Pablo Picasso: Guernica - Preparatory Study May 28, 1937

Guernica is the historical capital of the Spanish Basque Country. On April 26, 1937, aviators from the Condor Legion (a group of volunteers from the Luftwaffe who fought alongside Franco's nationalists) bombed and destroyed two-thirds of the city. This very first air raid against civilians gave birth to one of Pablo Picasso's most famous works.

Painted in his Paris studio in the wake of the event, to fulfill a commission from the Republican government for the 1937 International Exposition in Paris, the canvas is both a highly stylized expression of personal emotion and an attempt to depict history as it unfolds...

Pablo Picasso: Guernica - Pencil Preparatory Study May 28, 1937

Pablo Picasso: Guernica - Detail of the work

The central figure of the painting is a horse (a mare in the first preparatory drawings) that is wounded, dismembered, and pierced. It symbolizes the Spanish people under the yoke of Franco and his Italian and German allies.
On the left, a bull (a figure very present at that time in Picasso's work through the Minotaur) and a woman screaming in agony while holding her lifeless child. The figure of the bull (highly symbolic: Zeus) has given rise to various interpretations over the years by specialists. From the nationalist aggressor to the emblematic figure of machismo... Perhaps it is simply a struggle between two mythological figures that Picasso cherished so much!

On the right of the canvas, three disjointed and incomplete women scream in pain. One holds an oil lamp (present since the first sketches) towards the center of the canvas. Very stylized white triangles represent the flames that set Guernica on fire. In the center, at the bottom, a fighter (?) with a sword in the hand of his severed arm rests near a flower, the last hope of survival, a promise of a tomorrow where the world will bloom again...

Pablo Picasso: Guernica - Detail of the work

Pablo Picasso: Guernica - Preparatory Study May 28, 1937

Monumental (349.3 x 776.6 cm), Guernica, while reflecting the actual bombing of a city, is also an extrapolation of violence, war, and horror.
Created very quickly, its creation was also greatly influenced by the work and perspective of Dora Maar (then Picasso's mistress) who photographed each stage of the painting's evolution. This second perspective that Picasso could have of his canvas is not to be overlooked when comparing the preparatory drawings to the final work. Anne Baldassari (a great specialist of the Master's work) even goes so far as to say that Guernica is a work made by four hands...

After being exhibited in various European countries between 1937 and 1939 (a period during which its role in raising awareness of the rise of fascism cannot be denied), the canvas was sent to New York where it remained at the MoMA until 1981.
It was at this time (after the failed coup attempt of February 23, 1981) that the canvas was returned to Spain. Picasso had stipulated in a letter written in 1970 that it could only return to Spanish soil when freedoms were restored there.
Since then, it has been exhibited at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.

© Texts & Photos: Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES

Pablo Picasso: Guernica - Preparatory Study May 28, 1937