Written by: Anna Currence O'Neal
November 2016
Minor Edits Made: January 2023
Pablo Picasso’s Guernica was originally created as an allegory of Spain’s resilience, as well as a powerful anti-war political statement made by a revered Spanish artist. Now having been seen by audiences throughout the world for eighty plus years, Guernica has transcended the horrifying event for which it was named. It taps into the viewer’s basic emotions, showing a graphic scene of innocent civilians being slaughtered to further the goals of various political agendas. It shows a scene that, even with no context, evokes feelings of deep sorrow and heartbreaking loss. The emotions Guernica evokes are universal, making the painting applicable to any war in any century.
At the time Guernica was painted in 1937, there was much political unrest in Spain. Between 1936 and 1939, Nazi Germany lent their support to right-wing Spanish Nationalists fighting against Spain’s left-wing Republican government during the Spanish Civil War. In 1937, eager to test their budding air force, Germany’s leaders struck a deal with Spanish Nationalist leader, General Francisco Franco. In the interest of progressing his Revolution, Franco decided that the small Basque town of Guernica was an acceptable loss as it was an obstacle to the Nationalists’ advance.
“As German air chief Hermann Goering testified at his trial after World War II: “The Spanish Civil War gave me an opportunity to put my young air force to the test, and a means for my men to gain experience.” Some of these experimental tactics were tested on that bright Spring day with devastating results - the town of Guernica was entirely destroyed with a loss of life estimated at 1,650.” (EyeWitness to History)
News of the attack launched on April 26th, 1937 was in Parisian newspapers by May 1st. Enraged citizens flooded the streets in protest of the brutality delivered by the Germans. Picasso, already having received the commission to represent his home-country of Spain in the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, felt compelled to create Guernica after reading the heart wrenching eyewitness statements and seeing the photographs of the aftermath. He immediately abandoned any other plans for his contribution to the exposition and completed the massive work in just 35 days, finishing on June 4th, 1937.
Guernica is an abstracted and emotive representation of women and children in anguish amid a chaotic scene of destruction. By using depictions of women and children, Picasso is referencing the deaths of unarmed and defenseless civilians. In contemporary times, militaries around the world have women among the ranks alongside men. However, in 1937, much or all of the fighting during wartime was done by men, making Picasso’s representation of suffering civilians crystal clear to anyone who viewed the piece. This scene is not depicting a battleground full of fallen soldiers who have heroically fought to defend their home and country, as seen in much war propaganda, especially in Germany around this time. Guernica is an image that shows us the immense casualties inflicted on those who, in many cases, are not involved in the political uprisings that spark and continue these wars. They are simply caught in the middle of war because of where they were born.
At first glance, all that can be seen is pain, destruction, and pandemonium. A woman holds her slaughtered child in anguish as the bull (a known representation of Spain) cocoons them from the rest of the scene. Frantic movement is present throughout the painting with the bucking horse as its capstone, trampling everything in its path. A chaotic composition of strewn body parts, faces filled with fear, and disjointed architectural elements. A glowing light bulb at the top sheds light onto the carnage below creating a powerful rhetoric of spotlighting a terrible and brutal injustice.
In the midst of all this chaos is a, barely visible, line drawing of a blooming flower. This flower is the most vital symbol included in the mural. It symbolizes hope for the people of Spain, and hope to overcome the tragedy that has befallen them.
Picasso was greatly taken aback by the stark black and white photographs of the carnage published in the newspapers of Paris. This reaction to how he received the news permeated into how he addressed his painting, which is void of color. This is a time when photography (only available in black and white) was equated with truth. By making the decision to exclude color in his representation, Picasso embedded a message of truth and reality in the work. He was responding to the savagery of a specific war, a specific and horrific injustice committed. In present day, Guernica has transcended that singular instance of cold brutality and timelessly epitomizes the plight of innocent, victimized civilians helplessly caught between two powerful conflicting forces.
A contemporary example of this plight is the bombardment of Syria, most deeply felt in the city of Aleppo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The city has been divided since 2012; the east side of the city is rebel-held and the west side belongs to the incumbent regime. Aided by Russia, the Syrian government is attempting to root out the rebels using airstrikes, ISIS is striking via car bombs and the like, and the remaining civilians are caught in the middle to endure the effects of the unceasing attacks.
The Syrian Civil War was sparked in February 2011 in Daraa, Syria when a group of teenagers spray painted anti-regime slogans on school walls and showed support for anti-police protests.
“Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 … after the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. After security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets. The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation. The government's use of force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. By July 2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets across the country. Opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas.” (BBC News)
After five years of war, over 400,000 Syrians have been killed and millions have fled their homes. Those who remain must be constantly ready for attack as conditions have only gotten worse through the course of the war.
In 2013, a group of civilians formed The Syrian Civil Defense. In areas out of regime control, these volunteers are the first to arrive after a bombing and are dedicated to saving anyone in need. Today, The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as The White Helmets, is an organization of 2,900 civilians working in 120 centers across much of Syria, responding to hundreds of airstrikes every day. A documentary entitled The White Helmets, made in 2016, follows a group of these volunteers working in Aleppo. The main speakers in the film are Khalid Farah (a former builder), Abu Omar (a former blacksmith), and Mohamed Farah (a former tailor).
Before Mohamed joined The White Helmets, he was part of an armed group. “I fought for the opposition for three months. But I saw that the regime’s campaign was targeting civilians. And I thought, ‘It is better to do humanitarian work than to be armed.’” He goes on to say that “the situation is very difficult in Syria right now, especially with Russia's intervention to support the regime. They say they are fighting ISIS, but they are targeting civilians. The casualties are rising daily.”
The three reminisce about a particular night in Aleppo during their individual interviews. Mohamed explains, “All lives are precious and valuable. A child, even if he is not my son, is like my son... As an example I’ll tell you a story that happened to us in Aleppo. Two barrel bombs were dropped in the Al-Ansari area. The first one left a number of people wounded but the second barrel bomb killed a lot of people.” Khalid continued, “We went into the area. It was like a small village made of ten houses and all the buildings were leveled to the ground. On that day, our work was very hard and we worked for about 16 hours. Abu Omar said, “I thought I was searching under The rubble for a baby that had died. But all glory is to God. We were not meant to leave that area without hearing a sound. When I heard the sound of a baby, my feeling was indescribable. After 16 hours under the rubble, a baby less than a month old, still alive... under the dust, under the ceilings that had fallen on him...”
Mohamed continued, saying, “This gave us renewed strength to continue to work. It gave us hope that some people were still alive. We called him ‘the miracle baby’. At that time, my son was almost two weeks old. I don't know how this came to mind, but I imagined that this was my son. And I started to cry. I couldn't hold it in, and all my colleagues started to cry.”
Pure emotion overwhelmed everyone present; tears flowed as one could not help but be filled with a sense of hope for the people of Syria and for humanity. Even while watching the scene more than two years later and over 6,400 miles away, I was brought to tears by the seemingly impossible event shown in the White Helmets documentary.
Two years after the rescue of the miracle baby, the documentary follows the group to a White Helmets training facility across the border in Southern Turkey. In the words of their leader, Raed Saleh, “The hope [for this rescue training] is that you will convey the information you're learning to other White Helmets in Syria. We are under a lot of pressure right now to train as many people as we can.”
During the course of the month-long training documented in The White Helmets, every hospital in Aleppo and Idlib was targeted by Russian bombers in a single day. The trainees saw a news report stating, “The suffering of civilians has entered a new chapter with the Russian air campaign. There are record levels of shelling, especially over Aleppo.” On the phone, a White Helmet back in Aleppo says, “The new rockets are not like the old ones. Every rocket destroys an entire neighborhood.” Later, Mohamed mused at the peaceful landscape in Turkey and said, “Tomorrow will be better. We are always optimistic that what’s to come is better. Justice will prevail one day.”
The miracle baby, Mahmoud, came to visit the men who had saved him two years prior while they were completing their training. Abu Omar says, “It's a feeling of happiness. True happiness, you have to experience to understand. An indescribable happiness. A baby that I haven't seen for a year and a half. He is a very precious life. I have learned many lessons from baby Mahmoud. Patience, persistence, hard work, and to never lose hope. If a person is designed to live, no matter what happens, they will live. Every morning, I wake up and do this work because it's my duty, my humanitarian duty. I will never quit as long as I live.”
Khalid finished his interview by saying, “I’m just trying to do something for the people and for my country. I have a lot of hopes for my own daughter. I have a lot of dreams for her actually. When I come back from work and I pick her up... I look at her and I'm very sad about the fate of the children who lost their lives during the shelling. But, at the same time, I wish for her to fulfill her dreams and grow up to be many, many years old.”
The parallels between the bombing of Guernica and the onslaught of attacks throughout Syria are incredibly striking. Both Aleppo and Guernica are/were located close to the frontline of a war and between extremely powerful opposing forces. Both Syria and Spain are/were in the midst of a civil war being influenced by the might of powerful foreign governments. Both Syrian and Spaniard civilians are/were being attacked and slaughtered senselessly in the name of political interests. And both are/were attracting global attention because of the atrocities being committed therein. But a more consequential and vitally important parallel is that both Syrians and Spaniards held on to a morsel of hope while surrounded by those atrocities.
Picasso shone a light on a terrible injustice, but he also emphasized a sliver of hope. The White Helmets are a symbol of hope to the people of Syria, and Mahmoud is a symbol of hope for the White Helmets. The barely visible flower, the White Helmets, and a baby surviving unbelievable odds are all beautiful examples of humanity’s perpetual hope.
Whether applied to a conflict in 1937 or a conflict in 2016, Guernica is a singular image that brings forth, in one swoop, the impacts of war. The toll it takes on innocent civilians, the destruction, the horror. But just as important as the depictions of death and destruction, is the reference to the never-ceasing and universally human hope that prevails through it all.
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