Guernica

Basque Gernika-Lumo, pronounced in SAMPA [ger"nika]) is a small city in the Spanish Basque Country that was the meeting place of the Biscayne assembly under an oak tree, the Gernikako Arbola, which was a symbol of traditional freedoms of the Basque people. Later a hermitage was built besides the tree to double as an assembly place.

The Lords of Biscay, upon receiving their title, would come to Guernica to swear that they would respect the Biscayne freedoms. Later the lordship became attached to the title of King of Castile.

The city is best known as the scene of an early instance of aerial bombing by the German Luftwaffe (Condor Legion) on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War (see Bombing of Guernica). The Germans were attacking to support the efforts of Francisco Franco to overturn the Spanish Republican government. The town was devastated, though the Biscayne assembly and the Gernikako Arbola miraculously survived. Because of its symbolic value, the current Autonomy Act of the Basque Country was approved in Guernica and every Lehendakari is taken his oath there.

The Guernica estuary or Urdaibai is a Biosphere Reserve.

It is also home to the Gernika Jai Alai, one of the main courts for the jai alai sport.

The painting

Guernica is also the name of a famous painting by Pablo Picasso, depicting the bombing of Guernica. Picasso, commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to paint a picture to decorate the Spanish Pavilion during the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, created a Cubist painting depicting the event and called it Guernica.

Picasso's Guernica depicts people, animals, and buildings wrenched by the violence and chaos of the carpet-bombing. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war, and the cruelty of bombing civilians.

A story, quite possibly apocryphal, circulates about Guernica. During the Second World War, a German officer sees a copy of the painting for the first time, in the presence of Picasso. In a wondering tone he asks Picasso "Did you do this?" and Picasso replies: "No, you did."

After the fair, when the Republican government had fallen, Picasso refused to allow this painting, one of his most famous, to be displayed in Spain until the Spanish people enjoyed - "public liberties and democratic institutions". It therefore spent many years on display at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. Picasso died in 1973 and did not live to see the end of the Franco regime. After the death of Franco in 1975, Spain was transformed into a democratic constitutional monarchy, ratified by a new constitution in 1978. However, the Museum of Modern Art were reluctant to give up one of their greatest treasures and argued that a constitutional monarchy did not represent a true democracy. Under great pressure from a number of observers, MOMA finally ceded the painting to Spain in 1981.

During the 1970s, it was a symbol for Spaniards of both the end of the Franco regime and Basque nationalism.

It is now in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. The exact location was controversial in Spain, since Picasso's will stated that the painting should be displayed at the Prado Museum. However, as in the late 20th century the Prado moved all of its collections of art after the early 19th century to other nearby buildings in the city for reasons of space, the Reina Sofía, which houses the capital's national collection of 20th century art, seems the appropriate place for it. A special gallery was built at the Reina Sofía to display Picasso's masterpiece to best advantage. Basque nationalists claimed that it should be brought to the Basque country, especially after the building of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. However, the huge canvas is now thought to be too fragile to move.

Guernica at the United Nations

A tapestry copy of Picasso's Guernica is displayed on the wall of the United Nations building in New York City, at the entrance to the Security Council room. It was placed there as a reminder of the horrors of war. On January 27, 2003, a large blue curtain was placed to cover this work, so that it would not be visible in the background when Colin Powell and John Negroponte gave press conferences at the United Nations. On the following day, it was claimed that the curtain was placed there at the request of television news crews, who had complained that the wild lines and screaming figures made for a bad backdrop, and that a horse's hindquarters appeared just above the faces of any speakers. Diplomats, however, told journalists that they believed the United States leaned on UN officials to cover the tapestry, rather than have it in the background while Powell or other U.S. diplomats argued for war on Iraq.

See also