The Apostle Paul urges us to see our inability to make sense of things, especially of suffering, in the context in which all creation is groaning as it awaits a final answer (Romans 8: 20–26). Seen in this light Dora Maar may have witnessed more than she realised when she overheard Picasso ‘heaving sighs which sounded like groans’ over Spain’s plight.
Stimulated by a specific tragedy, Guernica is a painting which came to birth as a complex metaphor for the Spanish Civil War before becoming an international talisman for a diverse range of causes. It can also be viewed as a continuation of the long, deep note of human lament that resonates down history as people ‘try to pray’ in the midst of inexplicable suffering.
This article was first published on Damaris' Culturewatch website (www.culturewatch.org) - used with permission.
© Copyright Stuart Goddard 2008
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[1] Antony Beevor, The Spanish Civil War (Orbis Publishing Ltd., 1982) ref p. 243 in the Cassell's Military Paperbacks 1999 edition. For a nuanced interpretation of these figures see Mark Kurlansky The Basque History of the World (Jonathan Cape 1999) p. 200. Wood’s article (see below) gives much lower casualty figures than Beevor or Kurlansky. Kurlansky discusses the potential for discrepancies, upholding the general trustworthiness of the Basque Government’s higher estimates.
[2] Quoted in ‘Questions of Meaning’, in ‘Treasures of the World’, PBS.org, last accessed 12 November 2008.
[3] Jean-Paul Crespelle, Picasso and his Women (English translation – Hodder and Stoughton, 1969, first published in French, 1967).
[4] Quoted in Gijs van Hensbergen, Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon (Bloomsbury, 2004), p. 25.
[5] George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (Penguin, 1986, first published in 1938). The last three chapters of the Penguin edition, give a very readable picture, whilst the two chapters which appear as appendices offer analysis of the political complexities. This edition includes useful ‘notes on the text’ by Peter Davison and ‘introduction' by Julian Symons.
[6] Gertje R. Utley, ‘From Guernica to The Charnel House' in Stephen Nash (ed.), Picasso and the War Years: 1937–1945 (Thames and Hudson, 1998) p. 69.
[7] See John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Vol 1: 1881-1906 (Jonathan Cape, 1991), especially chapters 8 and 9.
