The Backstory of Picasso's “Guernica” | Hacker News Reader

The Backstory of Picasso's “Guernica”

theatlantic.com

75 pointsprismatic48 comments

One of my favorite moments for this painting is the time it was hanging in the UN, but was covered while Colin Powell argued for war in Iraq[1]

[1]https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/02/guer-f08.html

Some people have no appreciation for irony.

Here's the mural in gigapixel. https://guernica.museoreinasofia.es/gigapixel/en/#4/63.94/-1...

Anyone interested in this painting could do a lot worse that watch this video presented by old school art historian Francis Frascina. Really enlightening. Frascina used to teach art history on TV for the Open University (TV distance learning) in the 1980s and of all his courses, this is all I can find online despite years of looking.

https://youtu.be/vuPNBeWmuSk

Such a shame that more is not available, that was an extremely enlightening work of history and analysis. Thanks for sharing.

I’m struck by his closing remarks:

> Today, the painting is housed in one of the two remnants of the 17th century Buen Retiro Palace, built by Philip IV. The other surviving building is the nearby army museum. It contains the mothballed relics of Spanish militarism, including the massacre at Paracuellos, and other paintings which glorify the Nationalist cause.

> The two museums, which represent conflicting but deeply entrenched ideological positions in Spain, are guarded in one form or another by the military.

> Guernica, however, is subject to stringent displays of security. Plate glass and steel girders reveal the state’s need to appear open to the emblems of dissent, whilst ensuring their cultural containment.

Wow this is a great article, never knew Guernica was panned all around at the beginning. My grandma lived in Madrid during the Spanish civil war and I almost cried when first seeing the painting in person.

On a different note it’s amazing this massive mural was shipped around Europe, across the Atlantic, and around the US - and back to Spain. Presumably it’s in panels? Don’t quite remember

Guernica was the painting that first taught me to appreciate abstract art. Up until then, I had disregarded it as infantile and ugly. This was the painting the taught me that realism isn't always the best way to convey meaning and emotion. It was a stunning and mind-altering realization.

Much like how Williams' poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow”[1] introduced me the evocative power of poetry.

[1]http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=174770

My favourite possibly apocryphal Picasso moment[0] has to do with just that painting. I saw it myself at the Reina Sophia some years ago and found it quite stunning.

[0] https://youtu.be/EFZuYi2oXsM?t=1233

> First in an intensive series of sketches and studies, and then on the giant canvas itself, Picasso’s tableau of horror, with its contorted faces and agonized animals, rapidly took shape; in just 35 days, the thing was done. For any painter, it was an improbable feat. For an artist in his mid-50s whose life was in disarray and who had, just two years earlier, almost stopped painting altogether, it was an astonishing, athletic act of self-reinvention.

Only 35 days?? What a force of nature…

Only 35 days? Watch "Style Wars" sometime.

And then there's Picasso's another lesser known anti-war painting, Massacre in Korea, which is reportedly created as protest against America's role in the Korean War.

https://www.pablopicasso.org/massacre-in-korea.jsp

IMHO, it might make the viewers think more about the cruelty of war, because one cannot easily hide behind "Of course they did these horrible things, they were the bad guys!"

The travesty of the Korean war is that ideology, both communist/fascist and capitalist, will grind as many humans as necessary into dust to prevent the other side from winning.

I found this painting to be shockingly moving.

It’s something you must see in person. Reading the history behind it and standing before this massive tableau is something I’ll never forget.

It looks like "How" was accidentally dropped from the title so as-written it doesn't quite make sense because today Guernica is hardly considered a "flop". His related sketches The Dream and Lie of Franco[1][2] are also worth a look.

Fun fact: Franco wanted Guernica exhibited in Spain but Picasso refused. It lived at the MoMA with instructions that it shouldn't be sent to Spain until Spain was a democracy and the people were free.

Not so fun fact: Picasso was an arogant asshole of the highest order.

[1]https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/370475

[2]https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/336519

Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole.

https://youtu.be/AXtBsikiY50

I approve of you linking to the John Cale version.

the original (produced by Cale): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujwAUbRa4cs#t=674

bowie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSccHqk9s64

talking heads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_CCbENmNaI

I prefer Burning Sensations' version from Repo Man:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl8sWnUZVL4

> It looks like "How" was accidentally dropped from the title so as-written it doesn't quite make sense because today Guernica is hardly considered a "flop".

I don't follow how adding "how" modifies the meaning in this way—making it clear it's about a historical and not ongoing situation.

Also, I think "how" is dropped automatically by HN because it's usually ugly and meaning-free clickbaitese.

Perhaps pedantic but to me "Picasso’s Great Anti-war Mural Flopped" sounds like a story about a crappy painting while "How Picasso’s Great Anti-war Mural Flopped" sounds like a story about the situation and circumstances surrounding the painting. But I agree that with or without the "how" they're both pretty click-baity titles.

I'd say the software got that one right, but the title without "how" is still pretty baity. We've changed it to the HTML doc title now, minus "unexpected".

An entire article about a mural with not a single photo of it? Are we supposed to imagine what it looks like?

dude, it's guernica

Never heard of it before this post. Do westerners really assume the entire world has absorbed all of their culture?

Philistines can use Google.

> When it comes to art against tyranny, no work is more seared into our consciousness than Guernica, Pablo Picasso’s dark, howling mural against fascist terror.

This is an interesting phrasing when juxtaposed with the title, and one that I think deserves attention, especially on HN. Being "anti-war" is about the worst rhetorical position one can take - nor does it actually reflect the truths of what a sensible person believes about "war".

There are bad people in the world, some of those become powerful people and inflict their badness widely. Sometimes you can reason and guide these people but not usually. That's where diplomacy comes in, diplomacy can deter activity away from the source of conflict. Sometimes diplomacy is ignored repeatedly, or worked around. Tensions escalate, stalemates are reached, and the diplomacy tool bag is left empty. War is the last tool available to modern government in order to preserve it's way of life. Categorically, war is a tool to be respected - much like a powerful drug. Its why warrior cultures and ethos grew out of the activity and remain in-tact today around the world.

Picasso's piece, to me, was not anti-war - anti-war would mean, in this context, let the person willing to inflict the most violence against me have their way. It's anti-tyrrany, which is what was happening at the time. Words mean things, and I think people that explain things the way this piece starts out do so intentionally, and that is regrettable.

I’m not going to question your premise, I just want to point out that while a small minority they are, many pacifists would submit knowing their fate. Fortunately most people are not pacifists against tyranny.

didn't Albert Einstein say something about simultaneously preparing for, and preventing War, is not possible? It hints of an inner psyche truth and also a social-purpose mobilization truth. War professionals win against war amateurs, no doubt about it. But War professionals do not like to hear that they are in fact, making the bed for War and therefore it will come; or that the State will sometimes enact War despite their people, not for them. Someone else said "great literature is about love and war, common paperbacks are about sex and violence" .. there are layers to this and those layers do not necessarily resonate. Truth as we live it contains contradictions. Large contradictions exist in predatory actions versus defense versus justice, and using violence to win political power that brings stability. The arts are personal and the images in Guernica are personal psyche images, to my eye.

Much as I hate seeing money wasted on weaponry that could be devoted to forestalling global climate catastrophe and the imminent collapse of civilization... War has only ever been prevented by having been prepared for it.

Sometimes you get war anyway. When you do, the outcome without preparation is much worse.

Captain Cook happened to mention the peaceful Chatham Islanders, hundreds of miles off east, to some Maori in New Zealand. Within two weeks they had mounted an expedition that killed all the men and enslaved or killed all the women and children.

Since you brought rhetoric into it: -you are straw manning pacifism -you are claiming no sensible person could be anti-war using that straw man -you are implying that war is generally fought for self-preservation against bad leaders

I don’t really agree with any of those propositions.

I’m also curious what you think the author’s intention was in calling Guernica anti-war.

I didn't use the term pacifism once, I said anyone who uses the word "anti-war". Regardless, feel free to explain how I'm wrong within the context of what I actually said rather than lazily saying I produced a strawman and walking away.

Lastly, I think you have successfully proved why this deserves discussion, especially on HN.

Categorically, war is a tool to be respected - much like a powerful drug

Categorically, war is a tool to be despised. It sacrifices lots of people to the follies of a few powerful fools who couldn't be bothered to find better solutions to achieve their goals. That war is sometimes necessary in no way means that it should be respected.

> Categorically, war is a tool to be despised.

I think you took "respected" a little too literally (potentially narrowly, or specifically) in this case.

> It sacrifices lots of people

This is exactly why I said it's a tool to be respected.

>I think you took "respected" a little too literally (potentially narrowly, or specifically) in this case.

I think you took "anti-war" a little too literally (potentially narrowly, or specifically) in this case.

Not that this post is even making the slightest attempt at discourse.

I don't think I did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32105717

There are plenty of people who are just patently anti-war, to no end. Someone with a nuanced position on war would not be using the term "anti-war". It amazes me there's an abundance of these folks on HN, which is why this was worth pointing out.

The finer points for me to make have been made all over, you attacked a complete straw man.

> Someone with a nuanced position on war would not be using the term "anti-war"

Nonsense. You're taking a narrow view of the concept, that they are literally against all forms of fighting no matter how great the evil encountered. That is unreasonable and uncommon.

Rather people who are anti-war are for dealing with conflicts at a root level before they even approach war, and for ending unscrupulous wars.

If you didn't even know the thing you were rallying against, why did you bother? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-war_movement

> Many activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put an end to a particular war or conflict or to prevent it in advance.

Except it wasn't a strawman if you bothered to read other comments and threads. My point moreover was that the attitude I described is not uncommon on this website.

If you want to complain about people not engaging in discourse, maybe answer the entire comment. From your literal first words you got the basic definition of the movement you were against completely wrong. The rest of your comments on this page didn't change that in the slightest, and it seems you're still not aware that you were wrong.

I've long thought that the old tradition of having leaders in the front of military charges needs to be brought back. Someone would have put a hole in the heads of Putin and friends a long, long time ago.

I think this is a much more practical approach to being anti-war than pacifism.

> I think this is a much more practical approach to being anti-war than pacifism.

What practical set of steps do you propose to get Putin at the front of a military charge?

I’d propose a JDAM. This war would look a whole lot different if Kremlin ceased to exist.

In fact the whole planet would look very different.

Doubtful. I find it hard to believe that a country that’s not even capable of manufacturing ordinary cars can maintain and service nuclear weapons.

> I've long thought that the old tradition of having leaders in the front of military charges needs to be brought back

This rarely happened - they weren't that stupid.

> Picasso's piece, to me, was not anti-war

Elsewhere in this thread a link is given to the UN covering the painting while Powell argued for the Iraq war. The UN saw the the painting as anti war.

Now replace “war” with “murder” or “rape”. Are murder and rape “tools to be respected” to you too?

It's fairly wild that people would compare fighting Putin or Hitler with murder and rape.

You failed to understand the analogy. It would be comparing fighting _for_ Putin or Hitler. That’s what you want to respect.

Jesus yall are something else

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