From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Guernica
is a world-famous
painting
by
Pablo Picasso
. It is one of the world's greatest
anti-war
paintings. It is a very large painting (a
mural
) which shows the
bombing
of the
Spanish
town of
Guernica
in 1937 during the
Spanish Civil War
.
The Spanish Republican government asked
Pablo Picasso
to paint a large
mural
for an art exhibition in
Paris
. It shows how people, as well as animals, all suffer because of the tragedies of war. The painting soon became so famous that it was seen as a world symbol for
peace
. The fame of the painting helped to bring the Spanish Civil War to an end.
Guernica
is navy blue, black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (25.6 ft) wide, a mural-size canvas painted in oil. It hangs in the
Museo Reina Sofia
in
Madrid
.
Guernica
shows a large, open room with people and animals who are suffering. A
bull
stands over a woman crying over a dead child in her arms. A horse falls in terrible pain as it dies after being run through with a
spear
. A dead soldier lies under the horse, his arm has been chopped off, but the hand grasps a shattered sword from which a flower grows. A light bulb shines strongly like an evil eye (the
Spanish
word for "light bulb" is "bombilla" which sounds like "bomb"). A female figure floats in, holding a lamp which is a symbol of
hope
. There are many other smaller details in the painting.
The painting soon travelled to many countries. It was seen in several towns in the
United States
during the 1940s and early 1950s. The Spanish
dictator
Francisco Franco
wanted it to come to Spain, but Picasso said that he would not allow it to go to Spain until Spain became a democratic country. Picasso died in 1973. Franco died in 1975 and Spain became a democratic country. The painting went to Spain in 1981 and it now hangs in an art gallery, the
Museo Reina Sofia
, in
Madrid.