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Picassos Guernica Psych Second Paper Liv Bonner Bradley Collins Art & Psychoanalysis November 2018 Picasso’s Guernica: Present Tragedy & Enlightened Past The catastrophic bombing that occurred on April 26, 1937 in the Basque town of Guernica may be seen as not only a major event of the Spanish Civil War, but accredited with retrieving Pablo Picasso from his creative paralysis. Despite Picasso’s invitation by the Spanish Government and agreement to produce a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the Paris International Exposition, he remained uninspired up until the news of the bombing.1 Following the tragedy, Picasso’s intention for the commission was driven by not only a newfound interest for political propaganda, but by his subconscious identification with the event. While the concept that would become the masterpiece of Guernica was in response to the events of that influential April day, Picasso’s true inspiration lied in his childhood trauma of enduring an earthquake that mirrored that of the bombing of Guernica. With the reference of Picasso: Art as Autobiography by Mary Mathews Gedo, the personal and symbolic influences of the artist’s memory are revealed in the pictorial narrative of Picasso’s Guernica. The efficacy of the painting is not merely due to the intrinsic political commentary, “the protest…found in what has happened to the bodies…the imaginative equivalent of what happened to them in the flesh,”2 but rather more so found in the emotional impact of Picasso’s subconscious influence. In order to understand Guernica’s chaotic narrative, the individual 1 Mary Mathews Gedo, Picasso, Art as Autobiography, (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1980), 173. 2 Beverly Ray, Analyzing Political Art to Get at Historical Fact: Guernica and the Spanish Civil War, (Washington D.C.: Heldref Publications, 2006). figures offer symbolic meanings of their own. While there is an initial confusion regarding the progression of the bull figure, Picasso claimed it to be a symbol of brutality and darkness; yet, this motif complicates his self-identification with the figure.3 Similarly, Picasso said the figure of the horse portrays the suffering of the people of Guernica, yet the convoluted depiction of the horse and the female figures in multiple plans for the mural disrupts such straightforward reasoning. Picasso’s tendency of subconscious unity of feminine figures shows that his mother’s role as the primary female of his life created a distortion of all women through one lens.4 The artist’s introduction to bullfights at just about three years old suggests that his memory of a raging bull and wounded horse, too, are influenced by his childhood. The animals are distinct symbols of destruction and despair to Picasso from an early age; thus, while his statements about the bull and the horse’s significance may seem arbitrary and contradictory, further biographical insight offers clarity. The figure of utmost importance in the psychoanalytic interpretation of the enigmatic painting is the mother and child. The mother, first appearing in the May 8th version, was at first shown fused with the horse figure, establishing an embodiment of suffering.5 The May 9th depiction of the mother furthers this understanding, showing the child bearing mother as she plunges her arm into the horses wound6––becoming one not only with the animal itself, but with the symbol of suffering. While it has been suggested that the mural drew inspiration from black and white photographs, Picasso’s enlightened personal history proves to be far more telling. 3 Gedo, 174. 4 Ibid, 176. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. In understanding the mother and dead child in relation to Picasso’s subconscious narrative, the features of the patterned handkerchief and the half born infant relate directly to a personal memory of the artist’s childhood.7 In 1884, at just three years old, Picasso experienced the three day earthquake in Málaga.8 The childlike feel of the figures in Guernica thus lends itself to a recollection of Picasso’s distant memory from a confused, childlike point of view. Almost 60 years following the event, he described the image of his father rushing to evacuate the family and his mother’s peculiar, unfamiliar appearance amidst the distress, with “a kerchief on her head.”9 Despite the height of despair and lending to the disruption of the earthquake, Picasso’s sister was born. The visual depiction of the horse giving birth in the preliminary versions and the final one of a mother delivering a bloodied child suggest that Picasso witnessed the delivery. The baby, shown lacking life or completion in the painting, shows Picasso’s memory of the seemingly dead newborn. Just as women and horses are confused, the paintings conception of suffering and birth are seen in close relation, being that Picasso’s perspective of birth as a child came with an abrupt fear of the unknown––and, death. While the mention of the bull’s representation as a dark brutality and Picasso’s self- identification with such a figure raised a red flag, his childhood memory makes the interpretation more clear, albeit more concerning. The dead figure of the child in the painting shows Picasso’s intended rather than feared reality at the time of his sisters birth. The internal rage, confusion and overall disarray of his childhood perspective that night may be closely aligned to the destructive nature of the bull. Just as Picasso: Art as Autobiography questions the underlying meaning of the 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. bull, the identification of Picasso with a Shiva, a god of both destruction and creation applies to both the memory, and the narrative of the painting.10 While the night of the earthquake traumatized 3 year old Picasso, his witnessing of his sisters birth forged in him a muddled understanding of new life, near death and suffering. The masterpiece of Guernica is perhaps the most telling work of art I have seen that benefits even more directly from autobiographical and psychoanalytic interpretations than it does from historical reference. While the painting in and of itself is all encompassing with its political resonance, the commentary and revelation on suffering is heightened even further with the knowledge of his childhood experience of the Málaga earthquake. The symbols of the bull, the horse and most of all––the mother in labor, all pave new and compelling ways of insight into a full understanding of Picasso’s subconscious intentionality. I have never before seen both such a relevant and immersive autobiographical influence lend itself to a historical artwork that, too, offers such autonomous power. I will never look at Pablo Picasso’s Guernica with the same sense of mystification, and I will never again look at another artwork without dreaming of such distinct psychoanalytic clarity. 10 Ibid, 174. Bibliography Gedo, Mary Mathews. Picasso, Art as Autobiography. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1980. Ray, Beverly. Analyzing Political Art to Get at Historical Fact: Guernica and the Spanish Civil War. Washington, D.C.: Heldref Publications, 2006. .
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