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Guernica, painted by Pablo Picasso in 1937, was made as a symbol of the bombing and destruction of Guernica, the Basque city, by the Germans during the Spanish Civil War on April 26, 1937. The Germans were in support of the Nationalist forces of the Civil War. Guernica was one of the main cities of the Republican forces, the side against the Nationalists. The Germans, under Hitler, used this opportunity as a trial run of what will later end up being the Blitzkrieg tactic. Many of the people living in Guernica were gone at the time of the bombing and many men were out in the war; mainly women and children were attacked in this bomb run. Guernica was a village that had no military targets except a weapons factory in the outskirts of town which was left intact and undamaged after the attack. When news became international, Pablo Picasso became aware of what happened in his home country and decided to start painting Guernica as the commissioned painting by the Spanish Republican government. Guernica became a symbol of the destruction caused by war towards the innocent. In 1985, a copy of Guernica was commissioned to be put in the United Nations building in New York City. Rumors spread that Guernica was covered in a blue cloth because the US diplomats argued for war on Iraq. Others claimed that the TV news crew said it was a bad backdrop (Guernica (Painting)).

Pablo Picasso uses black, grey, and white to give the mood of sadness, pain, and chaos. Picasso paints women and children, which exemplifies the death of mainly women and children who were left in the city of Guernica. The image of the light bulb represents the advancements of technology that is creating more violence and destruction like what happened in Guernica. The light bulb also creates an image of an evil eye giving the sense that the advancement of technology is evil and creates the death and agony shown in the bodies and postures of the corpses and animals in the painting. Next to the bulb is a lit candle, which was the old version of a light bulb; the candle represents hope for the people, a hope for the people for a time of peace and the decline of the usage of the technologies that are advancing; this hope exists and became reality after WWII, after the dropping of the two atomic bombs, the world decided that it is a far too powerful weapon for humans to be using. Picasso adds in little pieces of hidden images that symbolize something else into Guernica such as a hidden skull which symbolizes death (Harris and Banton).

This painting is a representation of the violence caused in the Spanish Civil War. The violence depicted in the painting using dead bodies, ghosts, etc creates an ambience of pain and suffering in the people. Parts of the human body that were cut off from the main corpse are shown in the foreground. Women and children were painted as the victims of the attack to show the violence towards the innocent done by the Germans. This painting became an antiwar symbol for many people. The violence done by the Germans to the Basque city of Guernica affected not only the people there, but the entire world.

Harris, Mark and Simon Banton. “Picasso’s secret Guernica.” http://web.org.uk/picasso/secret_guernica.html.

Wikipedia. “Guernica (painting).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting).