Guernica (Picasso)
Creation and the influence of Dora Maar on the painting

On 11 May the canvas is ready, and immediately the composition is laid down as a linear structure that covers the whole surface. Work on the mural is accompanied by more than thirty studies for the details. The rough plan exists from the beginning, but it takes three weeks before the picture receives its final form. The bull's head remains where it was first put, but the body is turned around to the left. On 20 May the horse lifts its head. The body of the soldier stretched on the floor from left to right changes position on 4 June, then head and hand take on their finished shape.

At the last moment the artist makes one decisive adjustment: the drama first took place on a street with burning houses in the background. Now, suddenly, the diagonals are accentuated, and thereby space becomes ambiguous, unreal, inside and outside at the same time. The lamp is hung over the horse's head, looking on the dreadful scene like a wide-open eye. The construction is strengthened, the mural more strongly integrated within Sert 's architecture. Into the hand of the dying soldier, next to the broken sword, Picasso puts the little flower of hope.

The picture was finished about mid-June. Hundreds of thousands of exhibition-goers wandered by, looking on it as a wall decoration, just as Europe wandered by the human drama of the Spanish Civil War—as if it were a matter concerning only the inhabitants of the peninsula. They disregarded the warning, did not understand that democracy on the whole continent was at stake.

W. J. H. B. Sandberg, Daedalus, 1960

Dora Maar found a large enough studio for Picasso to paint Guernica in. Through her connections in the left-wing community, she gained access to a space on Rue des Grands-Augustins, near Notre-Dame. This building had previously served as the headquarters of the ‘Contre-Attaque’ group, of which Maar was a dedicated member. Having listened to anti-fascist speeches there, she recognized it as the ideal location for Picasso’s monumental protest artwork. Not only did she find the studio large enough for Picasso to paint Guernica in, she also had exclusive access to photograph the work in progress.

“Maar’s practice of photography influenced the art of Picasso – she had a great influence on his work,” said Antoine Romand, a Dora Maar expert. “She contested him. She pushed him to do something new and to be more creative politically. At Picasso’s request, Maar painted part of the dying horse in Guernica. Maar accompanied Picasso in the studio, giving her the opportunity to observe each phase of Guernica ’s creation over 36 days. While Picasso painted, she took photographs, turning Picasso into her photographic subject. Scholars and art critics argue that the black and white photographic style of the painting can be attributed to Maar's own black and white photographs, in stark contrast to Picasso's usual colorful style.

Guernica was painted using a matte house paint specially formulated at Picasso's request to have the least possible gloss. American artist John Ferren assisted him in preparing the monumental canvas, and photographer Dora Maar, who had been working with Picasso since mid-1936 photographing his studio and teaching him the technique of cameraless photography, documented its creation. Apart from their documentary and publicity value, Maar's photographs "helped Picasso to eschew color and give the work the black-and-white immediacy of a photograph", according to art historian John Richardson.

Picasso, who rarely allowed strangers into his studio to watch him work, admitted influential visitors to observe his progress on Guernica, believing that the publicity would help the antifascist cause. As his work on the mural progressed, Picasso explained: "The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and the death of art. How could anybody think for a moment that I could be in agreement with reaction and death?... In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death."

Picasso worked on the painting for 35 days, and finished it on 4 June 1937.
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