Few paintings have so captured the public imagination as Pablo Picasso’s portrayal of the horrors of war. The history of the painting has become the stuff of legend. Picasso was commissioned by Spain’s Republican Government to produce a large painting for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World Fair in Paris. Picasso prevaricated for months, struggling to come up with a suitable subject. On 26 April 1937 the Condor Legion bombed Guernica and the next morning Picasso would have read the news in the morning’s papers complete with grainy black and white images of the destruction. With just two months to the opening of the World Fair, he embarked on a frantic development of ideas and images that culminated in the finished work we know today. Even for one as prolific as Picasso, the task was prodigious.
After the World Fair, the painting embarked on an extraordinary perambulation around the free world. The painting was to be a rallying cry for the Republican cause and nowhere more so than England where it was shown twice in London in between visits to Leeds and Manchester, where the mythic symbolism of its supposed crude hanging in a car showroom only reinforced its legendary status. This was not a painting to be admired in a museum, this painting had work to do. Following the fall of the Republic in 1939, Picasso refused to let it be shown in Spain before democracy was restored. It remained in the care of MOMA in New York until its triumphant return to a democratic Spain in 1981.
Few pictures have been so mythologized. When first shown, critical reactions were mixed. It was strangely criticized for being a work of propaganda, as though art couldn’t, shouldn’t or never had been used for propaganda purposes before. However, it was the reaction of the ordinary citizen that was most supportive and the painting soon became a symbol and rallying cry for the, by then, virtually doomed Republican cause.
The painting has gone on to be appreciated as an expression of all the horrors of war. Despite its genesis and title, there is no pictorial representation of Guernica or indeed any specific Spanish reference. Picasso was not interested in restricting his vision to one outrage. This picture was looking ahead to all the horror and destruction that was soon to engulf the world – he was interested in the universal power of art to express universal truths. It is no surprise that the picture has gone on to be one of the most reproduced images in the world.
The painting is now safely ensconced in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and unlikely, due to its fragile state and iconic status, to ever move again. It is difficult to think of a more appropriate home. The picture is now a symbol of Spanish democracy and a treasured possession of the State. The reverence in which the museum holds the painting is impressive. It has sole occupancy of a large room set in a wing of the building accommodating the many drawings, sketches, photographs and memorabilia surrounding the creation of the work. Guarded by all the normal, and unseen, high tech surveillance, it is also reassuringly guarded by two hyper-alert guards at all times. There is no glass screen or other physical barrier that separate you from the work. Photography is strictly forbidden.
Fortunately, given that it is probably the most famous painting of the C20, seeing it is relatively easy and need not cost you a cent. There is free admission to the Reina Sofia Museum every evening from 19.00 – 21.00 and Sunday afternoons
