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Picasso - Art as a Political Weapon

April 10, 2015

Pablo Picasso always expressed himself through his painting. He approached the historical events of his time through his art and threw himself wholeheartedly into the fight against fascism.

https://p.dw.com/p/1Et7I

Pablo Picasso didn’t just see paintings in terms of pure visual pleasure. Art for him was also a political weapon. By 1937, the Spanish painter and co-founder of Cubism had been living in Paris for more than 30 years but he was still deeply troubled by the civil war in his homeland. On April 26, 1937, German bombers from the clandestine Condor Legion attacked the town of Guernica, reducing it to rubble with more than 1600 people dead and 800 wounded.

Spanien Bürgerkrieg Malerei Guernica von Pablo Picasso
Picasso's "Guernica" is now in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.Image: AP


For Picasso, Painting was “Seeing”

Picasso was horrified and outraged, and his immediate reaction was to grab his brushes: His painting "Guernica” took a clear stand on the side of the Spanish Republic and against Franco’s fascists and the Nazis’ unofficial involvement in the war. For Picasso, painting was “seeing” – and he saw his century as being better than any other, which is why his anguish over the destruction of a small Spanish town inspired what was without doubt the most impressive and moving of all his more than 8,000 works. This documentary focuses on Picasso as both an artist and a political activist.

10.04.2015 DW Doku Picasso 4
Picasso's dove motif, which he designed for the Paris World Peace Congress in 1949, became a global symbol of peace.


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