Week 1.4 Guernica

From the description of Week 1 of The Camera Never Lies:
Learning Outcomes (Week 1)
On completing this week of work, you should be able to:
1. Understand the broad objectives of the course, and its structure;
2. Begin thinking about your own reactions to images in a modern and historical context; and
3. Consider more critically the images you see in the modern media.

[MUSIC].
We are in the context of the Twentieth

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

that we've discussed a little bit
earlier.

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

One of the iconic images of the 2oth
Century.

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

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

mind.
I cover this instance in a, another

course that I teach.
and I'll talk a little bit more about

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

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

dictionaries.
I found that the 1997 Oxford Dictionary

of the 20th century.
Had part of the Guernica picture on its

front cover.
So, even something as mundane as a

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

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

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

historical memory of what went on during
that time.

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

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

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

works of H.G.
Wells, speculative fiction, before the

First World War.
All the way up to the dropping of the

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

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

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

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

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

bombs.
Now, if you want to put this in, in

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

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

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

Zeppelins.
In fact it was such a curious and unusual

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

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

them.
It was such an unusual sight.

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

World War was settled.
We do see the technological development

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

And the weaponry they can carry becoming
more sophisticated.

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

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

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

phrase, the bomber will always get
through.

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

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

impossible.
So the type of tactic that would need to

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

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

any great degree.
We will bomb you, you will bomb us.

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

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

of time, and particularly in the presence
of nuclear weapons.

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

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

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

basis, put forward a, a Right Wing
dictatorship, ultimately under General

Franco.
In the scale of things, Paul Preston who

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

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

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

One hesitates to describe them as
trivial.

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

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

he's not being disparaging in this
regard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

of mechanical warfare.
The first world war was mechanical

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

the western front particularly does
emphasize this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

century, they picked out the eastern
front.

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

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

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

numbers meaningful?
Can we actually relate to figures of that

size?
With it comes to Geurnica, it's a

relatively small village in the vast
countryside.

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

target, as we might consider being
developed.

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

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

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

their technical advantage in trying to
defeat the opposition.

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

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

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

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

were synonymous.
Which became synonymous with the Blitz.

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

with, very much with the Battle of
Britain.

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

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

early evening.
There was at best small arms fire in

response.
Practically, we see the destruction of a

small town.
Through the use of high explosive and

insengery bombs to terrorize the
population.

Not purely the population of Guernica
but, all of those who learn of it.

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

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

just the beginning.
Now, the reporting of what happened in

Geurnica was important to it's
significance overall.

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

Wrote back and wrote back emotively about
the aftermath.

Relating back, eyewitness accounts, and
commenting on the devastation.

Francos forces actually denied that
bombing had taken place.

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

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

the 1990s.
Franco's reign all the way through to the

1970s meant that Geurnica's resolution
historically took some considerable time.

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

instance when we actually have this sort
of bombing.

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

example as I lead off this little
discussion is Pablo Piccaso's painting.

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

exhibition within Paris but was
profoundly effected by the reportage that

he received.
George Steer's newspaper report for The

Times was translated and reprinted around
the world.

Now Picasso was very.
careful not to add an additional

interpretation to the, to the painting
that he produced that year.

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

carries a lot of weight in terms of
interpretation and meaning.

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

to be held officially or rather displayed
officially.

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

just to get you to look at the actual
picture itself and to reflect upon it.

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

monochrome work.
As a mural, as a painting to a certain

degree reflects, probably not
deliberately but reflects on the way that

we deal with images.
And a certain currency is given to black

and white.
We're more trusting of black and white

photographs.
for no really good reason, we think of

them in terms of being authentic.
They are reportage.

Color is almost a devotion.
Now Pablo Picasso had the choice as to

how he painted his representation of
Guernica, from the newspaper reports.

And from a Spaniard thinking about how
his fellow countrymen and women and

children were affected by this.
And it is, a striking image.

Because it displays death in a way that's
not intended to be realistic in terms of

reportage.
But, what it does give is a sense of

turmoil and anguish and bewilderment that
stems from the event, and remember this

is Picasso working not as an eyewitness
but, working as someone who is dealing

with Those who f-, favored the government
side, those who had seen the events, and

those who are reporting on it
internationally.