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Sun Journal

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By ANDREW RATNER

MADRID. Spain — SaluminoMoreno Sorin. G5, huddles on achilly morning In an alcove nearthe Rctna Sofia, a towering Tor-tress of an art museum, as a guardnearby eyes him warily,

He looks like he wants to sell apasser-by something, and he does— the "truth" about the most fa-mous painting inside.

As schoolchildren feed pigeonsand run around a chalked spiraloutside the museum. Soda offersto explain Guernica a depiction ofwar by famed artist Pablo Picasso.

Misery immortalized: Pablo Picasso was moved to create "Guentica" by the acnal attack on a small townin 1D37 during "ie Spanish Civil War. It ts on display at the Museo Nacional CentrodeArte Reina Sofia.

11 :.-,most renowned artworks of the20th century.

Many Americans, even non-artstudents, arc familiar with the oilpainting. If not by name. It Is Jar-ring and as big as a billboard, withthe sharp lines and misplaced eyesfor which the artist Is known. Pi-casso made It to express his out-rage over the Nazis' aerial attackon the small town of Guernica In1337 during the Spanish Civil War.

Because of its size and history,and the man who made it. thepainting has always elicited ahushed reverence among thecrowds coming to view It insideWiuco MicionaJ Centra de ArtcKettta Sofia, but since Sept. 11 Ithas assumed a new relevance.

Although It's disturbing andhas been described as grotesque,the Image has also become an em-blem of pop culture In Spain's OldWorld capital city. It ndoms T-shirts, coffee mugs and key chainsat tourist shops.

On a 45-degree morning. Sortas;s;.-.. that lie stands uutsldc thedowntown museum almost everyday to offer his viewpoint He de-scribes himself as a retired bonkworker and former docent at an angallery. He lost thut Job, he says.because he too readily shored hispolitical views. Including those on

Yes. Sorta Is told, his analysiswould be welcome

'That will be 1,000 pesatns,please."

A thousand pesetas, to discussa painting? How about 500?

"Forget It," Sorta says "I hadsomeone pay 3,000 once."

The visitor considers that 1.000pcsatos Is less than $7 and handsSoria his bounty.

The Interpreter displays twosmall reproductions, one ofGuer-nica and another of a paintingmode around 1G3S by the Renais-sance artist Peter Paul Rubens.and begins n rambling disserta-tion: Picasso's work wasn't origi-nal, he says. He modeled It on Ru-

shows ofta gnarled unkle. "The So-cialists beat me." he says, explain-ing his limp,

Employees Inside the museumdismiss the man as "mad."

Picasso was similarly describedafter he painted Guernica for theSpanish Pavilion of the Interna-tional Exposition In Paris In 1037.

The work broadcast his revul-sion at the GermanLw/lico/fe's at-tack on Guernica on April 20.1037.Adolf Hitler's Condor Legionbombed the Basque town to aidthe Nationalist Party of GeneralFrancisco Franco during the Span-ish Civil War. Hundreds of thetown's 7,000 residents were killedIn the 4-hour air raid.

Picasso began skclchlngGuer-RfcaQvc days Inter.

Some believe he was Inspiredby a stirring account of the attackby George l steer first publishedIn The Times of London and TheNew York Times.

town of the Dnsques and the cen-tre of their cultural tradition, wascompletely destroyed yesterday af-ternoon by Insurgent air raiders."Steer wrote The fighters plungedlow from above the centre of thetown to machine-gun those of thecivilian population who had takenrefuge in the fields.

The raid on Oucmlcu is unpar-alleled In military history. Guer-nica was not a military objective. Afactory producing war materiel layoutside the town and was un-touched So were two barracks

town lay far behind the lines. Theobject of the bombardment wasseemingly the demoralization ofthe civil population and the de-struction of the cradle of tbcBasque race."

After Franco consolidatedpower throughout Spain and be-came dictator. Picasso was unableto return.

Guernica was exhibited aroundthe world to rapt uudlenccs — and

clvtlion deaths.

Communist Party, forbade the re-turn of Guernica to Spain until hisnative land gained democracy.

The artist continued to workand live in France, where he died In107J ;ii 92 Two yenrs Inter, in 1975.Franco died.

In 1981. to great fanfare.Guer.nica returned to Spain. The paint-ing, about 10 feet tall and 30 feetwide, eventually was moved to theKeina Sofia, & century-old bunkerof a building that offered more se-curity. Three guards are assignedto the painting.

"It's a fabulous painting." re-marks Robin Connolly, a touristfrom Dublin. Ireland. "You feel Itthe minute you're in the room."

Guernica Is all black and whiteand shades of gray, literally andfiguratively. Disembodied humanheads are screaming. A bare-breasted, bald woman cradleswhat appears to be her dead child.A man grasping a chisel lies on theground beneath a terrified horseand ••< light bulb that resembles abig eye. Caricatures that mock Hit-ler. Franco and Bemto Mussoliniare said lu be hidden within.

The devastated landscape Isperhaps made more horrifying bythe childlike nature of the Images:Picasso's characters might havebeen inspired oy the Punch andJudy puppet shows he enjoyed as aboy In Barcelona.

The most recognizable seg-ment — a symbol of Spain that Pi-casso revisited often — is a bull,with eyes and cars on the side ofhis head. The scene Is bleak andhaunting. Absent color, there Is noblood, however. It ts bloodless.

"People have been listening foryears about this painting. They arevery, very Impressed." saysDayaml Lopez, 20. She left Cuba tocam an economics degree in Ma-drid, she says, but took ajob at themuseum when she couldn't rindemployment In her field.

Franz Martin, a high school

traveling an vacation."Great picture, greitt picture."

he wliispers. studying the work In-tently. "In light of today's develop-ments, tls message has returned."

Guernica has been recalled ot-ten since September.

High school art classes InTexas and Tennessee assembledtheir own versions, with newsphotos of horrified New Yorkersand falling skyscrapers that echothet painting's suffering and may-hem.

At a rally In Hiiiy In October.anti-war protesters held aloft pic-tures of Guernica amid banmurging "Stop the Bombs,"

Singer-songwriter MarcusHurrunon, who has written hitsongs for country-music stars theDixie Chicks and Tim McGraw,wrote a rock opera abautGutm teaand Picasso, It opens at a regionalUiealerlnNashvlllcin March.

"He harnessed his passion In away that Picasso was singularly ca-pable of doing and In a wny bcgajto create a new form that carriedhim Into the next major stage ofhlslife as a painter," says Hummon.41. whose father was a State De-partment employee and whosefamily hung a poster of Guernicawherever It lived tiround the world.

But the work Isn't as easilyIdentified as other epic paintings:Newsweek printed It backward bymistake last fall.

Richard Kalter, an Episcopalminister who Is regarded as "phi-losopher In residence" at Balti-more's Maryland Institute Collegeof Art, compares Guernica to theVietnam Veterans MemorialWashington. Just as the polishedwall of names captured the es-sence of valor and sacrifice In combat more than critics originally be-lieved It could. Guemtca hasgrown Into one of art's most pro-

"Everything Is Interacting Instrange ways." Kalter says of thi

lier. Tnn Horrors of War."The state docs not want to ex-

plain It, I tell the people It hasnothing to do with Guernica Ithas to do with the Immortality ofart. Few stop to listen. They Just golike sheep. 'Ban a, Baaa.1 They fearthe truth." he says. "It's the leftthut Is the problem.... Clinton, theKennedys. They lie."

-saw the backs of the visitors, for[they] felt repelled "It was decriedas the "work of a madman, a disor-derly array of corpses." with draw-Ings "suitable for a young child,"recounted Joaquln dc la Pucntc Inhis book Guernica: 77i« Making ofaPainling.

Its resonance grew, however.

directly to the painting and leaveimmediately alter viewing It. Shesuspects that the atomic bombblasts at Hiroshima and Nagasakigive the Japanese a deep connec-tion to the depletion of what was,In Gucmica, the first aertul attackon a civilian population.

"We acknowledge what we did.

looking at It because It capturedthe moment."

Yearly attendance at theReitiaSofia was up through lost summBut crowds entering the museum— and passing Satumlno MorenoSorla's entrepreneurial outpost —have fallen by about 30.000 amonth since fall There Is. after all,awargolngon.