Pablo Picasso suffers from being a lazy artist. Let me explain that before you start in on me. I don’t mean lazy in terms of output and I certainly don’t mean to imply that he didn’t expend a terrific amount of energy in essentially revolutionizing modern art. What I mean is that Picasso often favored form over content; as a result, his greatest paintings are almost exclusively the result of having some important to say. Following Francisco Franco’s go-ahead to the German air force to drop bombs over the mostly Basque and anti-Franco citizens of the town of Guernica, Spain in April of 1937, Picasso made his greatest and boldest statement.
The Spanish Civil War was one of the rallying points of twentieth century art. In addition to Picasso’s big mural titled “Guernica”, that war also inspired Ernest Hemingway to write For Whom the Bell Tolls and, much later, was the inspiration for The Clash song “Spanish Bombs” on their masterpiece London Calling. It was Pablo Picasso, however, who created the most extraordinary piece of art out of this example of man’s decadent humanity. “Guernica” is a massive work, twenty-five feet across and over eleven feet high. The first thing you may notice about this painting is that it doesn’t contain the vibrant colors you might expect from Picasso. In fact, Picasso chose to use a muted palette of monochromatic hues in order to represent the deadly ashen skin tones of the victims of the German bombs. The choice also works well as a reflection of the black and white photography and newsreels of the era. In that respect, “Guernica” is also a still-life documentary statement, but its import extends well beyond merely telling a story of modern day horror to fashion a statement about the nature of war.
“Guernica” is prime Cubism in that it features the distorted figures so common to the movement. Its massive size, however, allows each viewer to come to it on his own terms. So very much is going on in the painting that one may be overwhelmed. Still, one cannot help but notice the figure of a woman holding a child, her head tilted and her mouth widened in a silent scream of utter despair. This woman is poised in counterpoint to the large head of the horse near the center. The horse is the victim of a spear and it too seems to be screaming in pain. But the real strength of Picasso’s anti-war statement in “Guernica” is probably the figure that occupies the bottom left of the painting. This figure appears at first glance to be a warrior cut down in battle, but closer inspection reveals it is actually a statue of a warrior lying in shattered pieces.
That broken statue says much more than might be obvious. For one thing, of course, it is certainly a comment on the fleeting nature of glory. Today’s war hero is tomorrow’s war monument and tomorrow’s monument may be pulled down the next day. Beyond that, however, Picasso seems to be making a critique of the entire idea of using art to glorify war. One cannot help but wonder if opposition to the war in Iraq-or any unnecessary war-would be greater if the ideology of art wasn’t to build monuments to warriors, but rather the peacemakers. If only there were more museums devoted to the architects of peace rather than warmongers like Caesar, Napoleon or MacArthur, and if movies and TV shows about these people were more critical and less glorifying, would there be any significant difference in the basic acceptance we seem to have that all wars are necessary?
Picasso’s shattered statue in “Guernica” also calls into question the nature of art. Picasso is more famous for his paintings than for anything he ever said, but there is one quote attributed to the man that has never been forgotten. Picasso referred to art as a weapon that can be used against the enemy. Art, in other words, should always be the enemy of man’s aggression. When art is used to elevate and celebrate war-as in the statue of the warrior-it is being utilized against itself. The artist, obviously, cannot compete against bombs and weapons of mass destruction. But the artist can be just as influential. Picasso’s painting of “Guernica” has been showing up more and more in anti-war marches. It has stood for over half a century as the most powerful indictment of man’s inhumanity against man that was produced by a painter in the 20th century. Today, of course, fine art doesn’t have the power to move minds like it did when Picasso painted “Guernica.” Today’s art form of choice to express such a statement is film.
It is a sad testament that film is used mostly to today to glorify the warmonger rather than castigate him. You will never see the kind of budget and marketing power put behind a film about a peacemaker that was put behind something like 300.
