Persuasive Essay

 Libertine. Artist. Politician:

The Influence of Historical Events on Pablo Picasso

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            Unlike the Indians, who saw the bull as a sacred symbol, the Spaniards were attracted to its strength and sharp, knife-like horns. Moreover, they play with bulls to entertain the audiences; bullfighting is also a bloody and violent sport that brings visual pleasure and an adrenaline rush: Ernest Hemingway loved bullfighting and saw the warrior who defeated the bull as a symbol of manhood. However, in Guernica, the bull's eyes are lost and reflect horror, and it seems subjugated by a powerful force. What frightens the bull is not the bullfighter's red cloth but the catastrophe made by the German bombers. The scene was captured and depicted by the most famous artist of the 20th century—Pablo Picasso. At the same time, Picasso experienced the Spanish Civil War, World War I and II, the time when Hitler and the Nazis took over Europe, and when communism was growing its power. Those historical events affected Picasso and many authors. For instance, In the 20th century, literary works such as The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby were influenced by World War I. Those pieces revealed the iniquity of the life of the lost generation. Pablo Picasso's Guernica is a symbol of Cubism and the beginning of the artist's call for peace and his entry into the political struggle in Spain. 

            The Spanish Civil War was a three-year-long war between the Republican Army and the National Army. It started with Franciso Franco and his ambitions to overthrow democracy. During the revolution, a considerable amount of Spanish industry and agriculture was socialized, and workers and peasants cooperated in the collective management of industry and agriculture. People refused to follow the government yet that was not enough for them. According to David Smith, “Anarchism was not the only left-wing ideology plying its trade in 1930s Spain. Variants of Marxism and socialism had been struggling for support from the late 19th century.” Indeed, the civil war united all the communist parties; it was a class-united anti-fascist popular front in which the Communist Party weakened revolutionary politics. The situation got worse years later; strikes and unrest began to sweep across Spain, violence was everywhere, and society was in constant turmoil. In Spain, the right represented conservative, traditional, and Capitalist values. They believed that some policies of differential treatment could be used to improve the country. The left represented the open, pioneering, and representative of the intellectuals, the poor, and the middle class (Hasa). Spain's left-wing embraced the ideology of the communist party in France, therefore the crack in Spain was expanding once again. More strikes and uprisings were held in Spain, leading to a weakened economy and a civilization that was overrun by rational barbarism. People from different political parties looked down on each other (Smith). After three chaotic years, the competing left-wing and right-wing finally ended and unnecessary sacrifices were made. In the name of the Spanish civil war, many European countries were involved in it, which made it more tumultuous. 

            What happened in Guernica put the civil war and outside attention towards its apex, a calamity people will not forget. Colonial Wolfram von Richthofen, a German chief of staff, organized the bombing in Guernica to suppress the enemy's momentum. The general's bombardment was not aimless; there was a carefully designed plan behind everything. “His [Wolfram] choice of projectiles aimed to cause the greatest possible number of civilian victims. A combination of explosive bombs and incendiaries rained on the residential sector of the town, which was largely made of wood” (Mason). Because the buildings in the town of Guernica were constructed of wood, The incendiary bombs and bombs were potent, in addition to the fire-fighting equipment being wiped out by the shells in the first place, causing even more damage. Emma Mason pointed out, “This was a new kind of warfare ensured that his despatch would have an alarming impact on both sides of the Atlantic.” The number of people who died in the bombing remains debatable, and historians nowadays put the number around 200. The flight dropped the bomb during the afternoon marketing time when many citizens gathered together and harvested many lives. Additionally, the fires that followed reduced Guernica to rubble (“Destruction of Guernica”). Most horribly, the victims were predominantly women and children, as most men were involved in the Spanish Civil War. This tragic event got Pablo Picasso's attention. In response to the death of his fellow citizens, Picasso created a 11.5 feet high, 25.5 wide oil painting on canvas to memorialize them. 

            Guernica is considered a masterpiece of the ages. Picasso used the most unrealistic human figures and animal models to depict the war most realistically. Interestingly, Picasso was living in France and did not see the destruction first hand. He “was working on a commission by the Spanish Republican government to provide a mural for the great Paris exhibition planned for the summer of 1937. Already affected by Louis Delaprée's despatches about the bombing of Madrid, he began work on what would become his most famous painting” (Mason). Picasso still relied on other people's photos plus a description of the scene. Picasso applied black, white, and gray to paint Guernica, a single hue representing his melancholy mood and exuding a strong sense of death and sadness. Apart from this, various symbols in Picasso's paintings depict the most personal and authentic expression of the artist's innermost feelings and contradictions. Though there is not a bomb in the painting, the lightbulb and the light diffusion represent the bomb and the spread of fire. In the most prominent position of the painting is a horse moaning from a stab wound, and next to it is a looming dove, like the peace that faded away in Spain. Another animal, a bull, “evokes the fight between man and beast. Without a doubt, we can see the incarnation of Spanish Nationalist and Totalitarian regimes in this animal.” There are also screaming women in the painting, their expressions distorted by fear, their arms swaying as if boneless (“Artwork Analysis”). Exaggerating people's features and unusual body proportions is a common technique in Picasso's paintings, yet in Guernica, people's messy faces and limbs best describe the disaster of the scene. This surrealism embodies the horrors of war. Guernica, the most famous Cubism work Picasso has ever made, is a treasure for the world and a turning point in his life, from an obsession with women to preaching and fixation on political positions.

           Picasso entered politics after the bombing of Guernica, and he became a loyal communist. Picasso's act of joining politics remains debatable; many people doubt an artisan's brain can not understand politics. However, critics were right: the concept of communism bothered and confused Picasso. He remarked, “Is it not the Communist Party which works the hardest to know and to construct the world, to render the men of today and tomorrow clearer-headed, freer, happier? Is it not the Communists who have been the most courageous in France as in the USSR or my own Spain?” ("Why I Joined"). Picasso did not know why people hate communism, and he fanatically admired it and carried it for a long time in French communist clubs. In the meetings Picasso had joined, the communists shared the idea “the Communist Bloc was advocating peace, while the West was threatening it” (Pawlik). Revolution and destruction flowed through Picasso's veins. As a public figure, Picasso knew his critics and knew he would have trouble going to Spain after having a political side, yet his attitude remained unchanged. “‘I am not a writer, but since it is not very easy to send my colours by cable, I will try to tell you.’ ‘My membership of the Communist Party is the logical consequence of my whole life, of my whole work” (“Why I Joined”). Although Picasso made many contributions to the foundation of communism, his paintings were never accepted. What communist party wanted was realistic artwork like paintings done in the Renaissance, and Picasso's messy graffiti was not well received by some and was criticized. “His [Picasso’s] avant-garde painting was not something [the Soviets] could accept,” said author and historian David Caute. “They regarded it as decadent and formalistic and influenced by Western capitalist aesthetics” (Bevanger). Even so, Picasso's enthusiasm for communism remained undiminished, and his Dove of Peace later became a symbol of world peace. 

           Pablo Picasso's life is an epic tale, and his paintings are still highly discussed a hundred years later. Of course, many images document the brutality of war, and these paintings are often more attractive than photographs. Through the images of war can inspire civilians’ eagerness to peace. Nevertheless, if we want peace there must be a war and people have to sacrifice. Thus, Picasso pondered “As for the gentle dove, what a myth that is! They're very cruel. I had some here and they pecked a poor little pigeon to death. [...] They pecked its eyes out, then pulled it to pieces. [...] How's that for a symbol of Peace?’” (Pawlik). Guernica and the Spanish Civil War made a switch in Picasso’s life. As an artist, putting his ideas and depictions of the war on his paintings is the best way to sell them. Besides, people kept arguing if Picasso's works were good or bad, and many people hated him for a hundred years because of his political stance; in the recent decades, more and more people have begun to accept his artistic style and praise him on the Internet. In spite of what others say about him, Picasso is a unique and talented historical painter.