Art Things

Picasso's "Guernica"! Amazing, no? This is definitely el Museo de Reina Sofia's most precious work. There are three rooms dedicated to it (the glorious mural in the middle room and rooms displaying sketches of different phases of his masterpiece on either side). Guernica is a town located in Northern Spain, and during the Spanish Civil War, Franco, the brutal dictator who was buds with Hitler, allowed the Nazis to drop a saturated bomb that leveled the city. Picasso was away in France at the time, but the horror inspired him to create this brilliant anti-war mural. Perhaps it's difficult to see all the components in this picture, but it basically depicts the chaos and destruction of war..an injured horse, a woman and her dead child, a man trapped by fire, etc.