspired by newspaper photographs detailing the horror of the bombing, Picasso worked quickely and three months later delivered a mural — over 25 feet wide and 11 feet high — to the World’s Fair. He used familiar imagery — bulls, horses, melacholy women — but the nightmarish tableau of twisted forms and agonizing faces in stark black-and-white shapes were a clear indictment of the violence and brutality of war.
His mural — titled “Guernica” — succeeded as both an artistic masterpiece and an effective political statement. For months and years afterward, “Guernica” became a symbol of anti-war sentiment, first touring Europe for anti-fascist causes, then later in America to raise funds for victims of the Spanish Civil War. The Museum of Modern Art became its semi-permanent home, a location Picasso approved. “It will do the most good in America,” he said in 1956.
It has since become one of the most recognizable paintings of the modern era.
In 1981, “Guernica” went to Spain for the first time in honor of the late artist’s 100th birthday, and in 1985, the estate of Neslon D. Rockefeller donated a tapestry copy of “Guernica” to the United Nations, where it has since hung outside the Security Council’s chamber, a frequent backdrop for U.N. news reports and a fitting symbol of the ideals of the United Nations.
But on Feb. 5, 2003, U.N. officials covered up the reproduction of “Guernica” with flags and blue curtains so that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell could present the American case for war against Iraq.
