Thinking about Guernica/Gernika. Still relevant.

Here are some photos of the destruction caused by bombing raids.

They look rather like what’s been going on and is still going on in the Middle East. They are in fact old photos of the Basque town of Guernica. Next Sunday will be the anniversary of the bombing of Guernica by German Condor Legion planes. Bombs rained down on Guernica for hours in what has been seen as an "experiment" for the blitzkrieg tactics and bombing of civilians. 

Civilians have always been victims of war to greater or lesser extent. You would think that by now we would have learnt not do it but instead recent events in Gaza and Lebanon suggest that we have just refined the techniques.

Pablo Picasso had already been commissioned by Spain’s Republican Government to produce a work for the Paris International Exhibition of 1937. After the Guernica bombing, the Spanish poet Juan Larrea urged him to make that event the subject of his painting. And so his anti-war painting came into being. 

The painting went to the USA in 1939 but travelled around quite a lot in the 1950s before making its home in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In September it will be 45 years since it arrived in Spain, Picasso having stipulated that it should not go to Spain until democracy was restored there. Some twenty years ago I saw in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. 

Now Bilbao would like it to go to the Guggenheim in time for the 90th anniversary of the bombing next year. Madrid says it is too fragile to be moved and certainly the painting suffered from constant moving around in the 1950s. But surely the science of art preservation has progressed so that it should be possible to move it safely. After all the Bayeux Tapestry is coming to the UK, the first time the work will have been in the UK for more than 900 years! 

But the argument between Madrid and Bilbao should not overshadow the significance of the painting as a plea for peace, even more relevant today that ever. 

I’ve been to Guernica, Gernika in the language of the Basque people. The town was restored, with German financial help I think, and is worth a visit. When we went there was a museum where you could experience a simulation of the bombing raid.

And there is the Tree of Guenika, Gernikako Arbola, symbol of the freedom and independence of the Basque people. It miraculously (symbolically.) survived the bombing raid but succumbed to old age. Its trunk is preserved.

The latest Gernikako Arbola was planted in 2015. Seedlings from the old oak tree line are cultivated and preserved to keep the tradition alive. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!