Madrid: Few paintings symbolize the pain and absurdity of war as Pablo Picasso's Guernica, a masterpiece he finished in 1937. The painting, 3.49 meters (11 feet 5 inches) tall and 7.76 meters (25 feet 6 inches) wide, encapsulates the violence and chaos in which hundreds of thousands of people perished during Spain's civil war (1936-1939). Guernica is the name of a Basque town that was bombarded by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1937.
According to Global Voices, one of the most striking elements in the surrealist piece is the "madre con niño muerto" (mother with dead child) depicted at the bottom left of the frame: a mother, crying out in anguish while holding her dead baby in her arms. Picasso would paint postscripts of this figure in his later works. More than 80 years after the bombardment of Guernica, Palestine is experiencing widespread massacres at the hands of the Israeli authorities, exacerbated by the inaction of foreign powers. Children have not been spared, as they too are victims of bombing, violence, and famine. The United Nations reports that since the start of Israel's war on Gaza in 2023, more than 50,000 Palestinian children have been killed or injured. Many have died in their mothers' arms.
Now, eight Spanish artists, in calling for a stop to the war on Gaza, are reimagining Picasso's emblematic painting. They hope to stir emotion in Spain's collective consciousness by directly drawing a comparison with its painful history. The exhibit "Madre del Guernika" (Mother of Guernika) was first shown in front of the Museum Reina Sofía in Madrid in March 2025. About three months later, on June 14, Parar la Guerra, a Spanish anti-war movement federating dozens of organizations, displayed the various large-scale art pieces in the public square once again. This time, however, they were unveiled in front of the Spanish Parliament ahead of massive demonstrations against the genocide in Palestine, which were being held across Spain.
