An enduring portrait of pain

The artwork of bombing victims is a reproduction, but the vivid emotions it conjures about war are real.

By TERRI D. REEVES
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 16, 2003

TARPON SPRINGS -- When Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations on Feb. 5 to make a case for an attack on Iraq, something was amiss.

The tapestry version of Pablo Picasso's Guernica, the famous antiwar masterpiece that hangs outside the U.N. Security Council chamber, had been covered with a blue curtain.

Would the mural, with its jarring images of shrieking and mutilated men, women and children send a mixed message while Powell was presenting his case for war? U.N. officials claimed that was not the case; it was covered because the tapestry's wild lines would make a poor backdrop for the TV cameras.

Guernica, Picasso's 1937 painting inspired by the fascist bombing of the town of that name during the Spanish Civil War, depicts the horrors of war and seems to elicit emotional responses from all who view it.

The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art at St. Petersburg College's Tarpon Springs campus has the only authorized life-size reproduction of Guernica. The original painting hangs in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Spain.

On Thursday, a group of 36 members from the Brandeis University Women's Committee, St. Petersburg Chapter, visited the museum. After watching the nine-minute sound and light presentation on Guernica, they shared their comments about the imagery. "There is nothing subtle about (this painting). You can't help but look at it and be horrified," said Janet Shapiro from Los Angeles, who was visiting a friend. "It represents the past, present and future."

Enid Mirkin, 64, who participates in an antiwar protest every Wednesday afternoon in Gulfport, said: "This is all too relevant to today. I wish we weren't in a position to feel the pain that we are about to unleash."

The monochromatic mural, 11-foot-6 by 25-foot-8, portrays a bull on the left, aloof, looking quietly out of the picture at the spectator. Helpless screaming figures, dismembered forms, a mother holding a lifeless child, and sharp angles surround a horse, in the middle, with a spear or perhaps a bomb in its mouth. An electric bulb at the top casts sharp shadows on the forms. Near the bottom of the piece, a flower grows.

"What I see in it is war's impact on the innocent," said Estelle Halle, 80, from St. Petersburg. "You see these people suffering, and they have no recourse."

Some thought the bull symbolized governments indifferent to the casualties of war, while others theorized the bull represented governments that did not want to get involved.

Pearl Brook, a retiree from St. Petersburg, noticed the small flower.

"I thought the flower meant that there is hope for the future," she said.

Guernica was installed as the centerpiece of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair. Picasso had been commissioned by Spanish government leaders to create a mural but was reluctant to create art for political purposes.

Then Hitler sent fighter planes to bomb the tiny defenseless Basque village of Guernica in northern Spain. Some 1,600 civilians were killed or wounded, and the village burned for three days. When Picasso heard the news, he was filled with emotion and inspiration and completed the massive painting in little more than a month.

Bea Wallace, president of the chapter, remembers seeing the painting as a teenager. Now as a retired businesswoman, she reflects on all the wars that have taken place during her lifetime.

"I just think about all the greed and avarice that cause war and all the people and the scorched earth that suffer," she said.

Betty Greene, 74, added, "I get so tired of the politicians destroying our country and everyone else's."

If you go:

The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art is located at 600 Klosterman Road just west of U.S. 19. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tues.-Sat.; Thurs. evenings, 5 to 9 p.m.; and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, and free for students with ID. Sunday admission is free to all. Call 727-712-5762 for information.

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