Guernica
Picasso's huge black-and-white painting of the Nazi bombing of the Basque town of Guernica — the 20th century's definitive anti-war image.
Origin
Pablo Picasso painted it over five weeks in May–June 1937 for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. On April 26, German and Italian bombers had attacked the Basque town of Guernica at the request of Spanish Nationalists, killing hundreds of civilians. The painting is 3.5 × 7.8 meters, entirely in shades of gray, and shows screaming figures, a horse, a bull, a dismembered soldier, and a woman holding a dead child. It toured Europe and the US for decades, refused to be returned to Spain while Franco was alive, and finally went home in 1981. Now at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.
Modern usage
The default cultural reference for serious anti-war painting. A reproduction hangs in the UN Security Council building (and was famously covered with a curtain in 2003 when Colin Powell argued for the Iraq War in front of it). 'A Guernica' as shorthand means a painting or image so heavy it changes the room.
Tags