0:00:13.857,0:00:15.779
[MUSIC]. [br]We are in the context of the Twentieth

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Century and looking at other material. [br]Compared to the photography and the films

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that we've discussed a little bit [br]earlier.

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Let's think about possibly the most [br]famous painting by Pablo Picasso.

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One of the iconic images of the 2oth [br]Century.

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His painting in 1937 of Guernica. [br]Now, in considering how to represent the

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interpretation of images within the 20th [br]century, Guernica immediately came to

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mind. [br]I cover this instance in a, another

0:00:52.370,0:00:55.640
course that I teach. [br]and I'll talk a little bit more about

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that in background to, our discussion of [br]the Viva painting itself as we go through

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this introduction. [br]But, when I was drawing together all my

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dictionaries. [br]I found that the 1997 Oxford Dictionary

0:01:11.130,0:01:15.890
of the 20th century. [br]Had part of the Guernica picture on its

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front cover. [br]So, even something as mundane as a

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dictionary has this image on it as a [br]representation of the century, perhaps,

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as a whole. [br]let's bear in mind that more people died

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in war during the past century, than any [br]other and that may be our lingering

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historical memory of what went on during [br]that time.

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The course in which I touch on Guernica [br]is in the context of a third year unit.

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is called The Bomb, Atomic Weaponry and [br]Society in the Twentieth Century.

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And we start and do the first term as [br]moving from fears of bombing.

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works of H.G. [br]Wells, speculative fiction, before the

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First World War. [br]All the way up to the dropping of the

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atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [br]So, one of the things that I think is

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important in explaining that transition [br]is the willingness of societies to accept

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the mass slaughter of civilians. [br]An escalation of that process, as it goes

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through from the First World War, [br]experiences in the 1930's, and then an

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intensification in the Second World War, [br]that leads to the dropping of the atomic

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bombs. [br]Now, if you want to put this in, in

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context, During the First World War there [br]was an element of bombing.

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It was inaccurate, frequently find pilots [br]throwing darts and small munitions from

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their cockpit on infantry formations. [br]We do have bombing of London, via

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Zeppelins. [br]In fact it was such a curious and unusual

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occurrence that various members of the [br]London population came out and pointed

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upwards to the German airships raining [br]bombs, somewhat inefficiently, down on

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them. [br]It was such an unusual sight.

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While bombing really wasn't a major [br]contributor to the way that the First

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World War was settled. [br]We do see the technological development

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of aircraft and the weaponry that can [br]cover, oh sorry.

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And the weaponry they can carry becoming [br]more sophisticated.

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As we go through the 1920's and [br]particular the 1930's.

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Some of you will be familiar with the [br]phrase of the British politician, later

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prime minister, Stanley Baldwin talking [br]in the early 1930's about defense, the

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phrase, the bomber will always get [br]through.

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The fear that such was the nature and [br]development of technology that, defending

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a large area, a city, a civilian [br]residencies was going to be virtually

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impossible. [br]So the type of tactic that would need to

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be employed, will be something akin to [br]what we saw after the Second World War.

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Mutually assured destruction, although [br]that term wasn't used in the 1930's to

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any great degree. [br]We will bomb you, you will bomb us.

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The deterrent is if you don't bomb us, we [br]will not bomb you.

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A form of madness, but nevertheless one [br]that became prevalent over long periods

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of time, and particularly in the presence [br]of nuclear weapons.

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Now I would hesitate to express anything [br]like the expertise as my colleague Helen

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Graham of regarding the Spanish civil [br]war, which ran from 1936 through to 1939.

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this is a, a schism in European history. [br]The first real attempts to, on a military

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basis, put forward a, a Right Wing [br]dictatorship, ultimately under General

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Franco. [br]In the scale of things, Paul Preston who

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has written voluminously on the Spanish [br]Civil War, asks why Geurnica remains so

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important to the collective memory of [br]warfare and the 20th century.

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In terms of the numbers killed, And I [br]think the 26th of April 1937.

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One hesitates to describe them as [br]trivial.

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No death is trivial, but in the scale of [br]the desrtuction of human life during war,

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during the 20th century Preston actually [br]describes it as perhaps small beer, and

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he's not being disparaging in this [br]regard.

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If you're considering the bombing of [br]Hiroshima, perhaps 80,000 people died,

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almost instantly. [br]When we're looking at Geurnica, in 1937,

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we may be looking at hundreds dead. [br]And possibly thousands injured.

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The reason that historically that it's [br]important is that it's deemed to be the

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first time that we have, intensive [br]bombing of a purely civilian target,

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which was not defended. [br]And it is the escalation of the process

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of mechanical warfare. [br]The first world war was mechanical

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slaughter of human beings and the very [br]static nature of the battles concerned on

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the western front particularly does [br]emphasize this.

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We tend to think of the Second World War [br]as being far more mobile, when face to

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face confrontations take place, yet our [br]understanding of what happened in the

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Second World War is a large degree of [br]quote standoffs on the Western Front

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compared to the Eastern Front from 1941. [br]And, anything but standoff.

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four years of bloody slaughter once more. [br]When the BBC, was going through a series

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of millennium reviews, and wanted to [br]consider what was the war of the 20th

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century, they picked out the eastern [br]front.

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The intensity of destruction there was [br]unparalleled and with perhaps 20 million

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people dying in direct conflict. [br]Now, we put that into context of the

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Twentieth Century and again, if we're [br]looking at those numbers are those

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numbers meaningful? [br]Can we actually relate to figures of that

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size? [br]With it comes to Geurnica, it's a

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relatively small village in the vast [br]countryside.

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Yes, it had a small ammunition's factory. [br]But it wasn't necessarily as tactical a

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target, as we might consider being [br]developed.

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And there is an element that is the [br]trialing of a new form of warfare.

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One of the things that we find certainly [br]between about 1936 and 1941 is the

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Germans developing and moving forward [br]with a form of warfare, which maximizes

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their technical advantage in trying to [br]defeat the opposition.

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In the case of Guernica, we're looking at [br]Yonkers, JU52 transport aircraft at the

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time used as bombers. [br]German Heinkel 51s, HE51s biplane

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fighters but, probably more significant [br]in the development of what co, what was

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to follow. [br]The first uses of Heinkel HE111's which

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were synonymous. [br]Which became synonymous with the Blitz.

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And also the Messerschmidt BF 109's, the [br]fighter escorts that were associated

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with, very much with the Battle of [br]Britain.

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And the defense of the Reich all the way [br]through the Second World War, You have

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waves of bombing on what turned out to be [br]market day in the late afternoon, and the

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early evening. [br]There was at best small arms fire in

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response. [br]Practically, we see the destruction of a

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small town. [br]Through the use of high explosive and

0:10:02.365,0:10:06.010
insengery bombs to terrorize the [br]population.

0:10:06.010,0:10:09.940
Not purely the population of Guernica [br]but, all of those who learn of it.

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And it is an opportunity of the Germans [br]in support of Frankher's forces to try

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and develop their tactic in the use of [br]this form of modern warfare and it was

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just the beginning. [br]Now, the reporting of what happened in

0:10:31.380,0:10:39.759
Geurnica was important to it's [br]significance overall.

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George Steer, who is a correspondent for [br]the, the Times of London.

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Wrote back and wrote back emotively about [br]the aftermath.

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Relating back, eyewitness accounts, and [br]commenting on the devastation.

0:10:56.745,0:11:06.420
Francos forces actually denied that [br]bombing had taken place.

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They actually suggests that the Basques [br]had dynamited part of the city themselves

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and it was a controversy that went [br]through until the 1970s, 1980s and even

0:11:17.670,0:11:21.674
the 1990s. [br]Franco's reign all the way through to the

0:11:21.674,0:11:27.870
1970s meant that Geurnica's resolution [br]historically took some considerable time.

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It's accepted in the West as being one of [br]the first instances, if not the first

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instance when we actually have this sort [br]of bombing.

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In considering the legacy of Geurnica and [br]the Spanish Civil War, the most obvious

0:11:44.600,0:11:50.510
example as I lead off this little [br]discussion is Pablo Piccaso's painting.

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Now he'd already been commissioned to [br]provide something for a Spanish

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exhibition within Paris but was [br]profoundly effected by the reportage that

0:12:02.980,0:12:07.210
he received. [br]George Steer's newspaper report for The

0:12:07.210,0:12:10.554
Times was translated and reprinted around [br]the world.

0:12:10.554,0:12:19.380
Now Picasso was very. [br]careful not to add an additional

0:12:19.380,0:12:24.030
interpretation to the, to the painting [br]that he produced that year.

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but we do see this, as I said earlier, an [br]image from the 20th century, which

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carries a lot of weight in terms of [br]interpretation and meaning.

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And the U.N actually generated a tapestry [br]of the same picture.

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to be held officially or rather displayed [br]officially.

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Such was the way it carried forward. [br]Now in that context it might be useful

0:12:48.650,0:12:53.869
just to get you to look at the actual [br]picture itself and to reflect upon it.

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I make no claims of being an art [br]historian but the fact that it is a

0:12:59.840,0:13:05.920
monochrome work. [br]As a mural, as a painting to a certain

0:13:05.920,0:13:11.560
degree reflects, probably not [br]deliberately but reflects on the way that

0:13:11.560,0:13:17.480
we deal with images. [br]And a certain currency is given to black

0:13:17.480,0:13:21.660
and white. [br]We're more trusting of black and white

0:13:21.660,0:13:27.070
photographs. [br]for no really good reason, we think of

0:13:27.070,0:13:31.330
them in terms of being authentic. [br]They are reportage.

0:13:31.330,0:13:36.990
Color is almost a devotion. [br]Now Pablo Picasso had the choice as to

0:13:36.990,0:13:44.690
how he painted his representation of [br]Guernica, from the newspaper reports.

0:13:44.690,0:13:50.830
And from a Spaniard thinking about how [br]his fellow countrymen and women and

0:13:50.830,0:13:58.690
children were affected by this. [br]And it is, a striking image.

0:13:58.690,0:14:05.010
Because it displays death in a way that's [br]not intended to be realistic in terms of

0:14:05.010,0:14:08.450
reportage. [br]But, what it does give is a sense of

0:14:08.450,0:14:15.690
turmoil and anguish and bewilderment that [br]stems from the event, and remember this

0:14:15.690,0:14:21.402
is Picasso working not as an eyewitness [br]but, working as someone who is dealing

0:14:21.402,0:14:26.763
with Those who f-, favored the government [br]side, those who had seen the events, and

0:14:26.763,0:14:29.928
those who are reporting on it [br]internationally.