Word: guernica
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...jubilant occasion was the repatriation of Guernica, Pablo Picasso's stark protest against the savagery of war, which had come to symbolize Spanish hopes for democracy. Picasso had been commissioned by the Republican government of Spain to paint the mural for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris...
Spanish civil war had already begun, and when German bombers supporting General Francisco Franco's fascist forces leveled the Basque town of Guernica, Picasso made the act the theme of the painting. After Franco's forces won the war, Picasso-who never returned to Spain as a protest against the Franco dictatorship-decreed that Guernica not be delivered to Spain until "public liberties" had been restored. Picasso died in 1973, two years before Franco...
...tight security, the painting was transferred from New York's Museum of Modern Art, where it had hung since 1939, to Madrid's Prado Museum. Ironically, one of the 20th century's most passionate protests against violence will have to be protected by special bulletproof glass. Guernica will be formally unveiled on Oct. 25, the centenary of Picasso's birth...
...turning point came at Guernica, the Basques' spiritual center. Thirty members of the militant Herri Batasuna Party loudly cut off the King's address with an old Basque fighting song. It took security guards ten minutes to subdue the demonstrators in an unseemly scene that was carried over national television. Clearly prepared for the outbreak, a composed Juan Carlos turned it to advantage. At one point he smiled mischievously, goading the protesters to sing louder. Then, with order restored, he took command with an eloquent gesture of national reconciliation. "Faced with those who practice intolerance of free expression...
...fortune, he remained curiously indifferent to that nation's life struggles in two world wars and a depression. To the outside world, it seemed that the only external event that seared Picasso's imagination and conscience was the Spanish Civil War, the fratricidal bloodletting that inspired Guernica. A fervent supporter of the Republic against Franco, he contributed many paintings to raise funds for the war's victims...