The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 23 February 2006
by Gijs van Hensbergen
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish civil war, the Basque town of Gernika was bombed by German and Italian planes (a violation of non-intervention agreements) in support of the Fascist forces of General Franco. Nearly two thousand civilians were killed, and a nearby arms factory was untouched. The event marked the first mass bombing of a civilian population on European soil, and shocked the continent. At that moment, Pablo Picasso was coming up with an idea for a mural he would paint for the Spanish pavilion at a world Expo in Paris. The exposition itself was notable for the prominent presence of Nazi and Soviet pavilions on the Seine. In the end, Picasso's whirlwind piece, Guernica would endure as one of the 20th century's most significant and symbolic works of art.
In this sprawling history, van Hensbergen takes us through the creation of Picasso's giant masterpiece by the end of the first chapter. After that, the painting assumes a life of its own, as the symbol of brutality in war and of the Spanish Republican cause during forty years of Franco's repressive regime. Guernica is sometimes more, sometimes less, involved in the art and political history outlined here. Sometimes it is merely symbolic, and sometimes integral to the events described. Van Hensbergen's outline of the history of the Spanish civil war is outstanding and vivid. He is clearly partisan, himself, but puts a lot of effort into balancing the politics with history. At the outset of World War 2, the painting was at the still-young Museum of Modern Art in New York. Picasso allowed MOMA to be the protector of the painting during and after the war, until such time as democracy should return to Spain. This was politically convenient, as well, as the artist also saw it as a thorn in the side of America's own imperialist tendencies. And, in New York, Guernica served as an icon of European art, at a time when American art suffered from some crises of its own. Here, van Hensbergen seems to lose his way a little, making assertions about the state of modern art in America while neglecting many thriving artists in the middle of the century. He is, however, convincing in tying Guernica to the development of such artists as Pollock and other abstract expressionists. His history of the Paris Expo, the Spanish civil war, and the state of Spain in the post-war and post-Franco eras, are also an engrossing read. The painting was moved to Madrid in 1981, where it hangs now in the Reina Sofia museum of contemporary art. The final machinations that brought democracy back to Spain, finally ended the civil war, and brought this artwork to its native land make up the last couple chapters of the book. In the end, there remains some conflict around the painting. The Basque nation, especially with their starchitect-designed Guggenheim museum at Bilbao, continue to ask for Guernica, which they see as having been paid for with their own blood. Museums around the world yearn to display it, for its star power and its symbolic meaning. And the state of the painting, now more than 70 years old, likely keeps it from being moved again. The book is fascinating reading, for its history more than for its artistic insight. But it is a fine portrayal of the power in art to move in political circles.
In 2002, as the rush to war with Iraq intensified during America's cynical push for "diplomacy" in the United Nations, a tapestry copy of Guernica on display there, as a warning against the atrocities of war, was ignominiously covered with a blue curtain. The painting's image remains a potent threat to warmakers even into the 21st century. And, just recently, the tug of war between Basque country and Spain was rekindled as the 70th anniversary of the Gernika bombing approached, this time with the new Guggenheim, Bilbao at its center.