Guernica is Pablo Picasso’s world-acclaimed painting that was created in 1937 as a depiction of the horrendous, large-scale killings that took place in the town of Guernica in Northern Spain. This painting depicts the horrors of war and the inhumane use of technology that was used to kill innocent civilians as a showcase of military might and oppression, of the Basque spirit and Nationalist ideology in the Franco Fascist movement that took place in Spain in the 1930s (Hensbergen, 2005). Picasso, who was then an accomplished artist and painter working on some murals in Paris at the time was made aware of the occurrences in his home country, upon which he abandoned his former plans and embarked on creating Guernica. Guernica, is a dark-colored painting with shades of gray, black and blue visibly portraying a somber mood that is reinforced by the skewed images whose faces are wincing in pain and grief. This painting is made up of super-imposed images that have attracted a whole lot of interpretations and symbolism from viewers and art enthusiasts alike (Hensbergen, 2005). Nevertheless, upon being asked about the intended meaning of the images portrayed in the mural, Picasso maintains that he just formed artistic impressions as they came through his mind. According to him, interpretations are supposed to be made by viewers and not the painter.
The images drawn in this mural have been subjected to vast interpretations that are highly contradictory. The most dominant figures presented in the painting, the bull and the horse, have over the years been the bone of contention among different interpretations. Some have claimed the bull, which seems to gore the horse from underneath, is representative of the fascists led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who was against the government and especially the Basque people who strongly supported it. On the other hand, the horse has been widely interpreted as being representative of the people of Guernica, who were innocently and brutally killed in the onslaught that took place in 1937. All the other images in the mural also reflect the occurrences in Spain during that fateful moment, and are accompanied by endless interpretations tied to them.
Upon the unveiling of Guernica in 1937, it was first showcased in a Parisian exhibition where it gained little attention from viewers; however, as time progressed and it toured the world, it became the symbol of the destruction war caused to innocent lives. According to Hensbergen, (2005) the attack on Guernica was not executed as part of any military strategy, but rather to intimidate and hammer out any resistance against Franco’s movement, in addition to wiping away the Basque culture that seemed to be in tandem with the government of Spain at the time. This attack on Guernica, a town in the heart of Biscay province, was carried out by German air strikes, a move that is considered by many an ultimate test of their new war planes and military tactics. The planes bombarded the small town, indiscriminately killing thousands of civilians and children. These occurrences inspired the creation of Picasso’s painting Guernica, which is still considered the most important anti-war painting produced in the 20th century.
References
Hensbergen, G. (2005). Guernica: The biography of a twentieth-century icon. London: Bloomsbury.
http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp
http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/arth200/guernica.html
