Echoes of Guernica

By Paul Haim

Without doubt, Guernica is Picasso's masterpiece, indeed the major artwork of the 20th century.

The painting is remarkable for many reasons. First, though this may only be understood in retrospect, is Guernica's influence on the popular imagination. For the first time in the history of art, a work made in order to immortalize a historic event, has, through its own force, come to overshadow the event itself. Asked the question "What does the word Guernica mean to you?", eight out of ten people would likely answer: "A painting by Picasso." Very few, particularly of younger generations, know that Guernica is also - above all - the name of a Spanish Basque village savagely destroyed from the air on the order of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. By the German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion - on loan from Hitler to Franco - and equipped with the most powerful aerial killing machines of its time: Heinkel 3s and Junker 52s.

The tragedy unfolds on Monday, April 26, 1937. In three hours, the city is reduced to ashes by thousands of explosive and incendiary bombs. For the first time in history, a civilian population is attacked from the air for no military reason. (Guernika - the Basque spelling of the city's name - was 20 kilometers from the front). The attack is scheduled for Monday - market day - when the normal population of 8,000 swells to 10,000. In three hours, 1,850 are killed. Terrorized survivors, running through nearby fields, are machine-gunned at so close a range that the victims are able to discern the features of the pilots in the waves of incoming Heinkel 3s. By the ferocity and deliberation of the attack, one is forced to consider that Franco, who gave the orders carried out by the German pilots, wished to eliminate Spain's Basque minority. Other towns - Durango in particular - suffered the same brutal fate.

In 1937, public opinion had not yet hardened against such scenes of devastation, as it would by the end of World War II. One can speak of the destruction of Guernika as a significant advance down the road of horror. At the peak of the attack, the ground temperature reached 3000 degrees. For hours afterwards, the odor of burnt flesh floated above the town.

Guernika was a peaceful, small city. But it was also the symbol of the freedom and traditions of the Basque people. Since the outbreak of Spain's Civil War, in July 1936, the Basques had overwhelmingly opposed Franco's rule. For him, it was intolerable that such a minority would resist him, and perhaps even inspire the resistance of others. Of the much more numerous Catalans, for example. Thus, this assault - and the others like it - raised the specter of mass killing and political repression that were to characterize Franco's long rule in Spain.

Guernica has been described by a number of art historians as a painting of war, much like the large battlefield paintings of the 18th century. This is not the case. On his canvas, Picasso shows no weapons, and no planes. Simply, a scream, an emblem of the horror of all wars. The panicked figures look toward the sky, to summon the help of God. Also, to anticipate their impending deaths.

Picasso never clearly explained his use of the horse and the bull in Guernica. But it does seem that the bull, the primeval animal of Spain, represents Spain itself, apparently indifferent to the events around it, convinced that the country will emerge from its nightmare. The horse represents the people, murdered and wounded, in their flesh and in their blood.

In April 1936, before the outbreak of the civil war, the Spanish government had commissioned from Picasso a large painting, intended for the Spanish pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair. In studying the plans for the pavilion, Picasso discovered that the required work would measure more than seven meters (22 feet) across. A startling fact of 20th century art history follows: up to the fatal date of April 26, 1937 - and the attack on Guernika - Picasso produced nothing - not a sketch, not a drawing - for the preparation of his commission at the Spanish pavilion.

In the nearly 70 years since, nothing has emerged - neither from Picasso's papers, nor from the catalogue raisonné of his works - that gives even the vaguest outline of what Picasso intended to paint. For an empty wall of more than seven meters! On May 1, 1937, four days after the bombing of Guernika shocked the world, Picasso, gripped by urgency and rage, made his first preparatory drawing. Over the next month, he made some 30 drawings for the painting - themselves considered among the most important of the 20th century. And, of course, the masterpiece, Guernica, itself.

As a result, we find ourselves before a remarkable and singular painting. Not a representation of the combat of armies, but the slaughter of innocents. Little wonder that a number of painters from later generations have shown themselves sensitive to the mystery and magical power of a work of such scope. Nor that, faced with the complexity and power of a comparable visual challenge, artists would turn back to Picasso and his Guernica. No artist drawn to issues of war and killing can avoid Picasso's masterwork. Guernica will continue to upset, trouble and disturb further generations of painters and sculptors in the centuries ahead.

A long-time art dealer, Paul Haim lives in southwestern France. His latest book, Le Roman de Guernica (The Novel of Guernica), was published by Albin Michel, Paris.