Artists and more recently photographers are often able to depict aspects of the violence and horror of war which is not often apparent. Picasso’s painting Guernica is a remarkable, moving and unsettling artwork which he painted in response to the bombing of a market town in the Basque region of Spain on April 26th 1937. As the town was the capital of the region and known to be a centre of resistance to Franco’s fascism, he had no formal sponsors so he decided to create a painting of the tragedy.
Guernica was full of shoppers, mainly women and children on market day. Quite suddenly a group of German Luftwaffe war-planes began a bombing raid which lasted almost 3 and a quarter hours. The air raid completely destroyed the town and its inhabitants, and civilians who had fled to fields nearby were also subjected to machine gun attacks. The objective of the raid was to destroy the morale of the civilian population, and it was estimated that over 1000 civilians were massacred. According to the London Times newspaper, one officer described the raid as a birthday present for Hitler.
The air raid was widely condemned across Britain and its allies elsewhere in Europe. When Picasso, who at the time was living in southern France, received news of this attack, he set to work on a vast picture – 12 feet tall and 25 feet across. He purchased black, grey and white matt paint and in some parts of the picture he drew as if it was newsprint because that was how he heard of the raid. It took him 35 days to complete the painting which was finally finished on 4th June 1937. His previous works of art had steered clear of any political commitment. But this massacre of Basque civilians – many of whom were women and children and its needless destruction of human life, had spurred him into action.
The picture is detailed and complex, with a wide variety of interpretations from critics. Its human figures represent and reflect aspects of war in graphic detail – for example a woman with a dying child in her arms and several severely wounded human beings in various parts of the picture. A dying horse in the centre of the picture appears to be covered in chain mail and the head of a bull faces away from it. Horses and bulls had held a significant place in Spanish culture – and Picasso would have watched bullfighting as a small child. Art critics debated whether the animals represented different sides in the civil war but when he was asked much later, Picasso replied that a horse was a horse and a bull was a bull.
A number of art critics have drawn various parallels with aspects of religious belief. Some have likened the picture of a woman and a dying chid to a pieta. Others have suggested that the 3 wounded women represented 3 fates or martyrs. The light bulb in the top centre of the picture could either have been Franco’s watching eye or God’s angry gaze on the destruction of innocent women and children. Some have linked the imagery of horses in the picture to the terrifying aspects of an apocalypse. Some symbols in the picture indicate the tension between suffering and potential hope. The lamp in the centre of the picture has been likened to Russia who was an enemy of Franco. The dove of peace in the dark corner suggests the end of peace. A small flower at the bottom of the picture might suggests the possibility of hope flowering, although it has no roots in the ground. The stigmata on the hand of a wounded soldier with a broken sword would have been recognised by some as a symbol of martyrdom.
The censorship of news in Germany during this period meant that Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have been unlikely to have immediately heard the details of extensive damage caused by the bombing. However he had a strong sense of personal connection with Spain through his time as a young assistant pastor to the German Lutheran Community in Barcelona in 1928. It had been an experience which moved him beyond his intellectual and cultured circle and his sense of warmth and interest in others enabled him to encourage and develop the congregation. Barcelona and its surrounding area Catalonia also supported the republican movement in Spain.
When Dietrich returned to Germany with his elder brother Klaus, they purchased a different Picasso painting. They much respected his work and it reminded him of his connections with Spanish people. Bonhoeffer’s contacts with Christians in other parts of Europe and the time he spent in the United States where he was influenced by friends and colleagues and a lively black church, reinforced his opposition to the Nazi rise to power. Travelling had enabled him to find personal support and broadened his theological perspective. However the confessing church which he founded with others as an alternative to Hitler’s state religion, was closed in 1937 and the seminaries broken up in 1939. His professional life as a theological educator had to be put on hold but he was able to continue academic studies.
Picasso’s painting of Guernica has a number of indirect links to Bonhoeffer’s life. Dietrich’s consistent pacifist stance on the war being fought by the Nazis, led him to work in the intelligence service as a conscientious objector. He refused to support the extermination of the Jewish people and when he was arrested, the warrant claimed that he misused his position to enable some Jews to escape from Germany. He contested the assumption that Hitler’s understanding of the Aryan race was superior to others and challenged his authority. Symbols of destruction and martyrdom, a loss of hope and the sense of apocalypse illustrated the pacifist stance on the destructive nature of the war taken by both men. A number of religious symbols in the painting made links with aspects of Bonhoeffer’s faith.
When the painting was completed, Picasso sent the painting to America for safe keeping. It was taken on various tours to raise money for refugees from the Spanish civil war. He refused to let it come back to Spain until the country was democratised. In 1955 a tapestry copy of Guernica was hung in the United Nations building to remind the world of the importance of peace and security.
If you would like to view the artwork and find out more, please visit Museo Reina Sofía’s website, where Picasso’s Guernica is currently displayed in Madrid: https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica
