New meaning for a masterpiece

1. Pa ge2A: Tuesday. January 8.2002 :The Sun
Sun Journal
Painting takes on new meaning
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By ANDREW RATNER
MADRID. Spain — Salumino
Moreno Sorin. G5, huddles on a
chilly morning In an alcove near
the Rctna Sofia, a towering Tor-
tress of an art museum, as a guard
nearby eyes him warily,
He looks like he wants to sell a
passer-by something, and he does
— the "truth" about the most fa-
mous painting inside.
As schoolchildren feed pigeons
and run around a chalked spiral
outside the museum. Soda offers Misery immortalized: Pablo Picasso was moved to create "Guentica" by the acnal attack on a small town
to explain Guernica a depiction of in 1D37 during "ie Spanish Civil War. It ts on display at the Museo Nacional CentrodeArte Reina Sofia.
war by famed artist Pablo Picasso.
11 :.-,
most renowned artworks of the shows ofta gnarled unkle. "The So- clvtlion deaths. Franz Martin, a high school
20th century. cialists beat me." he says, explain-
Many Americans, even non-art ing his limp, Communist Party, forbade the re- traveling an vacation.
students, arc familiar with the oil Employees Inside the museum turn of Guernica to Spain until his "Great picture, greitt picture."
painting. If not by name. It Is Jar- dismiss the man as "mad." native land gained democracy. he wliispers. studying the work In-
ring and as big as a billboard, with Picasso was similarly described The artist continued to work tently. "In light of today's develop-
the sharp lines and misplaced eyes after he painted Guernica for the and live in France, where he died In ments, tls message has returned."
for which the artist Is known. Pi- Spanish Pavilion of the Interna- 107J ;ii 92 Two yenrs Inter, in 1975. Guernica has been recalled ot-
casso made It to express his out- tional Exposition In Paris In 1037. Franco died. ten since September.
rage over the Nazis' aerial attack The work broadcast his revul- In 1981. to great fanfare.Guer. High school art classes In
on the small town of Guernica In sion at the GermanLw/lico/fe's at- nica returned to Spain. The paint- Texas and Tennessee assembled
1337 during the Spanish Civil War. tack on Guernica on April 20.1037. ing, about 10 feet tall and 30 feet their own versions, with news
Because of its size and history, Adolf Hitler's Condor Legion wide, eventually was moved to the photos of horrified New Yorkers
and the man who made it. the bombed the Basque town to aid Keina Sofia, & century-old bunker and falling skyscrapers that echo
painting has always elicited a the Nationalist Party of General of a building that offered more se- thet painting's suffering and may-
hushed reverence among the Francisco Franco during the Span- curity. Three guards are assigned hem.
crowds coming to view It inside ish Civil War. Hundreds of the to the painting. At a rally In Hiiiy In October.
Wiuco MicionaJ Centra de Artc town's 7,000 residents were killed "It's a fabulous painting." re- anti-war protesters held aloft pic-
Kettta Sofia, but since Sept. 11 It In the 4-hour air raid. marks Robin Connolly, a tourist tures of Guernica amid banm
has assumed a new relevance. Picasso began skclchlngGuer- from Dublin. Ireland. "You feel It urging "Stop the Bombs,"
Although It's disturbing and RfcaQvc days Inter. the minute you're in the room." Singer-songwriter Marcus
has been described as grotesque, Some believe he was Inspired Guernica Is all black and white Hurrunon, who has written hit
the Image has also become an em- by a stirring account of the attack songs for country-music stars the
blem of pop culture In Spain's Old and shades of gray, literally and Dixie Chicks and Tim McGraw,
World capital city. It ndoms T- by George l steer first published figuratively. Disembodied human wrote a rock opera abautGutm tea
shirts, coffee mugs and key chains In The Times of London and The heads are screaming. A bare- and Picasso, It opens at a regional
at tourist shops. New York Times. breasted, bald woman cradles UiealerlnNashvlllcin March.
On a 45-degree morning. Sorta what appears to be her dead child. "He harnessed his passion In a
s;s;.-.. that lie stands uutsldc the town of the Dnsques and the cen- A man grasping a chisel lies on the way that Picasso was singularly ca-
downtown museum almost every tre of their cultural tradition, was ground beneath a terrified horse pable of doing and In a wny bcgaj
day to offer his viewpoint He de- completely destroyed yesterday af- and ••< light bulb that resembles a to create a new form that carried
scribes himself as a retired bonk ternoon by Insurgent air raiders." big eye. Caricatures that mock Hit- him Into the next major stage ofhls
worker and former docent at an an Steer wrote The fighters plunged ler. Franco and Bemto Mussolini life as a painter," says Hummon.
gallery. He lost thut Job, he says. low from above the centre of the are said lu be hidden within. 41. whose father was a State De-
because he too readily shored his town to machine-gun those of the The devastated landscape Is partment employee and whose
political views. Including those on civilian population who had taken perhaps made more horrifying by family hung a poster of Guernica
refuge in the fields. the childlike nature of the Images: wherever It lived tiround the world.
Yes. Sorta Is told, his analysis The raid on Oucmlcu is unpar- Picasso's characters might have But the work Isn't as easily
would be welcome alleled In military history. Guer- been inspired oy the Punch and Identified as other epic paintings:
'That will be 1,000 pesatns, nica was not a military objective. A Judy puppet shows he enjoyed as a Newsweek printed It backward by
please." factory producing war materiel lay boy In Barcelona. mistake last fall.
A thousand pesetas, to discuss outside the town and was un- The most recognizable seg- Richard Kalter, an Episcopal
a painting? How about 500? touched So were two barracks ment — a symbol of Spain that Pi- minister who Is regarded as "phi-
"Forget It," Sorta says "I had casso revisited often — is a bull, losopher In residence" at Balti-
someone pay 3,000 once." town lay far behind the lines. The with eyes and cars on the side of more's Maryland Institute College
The visitor considers that 1.000 object of the bombardment was his head. The scene Is bleak and of Art, compares Guernica to the
pcsatos Is less than $7 and hands seemingly the demoralization of haunting. Absent color, there Is no Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Soria his bounty. the civil population and the de- blood, however. It ts bloodless. Washington. Just as the polished
The Interpreter displays two struction of the cradle of tbc "People have been listening for wall of names captured the es-
small reproductions, one ofGuer- Basque race." years about this painting. They are sence of valor and sacrifice In com
nica and another of a painting After Franco consolidated very, very Impressed." says bat more than critics originally be-
mode around 1G3S by the Renais- power throughout Spain and be- Dayaml Lopez, 20. She left Cuba to lieved It could. Guemtca has
sance artist Peter Paul Rubens. came dictator. Picasso was unable cam an economics degree in Ma- grown Into one of art's most pro-
and begins n rambling disserta- to return. drid, she says, but took ajob at the
tion: Picasso's work wasn't origi- Guernica was exhibited around museum when she couldn't rind "Everything Is Interacting In
nal, he says. He modeled It on Ru- the world to rapt uudlenccs — and employment In her field. strange ways." Kalter says of thi
lier. Tnn Horrors of War. looking at It because It captured
"The state docs not want to ex- -saw the backs of the visitors, for directly to the painting and leave the moment."
plain It, I tell the people It has [they] felt repelled "It was decried immediately alter viewing It. She Yearly attendance at theReitia
nothing to do with Guernica It as the "work of a madman, a disor- suspects that the atomic bomb Sofia was up through lost summ
has to do with the Immortality of derly array of corpses." with draw- blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki But crowds entering the museum
art. Few stop to listen. They Just go Ings "suitable for a young child," give the Japanese a deep connec- — and passing Satumlno Moreno
like sheep. 'Ban a, Baaa.1 They fear recounted Joaquln dc la Pucntc In tion to the depletion of what was, Sorla's entrepreneurial outpost —
the truth." he says. "It's the left his book Guernica: 77i« Making of In Gucmica, the first aertul attack have fallen by about 30.000 a
thut Is the problem.... Clinton, the aPainling. on a civilian population. month since fall There Is. after all,
Kennedys. They lie." Its resonance grew, however. "We acknowledge what we did. awargolngon.