A WARNING TO MANKIND

A WARNING TO MANKIND

There are events the news of which spreads very rapidly round the world. This happened in April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War; When Hilarity bombers destroyed Guernica, a town 30 kilometers away from the large industrial centre of Bilbao. The world shuddered when it learnt about this heinous crime. The day of April 26, 1937, when the Nazi bombs started to fall on the ancient city of the Basques, the inhabitants of northern Spain, is a grim date in mankind’s history. Guernica opened the mournful list of cities and settlements crushed by the Moloch of war in the 20th century. It was the first town almost completely razed to the ground by an air raid, the first common grave of World War II (1939-1945), the same tragic lot befell Or dour- sure- Alien in France, Lidice in Czechoslovakia, Coventry in Britain, Khatyn in Byelorussia.
Those who miraculously survived will never forget the horrible day of April 26, 1937.
This is what A. Jaurequi, a resident of Guernica, told Igor Kudrin, a Soviet correspondent who was working in Spain for many years. “I wasn’t quite twenty and did odd jobs at a construction site. It so happened that the house where I lived was the first to be hit by a German bomb. Everything in sight seemed to be burning the houses the church, the sweet factory, the restaurant, the old people’s home. But most awful was that people around me were falling. It was a market day and crowds were out in the streets. The German pilots flew their planes close to the ground chasing people and gunning them down for a lark”.
The fascists dropped some 200 kg of explosives per square meter 1,654 were killed.
In the years of Françoise the truth about the destruction of Guernica was hushed up by the mass media. Moreover, they tried to shift the blame for this monstrous crime onto the Republicans shoulders. However, the facts show that General Franco, who was waging war against the Spanish Republic with the backing of German and Italian fascists, had been informed beforehand about the plan to destroy the ancient centre of Basque culture by the German air squadron Condor.
After World War II ended in the complete route of fascism, and the Nazi war criminals were put in the dock before the international tribunal in September 1945 in Nuremberg Goering the former Luftwaffe chief was asked the question.
“Do you remember Guernica?”
“Guernica?” he replied. “Yes I do. It was a sort of test of strength for our air force”
By bombing Spain, the fascists wanted to terrorize the people of that country and force it to capitulate. However, they miscalculated. Soviet writer IIya Ehrenburg (1891-1967) who was in Spain at that time wrote in his frontline reports, “The 1,108 air raids on Spanish towns did more than to leave ruins and graves in Spain. They awakened hatred and indomitable spirit in the Spanish people, to a great extent; they contributed to the transformation of this hitherto peaceful land. In his words, the spirit of the Republican Army was born among the smoldering ruins under which people pulled out corpses of their children.
When dropping hinders of high-explosive and incendiary bombs on defenseless Guernica the enemies of the Spanish people had no notion that its ruins would become a symbol urging people to fight fascism, exposing its inhuman character, cruelty and barbarity.
Two days after the raid, on April 28, 1937 the Government of Republican Spain held an emergency session. It discussed the bombing of Guernica, Having condemned the fascist’s monstrous crime; the government decided that a monumental work of art, a panel, must be created which would reflect the Spanish pavilion of the world Exhibition on Paris to be held in the summer of 1937. When the question arose as to who could do such a work, Jesus’ Hernandez, Minister of public Education, did not hesitate to name Fabio Picasso, incidentally, at the end of 1936 he had been commissioned to paint a big picture for the Spanish pavilion of the Paris exhibition.
At that time pabio Picasso (1881-1973) lived and worked in Paris. But he remained in touch with his homeland, visited Spain frequently and remained true to it in his work.
Starting his work for the Paris Exhibition the artist wanted to dedicate it to the freedom of art. But in January 1937 he began work on a series of engravings entitled “Dreams and Lies of General Franco,” which expressed the artist’s hatred for the Spanish General. He transferred the receipts from the sale of his engravings to the treasury of the Spanish Republic. Picasso reacted to the bombing of Guernica as only a progressive- minded artist could do. He did not hesitate to accept the Republican’s proposal to create a panel about the tragedy of the Basques’ city. On May 1, he made his first sketch of three symbolic imagines: a woman with a candle, a horse with a stretched neck and the head of a bull. All of them were included in his final composition.
Those who met Picasso in the spring of 1937 recalled that he worked indefatigably on the picture. He stood at easel for 12-14 hours a day, making one sketch after another.
In the process of work the artists’ conception changed considerably. He decided against depicting the political symbol- the raised first, which was the Republicans’ greeting. The scene depicted took place not in the market square but indoors- The changes he made were towards allegory and generalization moving him ever further from the portrayal of speciesfic events. It could not be otherwise- Picasso’s artistic vision did not permit of documentary presentation or a simple transfer of reality on to a canvas. He strove to depict the truth in symbolic generalized images.
“Guernica” was finished shortly before the opening of the Paris exhibition- it was not even included in its catalogues. The picture greatly impressed those who saw it. The symbolic created by the artist’s imagination aroused in them the feelings similar to those which had inspired Picasso during his work. The pictures reflected a whole gamut of thoughts and feelings; despair, horror of death and destruction, horrible torments of people crushed by the forces of evil, a wrathful protest against these forces, hatred for war threatening all life on Earth, and also hope that the forces of reason would eventually triumph.
The artist pronounced his verdict on fascism. His “Guernica” was recognized as a masterpiece of twentieth –century art. The picture was highly praised by the defenders of the Spanish Republic themselves, among them courageous Dolores Ibarruri, Pasionaria, as the people called her. In her opinion, even if Picasso had created nothing but “Guernica’ he would still have been listed with the best artists of our time. Most of the people who saw this work by Picasso viewed it as a warning to mankind, a warning against the forces which push the world into the chaos of destruction, as an appeal to human conscience and reason.
In 1944 the world famous artist joined the ranks of the French Communist Party. He regarded this step as the logical result of his life and work. He believed his brushes and colours to be his weapons and he used them as such when working on his “Guernica”.
1987 saw the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s immortal work. For over 40 years out of these 50 Th picture was far away from the artist’s homeland, in the New York Museum of Modern Art. Only six years ago, in September 1981 Picasso’s desire that his work be exhibited in the Prado, Madrid, was fulfilled to mark the centenary of the artist’s birth, his great work was moved to the Spanish capital. There “Guernica” and 63 studies to it will be on display in the old mansion of Cason Del Buena Retro adjoining the Prado. Thus, Picasso’s great work has found its permanent home.
As the artist himself said, his idea was to show not the horror of one concrete even but a worldwide tragedy. Therefore “Guernica” half a century after its creation continues to call to people, imploring “This must never happen again”.

Article By: Praveen Kumar, St.Albert's College