<i>Exhibition held at the Zainul Gallery</i>

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

“My work is not symbolic. Only the Guernica mural is symbolic. But, in the case of the mural, that is allegorical. That is the reason I've used the horse, the bull and so on. The mural is for the expression and solution of a problem and that is why I've used symbolism,” -- legendary artist Pablo Picasso on his masterpiece Guernica, which is on display at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain. Guernica depicts people, animals, and buildings wrenched by violence and chaos.
Pablo Picasso painted Guernica, a black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (23 ft) wide mural, in oil, in 1937. The painting depicts the bombing of Guernica, Spain, by 24 Nazi German bombers, on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, in which a number of people -- varying between 250 and 1,600 -- were killed and many more injured.
An exhibition of text and image panels outlining the history of the Guernica creation was recently organised by the Department of Spanish at the Institute of Modern Language, University of Dhaka, in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain. The exhibition was held at the Zainul Gallery-2 at Institute of Fine Arts.
The exhibition is a part of the travelling show developed by the Embassy of Spain to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of Spanish Civil War.
The Government of Spanish Republic commissioned Pablo Picasso to paint the mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the International Exposition in Paris. In the course of 35 days, in addition to a series of several sketches, Picasso produced Guernica.
The overall scene of Picasso's Guernica is within a room, where, at an open end on the left, a wide-eyed bull stands over a woman grieving over a dead child in her arms. The centre is occupied by a horse falling in agony as it had just been run through by a spear. The shape of a human skull forms the horse's nose and upper teeth. Two “hidden” images formed by the horse appear in the work. A human skull is overlaid on the horse's body and a bull appears to gore the horse from underneath. The bull's head is formed mainly by the horse's entire front leg, which has the knee on the ground. The kneecap forms the head's nose. A horn appears within the horse's breast. Under the horse is a dead, apparently dismembered soldier; his hand still grasps a crushed sword from which a flower grows. A light bulb blazes in the shape of an eye over the suffering horse's head.
To the upper right of the horse, a frightened female figure, who seems to be witnessing the scenes unfolding in front of her, appears to have floated into the room through a window. She is carrying a lamp. From the right, an awe-struck woman staggers towards the centre below the floating female figure. She looks up blankly into the blazing light bulb. Daggers that suggest screaming replace the tongues of the bull, grieving woman, and horse. On the far right, a figure with arms raised in terror is entrapped by fire from above and below. A dark wall with an open door defines the right end of the mural.
Interpretations of Guernica vary widely and are often contradicting. According to art historian Patricia Failing, “The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough.”
In The Dream and Lie of Franco, a series of narrative sketches also created for the World Fair, Franco is depicted as a monster that first devours his own horse and later fights with an angry bull. Work on these illustrations began before the bombing of Guernica, and four additional panels were added. Three of these relate directly to the Guernica mural.