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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment

Power to the people! Film, music, books and more about collective action

Picasso’s Guernica (1937).
Black-and-white argument … Picasso’s Guernica (1937). Photograph: Patrick Forget/Sagaphoto.com/Alamy

Art

Picasso painted Guernica in 1937 not merely as a protest against the barbarity of bombing civilians, but as an immediate call for support of the Spanish Republic. Guernica was bombed by Hitler’s air force on behalf of Franco’s far-right forces in the Spanish civil war. Picasso started his vast painting soon after seeing the news. It evokes reading a morning paper with mounting horror: there’s newsprint, a kitchen table. Unveiled in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Expo, this jagged wreckage of a history painting toured to summon support for the cause. Jonathan Jones

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