Guernica Returns to the UN

After a year of absence, the 25-foot tapestry replica of Pablo Picasso's Guernica returned to the United Nations on February 5, 2022. Nelson A. Rockefeller Jr. owns the tapestry and explained that its removal was dedicated to help clean and preserve it for long-term public display (New York Times). It now stands outside the Security Council chambers, where it stood for over three decades, as a solemn reminder of the UN's core peacekeeping mission amidst unprecedented times.

Painted in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, the original Guernica is an international anti-war symbol. It portrays the events of April 27, 1937, when Nazi air forces bombed the village of Guernica in northern Spain. The city was regarded as a stronghold of the Republican resistance movement in Basque Country - the epicenter of Basque culture - but it had no real strategic military value. Rather, its primary significance was cultural. Thus, the forces allied with Franco primarily targeted civilians with the intent to terrorize the resistance. One third of the city's entire population was wounded or killed as a result of the attack.

Guernica is a violently chaotic visual response to the atrocity. Its massive scale engulfs the viewer and lends it its universal language. The painting features depictions of a grieving woman holding her dead child, mutilated civilians, a single eye with a lightbulb, a white bull, and more. Its black, gray, and white palette could be interpreted to convey the objectivity of brutality, or perhaps provides a a "documentary quality" like an "eye witness report" (Khan Academy). The stark contrast of of the colors and jagged figures also intensify the dramatic quality. It is also full of symbolism. The horse and bull, for instance, could represent Republican fighters and Franco's fascist army, respectively. Alternatively, the bull could symbolize the brutality witnessed during the massacre (Khan Academy). A woman seems to be reaching towards a lamp to see what has been done, demonstrating a state of disbelief or disillusionment. The lamp could also be interpreted as a critique of modern European thought derivative from the Enlightenment period that emphasized logic and reason. Picasso must have wondered, "How could logic and reason explain this atrocity?"

When Nazi forces occupied Paris in the 1940s, an officer who visited Picasso's studio asked, "Did you do that?" upon seeing a photograph of Guernica; Picasso responded, "No, you did" (Khan Academy). The tapestry hung in the Security Council Chambers is not only a reminder, but a warning to all world leaders not to repeat the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War. At its core, the United Nations is powerful body dedicated to international peace and security. As delegates, it will be your duty to navigate the early stages of the civil war, keeping in mind that real lives were at stake during the clash between Republicanism and Fascism. I hope that this committee will be an opportunity to learn about the context of one of the world's most famous political paintings, but more importantly, how the multi-factional conflicts within the left and right erupted into a large-scale civil war.

Bibliography

Gladstone, Rick. “'Guernica' Antiwar Tapestry Is Rehung at U.N.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Feb. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/world/americas/guernica-tapestry-un-rockefeller.html. 

Lederer, Edith M. “Iconic Tapestry of Picasso's `Guernica' Is Back at the UN.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 5 Feb. 2022, https://apnews.com/article/painting-united-nations-58a9ac392cdd6f7e52fbf10ab802f0fc. 

Robinson, Lynn. “Guernica by Pablo Picasso (Article).” Khan Academy, Khan Academy, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/cubism-early-abstraction/cubism/a/picasso-guernica.