From the sphere of Spain’s historical painting, the wounded animal brings to mind Goya's The Second of May, 1808 (Uprising). The painting commemorates the start of the fight back against the Napoleonic occupation. Hanging next to it in the Prado is The Third of May, 1808 (Execution). It shows a defenceless group of civilians being shot down by an anonymous firing squad. Our attention is captured by the gesture of one of their victims, a white-shirted man who faces them. Both his arms are raised in an emphatic ‘V’ shape of helpless appeal. In Guernica the woman to our far right is portrayed as if suspended in mid air. Her arms, too, are thrown into a ‘V.’
In the hands of politicians, activists and private citizens, Guernica is swiftly adapted as an appeal against a range of perceived injustices. Hensbergen notes how, during the Franco era, supporters of democratic change quietly replaced their replicas of da Vinci's Last Supper with reproductions of Guernica. [12]In the introduction to his book on Guernica, by way of contrast, he recounts how the full-size tapestry of the painting at the UN was ‘ignominiously’ covered, in the lead-up to the Iraq War, to prevent its ironic appearance in press briefings, despite it being a well-known part of the UN's education programme.[13]
Journalist Danny Woods reminds us of its political cache in the post-Franco era. He quotes Javier de Blas, a senior curator at the Reina Sofía, who says, ‘The whole world accepted that the country had recovered its political and social liberties in part because Picasso permitted the return of the painting to Spain.’[14] The artist had refused to do this whilst Franco was still in power. It was a gesture that gave voice to layers of accumulated pain at the start of a slow and faltering therapeutic process.[15]
Iconography of Suffering
The Prado contains a wealth of precedents for the ‘V’ shaped arms. Here, amongst the assembly of work by Spain's greatest artists, are a number of large-scale crucifixions. Goya's own mature contribution to the theme is a slightly romanticised example of this, but many of his predecessors, including his own earlier treatment, have a less dewy-eyed view of this painful and bloody spectacle. Zurbar's Crucifixion with St Luke is one example, with even the shape of the hands anticipating the Guernica women.
Spanish artists inhabited a tradition which took great care over the portrayal both of Christ's sufferings and of his mother's sorrow. The images of his unstaunched blood and bruised face speak of his Passion; the tears and harrowed expression, of Mary's grief. The message is simple: this looks real because it was real.
Picasso's studies of ‘the weeping women’ and the mother carrying her dead son tap into a strand of ‘Marion’ spirituality that is grounded, however tenuously at times, in the biblical narrative. When Simeon tells Mary that, ‘a sword will pierce your own soul too’ (Luke 2:35), it is clear that she is to be irrevocably identified with the suffering of her son. Picasso knows how powerful this image is for the psyche of Spanish people. Its grip on their religious imagination is clearly paraded in the statues that decorate their churches and street fiestas, as well as in their great art collections.
John Moffatt identifies Andalucia as the region that nurtured this devotional practice.[16] One such sculpture is on display in Picasso's birthplace, now the Picasso Foundation in Malaga, in a room which replicates both his father's studio and craftsmanship. From exile in Paris, Picasso activates the pathos of this language to identify with the suffering of the nation.
Picasso labeled himself an atheist. But, when it came to symbolising the events of his homeland, he instinctively draws on this native iconography of faith and suffering. Such instincts are more profound than the cheerful sentimentality of his compatriot, Murillo, and far deeper than the superficiality of those critics who find only irony in his re-use of Christian imagery. Later work, including the sculpture of a shepherd holding a lamb, which is displayed alongside the Guernica studies in the Reina Sofía, suggest a greater warmth toward Christian sources. Attempts to ground Guernica in a purely secular worldview are easily subverted.
Voice of Lament
The theologian and musician Jeremy Begbie would not be surprised. The main thesis of his book, Sounding Creation's Praise, is that a central function of art is to give voice to the silent praise which creation offers its creator.[17] Building on both ‘Reformed’ and ‘Liberal Protestant’ lines of argument, Begbie holds that great art may achieve this, even when it is not consciously Christian. Guernica fulfills a spiritual need of a different kind - the need for lament.[18] The two anguished women and the ‘stigmata’ slash in the horse, provide us with strong clues that this is intentional.
The Christian references in Guernica principally come from the hours immediately around and following Christ's death. It is the time when the anguish of the crucifixion is followed by the uncomprehending grief of Jesus' disciples. As a painting, Guernica is full of cries and grief-filled questions – before it is ever an act of protest, an opportunity for politics, a visual aid for peace studies or, even, a means of healing.
The painting works as a highly nuanced metaphor. The artist travels through many levels of visual invention and associations from art history until finally inviting his original viewers to identify the sufferings of the Spanish people with the sufferings of Christ and the pre-resurrection desolation of those closest to him. Lament always pre-dates resolution, but it is not without hope.
