Picasso's Guernica

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2017

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the context and impact of Pablo Picasso's iconic work, created soon after the bombing on 26th April 1937 that obliterated much of the Basque town of Guernica, and its people. The attack was carried out by warplanes of the German Condor Legion, joined by the Italian air force, on behalf of Franco's Nationalists. At first the Nationalists denied responsibility, blaming their opponents for creating the destruction themselves for propaganda purposes, but the accounts of journalists such as George Steer, and the prominence of Picasso's work, kept the events of that day under close scrutiny. Picasso's painting has gone on to become a symbol warning against the devastation of war. With Mary Vincent Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield Gijs van Hensbergen Historian of Spanish Art and Fellow of the LSE Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies and Dacia Viejo Rose Lecturer in Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge Fellow of Selwyn College Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:02.0	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:05.0	There's a reading list to go with it on our website.
0:07.0	And you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:12.0	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:14.0	Hello, in 1937, public Picasso revealed his painting,
0:18.0	Gernica, a Paris International's exhibition in the Pavilion of Republican Spain.
0:23.0	The work took its name from the Basque town,
0:26.0	which just a few months earlier had been carpet bombed and burned to rubble by Nazi Germany planes,
0:32.0	supporting Franco's nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.
0:35.0	The art cryover that Massacre was so great that the nationalists denied responsibility,
0:40.0	saying the Basques did it themselves.
0:42.0	But eyewitness reports and Picasso's painting ensure this infamous act of terror
0:46.0	would be remembered and around the world Picasso's Gernica has since become one of the most iconic protests against the horrors of war.
0:53.0	Women to discuss Picasso's Gernica are Mary Vincent,
0:57.0	professor of modern European history at the University of Sheffield,
1:00.0	Geiss Van Hansbergen, historian of Spanish art and fellow at the LSE Canyada Blanche Center for Contemporary Spanish Studies,
1:07.0	and Dacia Pietro Rose, lecturer in heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.
1:14.0	Mary Vincent would divide its Spain at that time and brought it into war.
1:20.0	The immediate cause of the Spanish Civil War is a military coup,
1:23.0	which takes place on 17th and 18th of July 1936,
1:27.0	so nearly a year before the bombing of Gernica.
	...

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