After receiving a silver medal for my work War Guernica Reoccurs at the Florence International Biennale of Contemporary Art 2003, I went to
Madrid to pay my respects to Picasso’s Guernica based on which I did the work, highlighting the Godhra carnage in which many innocent lives were lost.
I stood with folded hands in front of the Guernica at the Raina Sofia Museum. This work was the great reaction of a true artist for whom the dignity and wellbeing of human lives was paramount, and their loss aggrieved and infuriated him.
The small town of Guernica lies on the Ria de Guernika in the north of Spain. Along Costa Vasca, it is not different from other small towns in the region except that it is the cultural capital of the Basque nation. On April 26, 1937, it was raided by the Condor legion of General Franco’s National Air Force, comprising German Luftwaffe and Italian Aviazione Leggionaria. Over 100,000 pounds of high explosives flattened the town and killed 1,600 people and many animals. To establish his dictatorship, Franco wanted to destroy the fiercely independent people who populated this town.
Picasso saw pictures of the devastation in French newspapers and was depressed by the inhuman act. He reacted the only way a true artist could. He created the great painting Guernica.
After a number of preliminary sketches, Picasso began work on this 503-inch-long and 137-inch-wide canvas in 1937. He used human, animal and other subjects to represent the agony and despair inflicted upon helpless humans by other humans, if one can call them human. Bordering on abstraction in nature, this painting uses highly symbolic representation of human and animal forms. The wailing women, the terrified bull, the crying horse and the screaming mother and child all draw us to think about the atrocities of conflicts and endless miseries of war. The crying woman on the right-hand side of the painting with outstretched arms towards heaven is the most pathetic symbol of helplessness. The lying figure of a man at the bottom left corner highlights the paralysed state caused by fear and the inability to get away to safety. Picasso shunned colour, preferring black, grey and white to depict this powerful composition. This work is a manifestation of the despairing soul of a creative person whose only weapon is creative expression.
Committed artists have reacted to atrocities at all times. A great example is another Spaniard, Francisco de Goya, one of the great artists of all times. In 1808, Spain was invaded by French forces leading to the rule of King Joseph I, who was brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. After the French rule ended, Goya painted two great canvases—The Charge of Mamelukes and Third of May 1808 as a reaction to the atrocities inflicted by invading forces. He followed it with a series of prints called Los desastres de la Guerra (disasters of war). Third of May is a great creation that stands close to Guernica in its approach and quality.
When I saw a picture of the agonizing face of a man begging for mercy from his attackers in the media during the Gujarat riots, I was shaken and depressed. I went around in despair and was brooding for weeks. I know I cannot stop such inhuman acts in the name of religion or politics. Yet I wanted to react. My only means was my creative thinking and the only way I could react was through my art. Picasso’s Guernica showed the way. That is how War, Guernica Reoccurs—an 11-foot by seven-foot canvas—took shape.
As an artist, I do not think by painting a picture anyone can stop such atrocities, yet a positive reaction from a few will go a long way.
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