My whole life has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and the death of art. The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. At the time of the bombing, Picasso was already advocating against Franco and championing the previous democratically-elected government from his seat as the Director-in-Exile of the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid: Conducted at the behest of General Franco, the bombing followed his efforts to consolidate political power by merging Spain’s numerous Nationalist political parties. The events that birthed Guernica were simultaneously subtle and striking: an insidious creep of National Socialism in Spain under the rise of General Francisco Franco Bahamonde throughout the 1930s, punctuated by the April 26th bombing of the Spanish city of Guernica by the German Air Force in 1937.
More importantly, the study of wartime art can be a valuable addition to the professional development of military leaders, generating options for professional dialogue about how societies see the victors, the vanquished, and the value of conflicts through the lens of artists and cultural patrimony. This calculated creation of a powerful masterpiece should be examined and appreciated as part of a greater wartime narrative. In this effort, Picasso sought to influence changes in national policy and increase discourse beyond the borders of his war-torn nation.